At what cost is it viable? WCBB article about Louisville

[HuskyMJ]

Only if they want to retain Rueck and have a winning program. It's supply and demand, the foundation of our nation's capitalistic economy. If they started capping the salaries of WCBB coaches that would solve the problem (??) of men coaches coming over to take the jobs of potential woman WCBB coaches.

I'm not saying there should be a cap, but you bring up economics. If an athletic department is tens of millions of dollars in debt, why are they outbidding themselves to raise the salary so much of a coach whose program loses money? There are athletics departments like Stanford that make enough money to rationalize overpaying for a lot of sports coaches in the non revenues. But a lot of schools don't have that money.

In fact, many of these schools are using money from students or taxpayers to run their athletic department. I think those universities should have some responsibility to be good stewards of that money.

At a time of tight budgets throughout higher education, even the nation's few financially self-sufficient major-college athletics departments are continuing to receive subsidies in the form of student fees, school or state support, a USA TODAY Sports analysis finds. https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/2013/05/07/ncaa-finances-subsidies/2142443/

 

[j66kicker]

In fact, many of these schools are using money from students or taxpayers to run their athletic department. I think those universities should have some responsibility to be good stewards of that money.

At a time of tight budgets throughout higher education, even the nation's few financially self-sufficient major-college athletics departments are continuing to receive subsidies in the form of student fees, school or state support, a USA TODAY Sports analysis finds. Most NCAA Division I athletic departments take subsidies

When the taxpayers are tired of their state universities being competitive in sports, a political process is available if the majority would rather stop paying for it.

 

[HuskyMJ]

When the taxpayers are tired of their state universities being competitive in sports, a political process is available if the majority would rather stop paying for it.

Not paying millions in coaches salaries for non revenue sports, if an athletics department is having financial issues, does not equate to not being competitive in sports. That's a huge leap you are taking but ok.

 

[j66kicker]

Not paying millions in coaches salaries for non revenue sports, if an athletics department is having financial issues, does not equate to not being competitive in sports. That's a huge leap you are taking but ok.

Not paying millions in coaches salaries for non revenue sports, if an athletics department is having financial issues, does not equate to not being competitive in sports. That's a huge leap you are taking but ok.

Not paying competitive coaching salaries in non-profitable sports, such as WBB, means not being competitive for sure. Maybe all public universities can do it and we'll just leave all the winning to Stanford, Notre Dame and Baylor.

Plus Title IX forces schools to spend as much money on women's sports as men's sports. So scaling back coaching salaries in WBB just means a university would have to do more scholarship stuffing like they already do with women's rowing, etc. That might benefit some mediocre student athletes with a free education, but I don't feel more obligated to support that with my tax dollars than I do a competitive WBB team.

 

[CajunHusky]

Very few P5 schools with all their TV revenues break even and those that do one year often don't the next year.

I think it would be very hard to look at Uconn WCBB and say that the positive publicity generated year in and year out was not easily worth $5M for both the university and the state in general. I suspect the same is true for a number of the other major programs.

Bottom line, with the coaching, training, and facilities costs, it is very difficult for a WCBB team to break even with the small revenue stream, but the positive PR and 'good will' generated really makes at least some of them well worth it.

What UConn Women's Basketball Team's Record Run is Really Worth

"Still, UConn officials likely view their women’s basketball program as a worthwhile investment, regardless of whether it turns a profit in any given year. The school’s pool of freshman applicants rose from 22,142 in 2010 to nearly 36,000 in 2016, according to university dataOpens a New Window.. UConn received a record $81 million in donations in 2014 – the same year that both its men’s and women’s basketball teams won national championships – and has earned at least $77 million in each year since.

'UConn isn’t trying to use the [women’s basketball team] to make a profit. They are trying to get a ton of free advertising through the success of the women’s team,' Matheson said. 'The team has probably generated more headlines than the rest of the school combined. And if you can guarantee this sort of success, that’s a pretty good return on the investment.' ”

 

[bennyskid]

So . . . figure that the B/W ad rate for a typical big city newspaper is $200/inch or more. Small-town papers, about $20/inch. USA Today is about a quarter-million per page (or about $2500/inch). So just the PRINT coverage of, say, the UConn-ND game - which was multiple column-inches in USA Today, several major newspapers, and every little paper in New England - is worth some tens of thousands of dollars to the schools. Probably more - free positive press is generally far more effective than conventional advertising.

And that's just print.

 

[Zinethar]

Bean counters and statisticians can make numbers do what they want. I'm a bit surprised at some of the comments here. National Parks lose money. High schools get tax payer money. Most people value things for reasons other than money.