Why would a major university want to be associated with a
company that has spent tens of millions of dollars espousing views that go
against mainstream science and the preponderance of historical economic data?
Do I even have to supply the answer? But here’s a hint: It’s
in the title of songs written by Pink Floyd, the Beatles, the men in ABBA, R
Kelly and the team that wrote the songs for the Broadway musical, “Cabaret.”
The major universities in question include Penn State, Iowa,
Iowa State, Minnesota, Oklahoma, among others. The company supplying the stuff
that makes the world go round is Koch Industries.
But those worried that Koch money is going to directly poison
research into the effects of global warming, government regulation, the minimum
wage and unionism, can rest easy. Koch Industries is not giving the research
dollars to academic departments.
No, what the Kochs are doing is advertising to fans of the
football and men’s and women’s basketball teams of 15 universities.
Koch recently announced a three-year deal to advertise to
these universities with Learfield Sports, which is a company that negotiates
advertising deals for dozens of college sports programs across the country. The news release announcing the deal calls it a “multi-year, integrated
national sponsorship platform,” whatever the heck that is. Besides advertising,
Koch will have signs in stadiums and arenas, social media advertising campaigns
and other nontraditional marketing programs.
The news release doesn’t really get into what the Kochs will
be saying in their ads, except in the most nebulous of ways, such as “Koch
looks to Learfield to tell its story..,” “college sports are a great fit for
us,” and “develop a meaningful program…to help drive home their goals of being
able to give back to the college communities.” We do know that the topic of
some of the advertising will be honoring employees and retirees, a common way
that corporations combine marketing with employee relations.
A wonderful opinion piece by Kavitha A. Davidson, who
writes sports opinion pieces for Bloomberg News, points out the similarities between
the goals of Koch Industries and the National Collegiate Athletic Association
(NCAA), which is not a party to the deal, except by inference (since the NCAA
sets the rules for college sports). Both Koch Industries and the NCAA are
fighting unions; Koch has also spent a lot of money opposing the minimum wage,
while the NCAA is currently being sued for minimum wage law violations.
Davidson misses another way that Koch Industries resembles
college sports: College sports distort the mission of universities, just as the
millions of dollars that Koch spends on political campaigns distort our
political process and what should be the mission of our elected officials.
Sports money corrupts many institutions, as we see in the recent examples of
the University of North Carolina and Syracuse University, just as Koch money
corrupts our political process.
Even if Koch Industries doesn’t use the opportunity to speak
with millions of college sports fans to spread its boldfaced lies about the
mythical free market, taxes, the minimum wage, global warming and unionism, it
will still be furthering its political agenda, which hurts everyone in the
United States except the top .1% in terms of wealth. Every happy-faced employee and retiree lauded
for contributing to the community or the company and every mention of Koch
Industries sponsoring this or that sports radio feature will improve its
reputation with the target market. Plus, there are many subtle ways to sneak in
hidden messages: references to the power of the free market to solve problems
and the value of volunteerism (as opposed to government programs); citations of
the huge number of Koch employees or Koch contributions to communities; faces
of happy and hard-working women and minorities. Moreover, the repetition of the
Koch name in association with what the audience perceives as a positive
experience (college sports) will offset the many references in the news media
to the Koch family’s support of rightwing think tanks and political candidates.