It’s been acknowledged for some time that money has become the single most important factor in big-time intercollegiate sports. This is particularly true at schools that offer football and basketball, but dollars are important to most of the more than 300 colleges and universities in the NCAA’s Division I.

There’s always a lot of talk about sports building character, etc., but these days it’s the school that has the fanciest sports facilities and the winningest program that is most likely to attract so-called student-athletes. Money and the principles of university leaders determine the winners and losers among the nation’s major schools that have football programs.

Any question area residents may have about the influence or power of money can be answered by several situations arising this week on the eve of this afternoon’s Kansas-Missouri football game in Columbia.

For the past several weeks, there has been increasing talk among Kansas City people about how to generate more interest in the Jayhawk-Tiger game. Those doing the talking bemoan the fact fan interest isn’t what it used to be, or should be, and they have come up with various ideas about how to hype the rivalry.

It is interesting that a great deal of this talk about how sad it is that there isn’t more interest in the game comes from Kansas City interests who would like to have the game played in Arrowhead Stadium, home of the Kansas City Chiefs. Hotel and motel owner-operators, restaurant owners and all types of retailers would like to have thousands of Kansas or Missouri fans in their city for a few days to spend money on food, lodging, drinks, clothing or other items. Pure “fan interest” in the game is not high on their scale of concerns. It’s the bucks the game would bring to K.C.

Kansas and Missouri university officials and athletic directors are wooed by offers from Kansas City promoters saying each school would receive substantial payments, in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, if they would agree to play in Arrowhead Stadium.

It’s strictly a business proposition. They may talk about wanting to increase fan interest in the game and increase the excitement and hoopla, but the fact is they want to draw more dollars into the Kansas City economy. Who can blame them?

However, they are not making the handsome offers and payoffs as a charity. It’s all about dollars.

It’s known some KU leaders favor moving the game out of Memorial Stadium, and they are quick to place the blame for not moving the game on Lawrence merchants. Missouri officials probably say the same thing. They both claim the merchants do not want to lose the business they enjoy when football fans come to their cities for the game.

This writer has seen correspondence between top KU officials and Kansas City Chiefs representatives in which KU people say they would like to move the game to Kansas City and hope to do so as soon as possible. It’s clear that getting a check from Kansas City interests is more important than keeping the game in Lawrence.

Unfortunately, it’s a chicken-or-egg matter because the basic reason there are not more fans in Memorial Stadium for KU games is that the team has not done well enough to offset difficulties fans have getting to the stadium, parking, tailgating and other factors. University officials are sure to counter by pointing out more money from a Kansas City game could be used to help build a stronger football program, which, in turn, would provide larger crowds in Memorial Stadium for other games in the schedule. Who knows? Is the public becoming saturated with sports and turned off by the behavior of many sports figures?

The other signal this week on the importance of money to intercollegiate sports is the big to-do about a new trophy to be awarded to Kansas or Missouri based on the overall win-loss record in 17 sports at the schools, not just football and basketball. KU and MU officials said they were doing this to focus more attention on the so-called Olympic sports, but the bottom line is they hope sponsorship of the competition will result in large dollar payoffs to each school, with the winning school getting the largest check.

It’s unfortunate competition is based solely on wins and losses, without any attention given to how these wins may have been achieved. Nothing is said about the academic side of the equation and whether “wins” may have been achieved by athletes who have questionable academic credentials. Nothing is said about graduation rates.

It is known some universities in the Big 12 Conference have different admissions standards, and this certainly plays a role in the win-loss records of these schools compared with schools with higher admissions standards.

Not much can be done about it, but it is a phony dodge to suggest that the possibility of moving a KU-MU football game to Arrowhead Stadium and creating a Border War Trophy are anything other than gimmicks to raise more money for the schools.