How important are sports to universities? | Page 3 | The Boneyard

How important are sports to universities?

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upstater said:
No, I am addressing the marketing aspect only. I'm of the firm conviction that athletic success ALWAYS leads to monetary loss and less health. I also am not referring to top 50 academic transformations. I was comparing two similar schools, say Oregon or Arizona and UCSD, and wondering why schools that are very alike were not hurt or helped.
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Well no need to wonder any further. The Ivy League schools abandoned big-time sports because they thought it would affect them scholastically and they already had enough money in endowments (both statements are true, by the way). But to believe that the reason Yale and Harvard have 19 billion and 24 billion dollar endowments respectively has nothing to do with their sports (specifically football) over the years is to not tell the truth.

You can compare Oregon with UCSD (and I would compare UCSD with Yale and Harvard), but what you are really supposed to be doing is comparing Oregon to Oregon. There is no doubt that they are better off due to the big-time sports...
 
UConnDan97 said:
Well no need to wonder any further. The Ivy League schools abandoned big-time sports because they thought it would affect them scholastically and they already had enough money in endowments (both statements are true, by the way). But to believe that the reason Yale and Harvard have 19 billion and 24 billion dollar endowments respectively has nothing to do with their sports (specifically football) over the years is to not tell the truth.

You can compare Oregon with UCSD (and I would compare UCSD with Yale and Harvard), but what you are really supposed to be doing is comparing Oregon to Oregon. There is no doubt that they are better off due to the big-time sports...
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Oregon has Nike. What about Arizona. I'm telling you, this is a big resource suck in a way that it isn't for D1AA or D2. URI for instance loses about $4 or $5 million on football. That's acceptable. Most of D1 however loses tens of millions.

I'm not referring to the Ivies in the top 50. There are many other schools like Emory, NYU and the UCs.

UCSD is not in the Ivy range either. It is much more like Cal-Berkeley. Is Cal-Berkeley made by sports?

And how is the Ivy endowment helped by big-time sports, again?

Having looked at these budgets internally, and having seen the wars, and knowing the depth (or shallowness) of administrators on these issues, I'm fairly convinced that it's a money suck.
 
College presidents are judged by how successful they are at providing 3 things:
1 A safe place for undergraduates to drink and have sex.
2 Convenient parking for senior faculty.
3 Football for the Alumni. ( At UK, IU, NC, Duke, UConn, and a couple of others substitute BB for FB)
 
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upstater said:
Oregon has Nike. What about Arizona. I'm telling you, this is a big resource suck in a way that it isn't for D1AA or D2. URI for instance loses about $4 or $5 million on football. That's acceptable. Most of D1 however loses tens of millions.

I'm not referring to the Ivies in the top 50. There are many other schools like Emory, NYU and the UCs.

UCSD is not in the Ivy range either. It is much more like Cal-Berkeley. Is Cal-Berkeley made by sports?

And how is the Ivy endowment helped by big-time sports, again?

Having looked at these budgets internally, and having seen the wars, and knowing the depth (or shallowness) of administrators on these issues, I'm fairly convinced that it's a money suck.
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1) Are you trying to tell me that Arizona doesn't make a net-positive on their athletics?
2) Are you trying to compare successful athletics with the 1-AA football team of URI?
3) Do you not believe that Cal-Berkeley has had a positive outcome due to sports??? (everyone and their grandmother knows about the last second play against Stanford)

Football is a money-suck, but only for those that don't have contracts that support it. Cal and Arizona are not two of them. As for FGCU, I don't believe they have to worry about that, and even if they do, the basketball performance will help them, not hurt them. Finally, nobody else in administrations seems to calculate the increases in other areas like applications, donations, etc. I'm sorry, but there is no way that I'm going to agree with you on this one...
 
UConnDan97 said:
1) Are you trying to tell me that Arizona doesn't make a net-positive on their athletics?
2) Are you trying to compare successful athletics with the 1-AA football team of URI?
3) Do you not believe that Cal-Berkeley has had a positive outcome due to sports??? (everyone and their grandmother knows about the last second play against Stanford)

Football is a money-suck, but only for those that don't have contracts that support it. Cal and Arizona are not two of them. As for FGCU, I don't believe they have to worry about that, and even if they do, the basketball performance will help them, not hurt them. Finally, nobody else in administrations seems to calculate the increases in other areas like applications, donations, etc. I'm sorry, but there is no way that I'm going to agree with you on this one...
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Every single university in the nation, including Michigan and Texas, loses money on sports.

As for URI, I was just using an example of acceptable losses, rather than losses that impact the universities main mission, which is where most universities are at.

And, no, absolutely not about Cal-Berkeley. This is a school whose Chancellor announced to incoming students, "You will pay more for a lesser education than your predecessors have." At the same time, the school devoted resources to a new stadium. It was unconscionable and a show that he really didn't give a shit about the university's mission.
 
TouchdownHusky said:
Good point! Cleveland and Fort Myers Florida??? Virtually one and the same, right. So why kids weren't flocking to Cleveland State, we'll never know.
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You obviously missed the point. Cleveland State had a sweet 16 run that put them on the map. Most sports fans knew who they were, they knew about Rollie. Then they were totally forgotten. That's the point.

As for FGCU grabbing students from northern states (I think that's what you're implying), how is that any different than UCF and USF and all the other Florida schools like FIU and FAU? Personally, if I'm looking for sun & fun, I am now heading to spread out and relatively dead Ft Meyers/Naples. I think I'd head to FIU and FAU near Miami.
 
upstater said:
Every single university in the nation, including Michigan and Texas, loses money on sports.

As for URI, I was just using an example of acceptable losses, rather than losses that impact the universities main mission, which is where most universities are at.

And, no, absolutely not about Cal-Berkeley. This is a school whose Chancellor announced to incoming students, "You will pay more for a lesser education than your predecessors have." At the same time, the school devoted resources to a new stadium. It was unconscionable and a show that he really didn't give a about the university's mission.
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So then how do you explain articles like this:

http://businessofcollegesports.com/2011/05/19/who-is-atop-the-big-east-in-basketball-revenue/

I know that it is a little outdated (2009-2010), but here it says:

"When you factor in men’s basketball expenses, Louisville and Syracuse are the only 2 schools that earned profits in excess of $10 M, and only 3 other schools (Pittsburgh, West Virginia, Marquette) earned profits above $5 M.
The average men’s basketball profits reported was $3.5 M, the median profits was $1.45 M, and the only school reporting losses (albeit minimal losses) was Notre Dame."

And that's just the basketball part. Yeah, again, we aren't going to agree on this, my friend...
 
UConnDan97 said:
So then how do you explain articles like this:

http://businessofcollegesports.com/2011/05/19/who-is-atop-the-big-east-in-basketball-revenue/

I know that it is a little outdated (2009-2010), but here it says:

"When you factor in men’s basketball expenses, Louisville and Syracuse are the only 2 schools that earned profits in excess of $10 M, and only 3 other schools (Pittsburgh, West Virginia, Marquette) earned profits above $5 M.
The average men’s basketball profits reported was $3.5 M, the median profits was $1.45 M, and the only school reporting losses (albeit minimal losses) was Notre Dame."

And that's just the basketball part. Yeah, again, we aren't going to agree on this, my friend...
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Err, that's people who don't know how to count?

I mean, when you have direct institutional subsidy's an student fees, how is that a profit?

That's like me taking money from my Dad from my lemonade stand and counting it as revenue. It can't work that way.

Look at the AD budgets over at the USA Today database and break them down. They do not make money. One of the tricks that Louisville, for instance, likes to use is to count expenditures (support staff, etc.) as AD expenditures while adding contributions and licensing to basketball specific revenues.

I've posted this numerous times.

I used to have a link to the Texas situation but it's done now, all I seem to have the screen grab article here:

www.dailytexanonline.com/university/the-real-relationship-between-ut-s-academic-and-athletic-budgets-1.2140563+texas+mack+brown+"david+hillis"+trademark+donations

I'll post part of the text:
Many outside UT seem to think that we also receive positive net income from intercollegiate athletics, since the gross income from this source seems enormous (e.g., gross income for intercollegiate athletics was $105,230,260 in 2008-2009, the latest figures available, or a little less than 5 percent of UT’s total income from all sources). But athletics expenses (e.g., $107, 283,744 in 2008-2009) are even higher than income. To make up the difference, UT has to “transfer in” general revenue funds such as Trademark Income. In addition, because Intercollegiate Athletics has run up an enormous debt ($222,488,000 by 2008-2009), we have to transfer even larger sums from general revenue sources to the Athletics Operations Cash reserves, so that we have enough reserves to pay our debt obligations from athletics. This is necessary because even the large “transfers in” to athletics from general revenues are not enough to cover our athletic department debt.

Athletics at UT is often claimed to be “self-supporting,” so does this description fit with the numbers above? It is only “self-supporting” once the transfers into athletics from general University revenue funds are added to “Income and Transfers In” account. This amounts to a huge subsidy to athletics, which comes at a cost to the rest of the University. ​
The author is David Hillis, an administrator at UT. The debt income was borne by the academic side from building out facilities.

This is how it works. They collect private money for the buildout, but instead of using it to build facilities, they include it in the athletic budget as contribution revenue. Thus, that beefs up sports profits (i.e. Texas sports contributes to the school each year--except for the year Hillis quotes in this article) while the academic side services the debt.

Here's the same dynamic at Michigan:

http://blog.mlive.com/annarbornews/2007/09/um_professors_urge_reconsidera.html
I pulled up the athletic department budget there recently. They do contribute to the debt service for the stadium. About $2 million a year. But the annual service on the debt is $17.5 million. So, deduct that from whatever UM contributes.
I suspect in the very near future, the TV payouts will finally overtake expenditures, as long as schools don't shovel that money to the coaches.
 
Just saw this article and thought it was interesting

http://deadspin.com/how-ayn-rand-led-fgcu-to-the-sweet-sixteen-sort-of-461644436

"Just how valuable is a strong showing in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament? As it happens, Butler, whose improbable run to the 2010 Final Four is still the stuff of legend, has studied this very question. Its near-championship run—it lost in the finals to Duke—generated precisely $639,273,881.82 in publicity for the university. That’s to say nothing of the increases in merchandise sales and charitable giving, or the 41 percent surge in applications."

If Schools are losing a couple million dollars each year on sports programs they might actually view it as a profit of hundreds of millions dollars.

This article probably would have been more pertinent for the other argument from a week or 2 ago but I couldnt find that.
 
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Penfield said:
Just saw this article and thought it was interesting

http://deadspin.com/how-ayn-rand-led-fgcu-to-the-sweet-sixteen-sort-of-461644436

"Just how valuable is a strong showing in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament? As it happens, Butler, whose improbable run to the 2010 Final Four is still the stuff of legend, has studied this very question. Its near-championship run—it lost in the finals to Duke—generated precisely $639,273,881.82 in publicity for the university. That’s to say nothing of the increases in merchandise sales and charitable giving, or the 41 percent surge in applications."

If Schools are losing a couple million dollars each year on sports programs they might actually view it as a profit of hundreds of millions dollars.

This article probably would have been more pertinent for the other argument from a week or 2 ago but I couldnt find that.
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Advertisers have to sing for their supper.
 
Waquoit said:
A whole book! With numbers? No way! The guy created a nice niche for himself. A sports hater from Smith College has become the go-to guy for sports haters. The Connecticut experience belies his "numbers". Look what's happened at UConn since the BB teams hit big. Look what's happened to Hartford since the Whalers left.
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Bravo!! Bravo!!

Here's a decent 2007 article out of Western Michigan U. If the link doesn't work: Just google: Athletic Success Legislative Largesse Donald Alexander

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&...4XZwUd&sig=AHIEtbQ8Vpj0nqz-aLGWgv5gnw-Le_sXPg

The old joke is that Ph.D is short for Piled Higher and Deeper. Academic minded folks, often get so focused on their little world and their production of papers, that they lose sight of big pictures.

High profile athletics, is the fastest way to ignite and generate growth in a school. Whether it be a high school prep, private school, or a state flagship land grant university. Ignite, starting, is not the equivalent of SUSTAINING Growth though. There's a lot of other stuff that goes into sustaining growth, but there is no doubt, that athletics is the quickest way to jump start growth. Irrelevant of anything else happening. Athletic success provides a jump start from which growth of an institution can come from.

Conversely, athletic failure, by itself, is also a major impediment to growth....especially.if there are not enough other avenues that are open to sustain growth. Look at a school like Milford Academy. MIlford was THE prep school for Yale Univeristy for like a century. Yale, when football went away, didn't need a prep school anymore like that. Milford dried up, and moved to New York. THat school is 100% about football now. THere are high school prep schools all over the northeast that are constantly doing the balancing act of driving their institution success with athletics, rather than academics.

The greatest difficulty with answering the questions in this discussion, especially for large scale state institutions (1-A football state schools) is that you cannot adequately defend a position, one way or the other, regarding athletics and the role it plays in higher education, without somehow addressing the concept of amateurism in sport.

THe philosophic concept of amateurism in intercollegiate athletics, is what makes it possible for a guy like Zimbalist, to write a book he did in 1999, and for a guy like upstater to hold it up like some kind of gold standard, and for people like the WMU profs I just cited, to write an article like that - which clearly states that division 1-A state institutions playing football, across the board, get higher funding from their state legislatures, than non 1-A schools, yet somehow it's not a good idea to subsidize athletic budget deficits.

What gets academics really riled up about the whole thing, is the concept of athletics drawing money for expenses that academics want for themselves.

My response to the academics, is that in that case, rather than sitting in their labs and offices and writing and reading papers, for each other, they should actually produce something that is valueable in the business world, and create some kind of product or service that provides the necessary spark, to begin to work to sustain growth.

Because that's that athletics does - it provides the spark, by which productive people can fan into a fire.
 
Carl Spackler said:
Bravo!! Bravo!!

Here's a decent 2007 article out of Western Michigan U. If the link doesn't work: Just google: Athletic Success Legislative Largesse Donald Alexander

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:s4rBJcpX9tUJ:www.shsu.edu/~eco_www/resources/documents/DoesAthleticSuccessLeadtoPoliticalInfluence.doc &hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESjzubzd38Qmh6KLLIGKNbqYc8QCYFipnQLBoHhN3EA1xmbKQO7X44nhY0lzwPdTji3l2AbgBspMFb7gYM7hXoypEnI-hf2Cs6kzyfGuBq1gN2AYkMRa_84neMWpelM32Z4XZwUd&sig=AHIEtbQ8Vpj0nqz-aLGWgv5gnw-Le_sXPg

The old joke is that Ph.D is short for Piled Higher and Deeper. Academic minded folks, often get so focused on their little world and their production of papers, that they lose sight of big pictures.

High profile athletics, is the fastest way to ignite and generate growth in a school. Whether it be a high school prep, private school, or a state flagship land grant university. Ignite, starting, is not the equivalent of SUSTAINING Growth though. There's a lot of other stuff that goes into sustaining growth, but there is no doubt, that athletics is the quickest way to jump start growth. Irrelevant of anything else happening. Athletic success provides a jump start from which growth of an institution can come from.

Conversely, athletic failure, by itself, is also a major impediment to growth....especially.if there are not enough other avenues that are open to sustain growth. Look at a school like Milford Academy. MIlford was THE prep school for Yale Univeristy for like a century. Yale, when football went away, didn't need a prep school anymore like that. Milford dried up, and moved to New York. THat school is 100% about football now. THere are high school prep schools all over the northeast that are constantly doing the balancing act of driving their institution success with athletics, rather than academics.

The greatest difficulty with answering the questions in this discussion, especially for large scale state institutions (1-A football state schools) is that you cannot adequately defend a position, one way or the other, regarding athletics and the role it plays in higher education, without somehow addressing the concept of amateurism in sport.

THe philosophic concept of amateurism in intercollegiate athletics, is what makes it possible for a guy like Zimbalist, to write a book he did in 1999, and for a guy like upstater to hold it up like some kind of gold standard, and for people like the WMU profs I just cited, to write an article like that - which clearly states that division 1-A state institutions playing football, across the board, get higher funding from their state legislatures, than non 1-A schools, yet somehow it's not a good idea to subsidize athletic budget deficits.

What gets academics really riled up about the whole thing, is the concept of athletics drawing money for expenses that academics want for themselves.

My response to the academics, is that in that case, rather than sitting in their labs and offices and writing and reading papers, for each other, they should actually produce something that is valueable in the business world, and create some kind of product or service that provides the necessary spark, to begin to work to sustain growth.

Because that's that athletics does - it provides the spark, by which productive people can fan into a fire.
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You may think you know more than Zimbalist, but you don't.

No one wants to run the numbers. No one in the sports media, no one like Vitale who wonders why Presidents are jumping conferences for more cash and "hurting" the students. They don't care.

They just want to blow smoke and make things up with absolutely ZERO to back them up. Just go on making shit up.

You think state appropriations and cuts per state haven't been assessed? You can look at this on a school by school and state by state basis. For every D1 state school, you'll find SUNY's and Delaware's and UMass's and Cal San Diego's to compare this to.

Oh, and you can knock the authors of these reports, knock Orzag for instance. What does he know? After all. He's only in charge of scaling and modelling the nation's economic progress for the federal gov't. That's all. Let's listen to Tom Farrey and Dennis Dodd and Gregg Doyel and Jim Rome instead!
 
See - those academics, it's so easy to press their buttons. LOL. The truth is that , guys like Zimbalist, are no different than chemistry and physics profs that are looking for the next great invention, or the lawyer, looking for that one HUGE case.......and waquoit nailed it - he found his niche, and he's economically secure now, as a writer, because of it.

Upstater, you want to fix the problem? You're barking up the wrong tree. Subsidized college athletics, is no different than living with credit card debit.

THe issue is that intercollegiate athletics operates under the farce of amateurism. All kinds of incredible accounting gymnastics are accepted across the board at major institutions, billion dollar instititutions, are allowed to do accounting magic, becuase of the farce of amateurism.

I've made no secret in the past that I like the Naval Academy. The Academy is a unique institution, and could be and should be a model, if people are really serious about addressing how athletics fits into the mission of a higher education institution. The naval academy athletic department, is a business entity that is entirely separate and distinct from the academic institution that is the USNA. I personally, am not aware of any other 1-A football school in the country, that is subsidized by taxpayer money, that follows the same model. The NAAA is classified as a 501-C non-profit, and therefore has to do it's accounting that way, and takes ZERO tax payer dollars to run their athletic department. All taxpayer dollars going to the USNA - are directed to the academic institution. It would be really easy to file the paperwork and make it no longer amateur.

Now - how many athletic departments around the country - at 1-A football schools, upstater, could sever all ties with taxpayer money, and still have a viable academic and athletic entities? That's the kind of question that would make for a very interesting economic study on academics and athletics at the 1-A level.

Not too many Ph.D's in universities though, that are going to look at that though, and what you do get is constant reiterations of that paper I cited from WMU.
 
Carl Spackler said:
See - those academics, it's so easy to press their buttons. LOL. The truth is that , guys like Zimbalist, are no different than chemistry and physics profs that are looking for the next great invention, or the lawyer, looking for that one HUGE case.......and waquoit nailed it - he found his niche, and he's economically secure now, as a writer, because of it.

Upstater, you want to fix the problem? You're barking up the wrong tree. Subsidized college athletics, is no different than living with credit card debit.

THe issue is that intercollegiate athletics operates under the farce of amateurism. All kinds of incredible accounting gymnastics are accepted across the board at major institutions, billion dollar instititutions, are allowed to do accounting magic, becuase of the farce of amateurism.

I've made no secret in the past that I like the Naval Academy. The Academy is a unique institution, and could be and should be a model, if people are really serious about addressing how athletics fits into the mission of a higher education institution. The naval academy athletic department, is a business entity that is entirely separate and distinct from the academic institution that is the USNA. I personally, am not aware of any other 1-A football school in the country, that is subsidized by taxpayer money, that follows the same model. The NAAA is classified as a 501-C non-profit, and therefore has to do it's accounting that way, and takes ZERO tax payer dollars to run their athletic department. All taxpayer dollars going to the USNA - are directed to the academic institution. It would be really easy to file the paperwork and make it no longer amateur.

Now - how many athletic departments around the country - at 1-A football schools, upstater, could sever all ties with taxpayer money, and still have a viable academic and athletic entities? That's the kind of question that would make for a very interesting economic study on academics and athletics at the 1-A level.

Not too many Ph.D's in universities though, that are going to look at that though, and what you do get is constant reiterations of that paper I cited from WMU.
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So, people like Orzsag find their little niche?

That's the best you've got?

Orszag ran OMB. He's now a Chairman at Citigroup.

Just a little guy with a niche, eh?

It's fine if you want to remove taxpayer money from higher education. If that's what kind of country you want.

Countries with no investment though quickly sink. Countries with malinvestment sink too.
 
You're really worked up arent you? Never mind.

The point is - the question is: What effect does the athletic side of an institution have on the academic side? That's really the root ...no?

The reality is that the academic side of an institution, has very little to do with the success of athletic side of the institution. THe academic side of an institution has direct effect on how easy or difficult it can be to have athletic success, sure, but other than influencing how easy or hard it is to recruit, there's really no other effect that academics has on athletics.

But the other way around, athletic influence on academics, are many, and easily measured.

THe difficulty, that you've not yet once touched on, is that athletics is a purely profit oriented business endeavor. Yet in the intercollegiate world, it cannot be so. Because college athletes are amateurs. THe easiest way to hide the fact, that athletics generate profit, is to have athletics consistently showing deficit in budgets.

Athletic departments are like any other business, the successful ones flourish, the unsuccessful ones, like Maryland and Rutgers, start going into the crapper, cutting programs left and right, and will take any government handout they can get.
 
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I'll leave upstater alone now. I wonder if his real name is Andrew Z......, or maybe he knows him. LOL.

In answer to the question:

How important are sports to univesities? The answer is they are as important to the university, and the overall mission of the university makes them. There is no commonality to found across the board, it's a case by case basis specific to every university.
 
Carl Spackler said:
You're really worked up arent you? Never mind.

The point is - the question is: What effect does the athletic side of an institution have on the academic side? That's really the root ...no?

The reality is that the academic side of an institution, has very little to do with the success of athletic side of the institution. THe academic side of an institution has direct effect on how easy or difficult it can be to have athletic success, sure, but other than influencing how easy or hard it is to recruit, there's really no other effect that academics has on athletics.

But the other way around, athletic influence on academics, are many, and easily measured.

THe difficulty, that you've not yet once touched on, is that athletics is a purely profit oriented business endeavor. Yet in the intercollegiate world, it cannot be so. Because college athletes are amateurs. THe easiest way to hide the fact, that athletics generate profit, is to have athletics consistently showing deficit in budgets.

Athletic departments are like any other business, the successful ones flourish, the unsuccessful ones, like Maryland and Rutgers, start going into the crapper, cutting programs left and right, and will take any government handout they can get.
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Hilarious stuff. They show profits!! Not deficits. How? By including direct subsidy and having the buidling loans paid by the academic side. Remove the direct subsidy and the student fees, where are you? Nowhere. The myth is that these profits are real. They are not. Show me a private business or corporation in America that makes the same amount of revenues as expenditures year after year for a decade. That never ever happens. Why does it happen at the university level? Because they are trying to hide the money suck. Every single school in America loses money on athletics except perhaps Oregon with Knight's donations--but I actually have never looked into that. I don't know the extent.

Yes, the impact of athletics are easily measurable, and Zimbalist and Orszag and money others have measured it and come to the same conclusion. Again, there is no shame in losing millions for sports yearly. That's fine. It may be good for campus spirit (though many campuses don't care). The problem is losing tens of millions yearly in an era when you're jacking up tuition and cutting classes and programs so regular students can't graduate. That's when you've lost your marbles and made a cowardly calculation because you want to keep your high-paying job: that sadly describes many presidents.
 
upstater said:
Oregon has Nike. What about Arizona. I'm telling you, this is a big resource suck in a way that it isn't for D1AA or D2. URI for instance loses about $4 or $5 million on football. That's acceptable. Most of D1 however loses tens of millions.

I'm not referring to the Ivies in the top 50. There are many other schools like Emory, NYU and the UCs.

UCSD is not in the Ivy range either. It is much more like Cal-Berkeley. Is Cal-Berkeley made by sports?

And how is the Ivy endowment helped by big-time sports, again?

Having looked at these budgets internally, and having seen the wars, and knowing the depth (or shallowness) of administrators on these issues, I'm fairly convinced that it's a money suck.
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Regarding the comment that "Most of D1 loses tens of millions", I conducted a study a few years ago of the DIA schools, all 120 of them. The top 15 moneymakers made anywhere from 15 million on up to as high as 40 million or more from football. Those numbers have escalated in the past few seasons.

At the time of my study, about 50 of the 120 DIA schools made a profit from football. From 51-70 the schools in that range either made a small profit (1-2 million) or treaded water, coming out about even on expenses vs. revenue. Schools from 71-120 lost money, in some cases quite a bit, but certainly nowhere near "tens of millions."

If you're including all of the DI schools, whether A (FBS) or AA (FCS) then yes, almost all of the I-AA schools lose money on football, some of them quite a bit, but again not "tens of millions."

The above stated money being made at the top level is why so many schools in recent years have upgraded to DIA. They do it just for the potential that they might be able to turn their FB program into a money making enterprise, or at the very least, so that they don't lose money at the same rate they were in DI-AA. For some schools it has worked out that way but for others it hasn't.

The numbers from my study came from the early 2000's. They are always a few years behind in being reported.
 
UConnNick said:
Regarding the comment that "Most of D1 loses tens of millions", I conducted a study a few years ago of the DIA schools, all 120 of them. The top 15 moneymakers made anywhere from 15 million on up to as high as 40 million or more from football. Those numbers have escalated in the past few seasons.

At the time of my study, about 50 of the 120 DIA schools made a profit from football. From 51-70 the schools in that range either made a small profit (1-2 million) or treaded water, coming out about even on expenses vs. revenue. Schools from 71-120 lost money, in some cases quite a bit, but certainly nowhere near "tens of millions."

If you're including all of the DI schools, whether A (FBS) or AA (FCS) then yes, almost all of the I-AA schools lose money on football, some of them quite a bit, but again not "tens of millions."

The above stated money being made at the top level is why so many schools in recent years have upgraded to DIA. They do it just for the potential that they might be able to turn their FB program into a money making enterprise, or at the very least, so that they don't lose money at the same rate they were in DI-AA. For some schools it has worked out that way but for others it hasn't.

The numbers from my study came from the early 2000's. They are always a few years behind in being reported.
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Are you counting direct student fees and direct institutional support and debt service for facilities?

The numbers are available in the database. It's not a mystery. Nominally, up until last year, all but 14 D1 schools lost money. Then it jumped to 21 as being profitable.

I submit you can't look at football solely when everyone calculates expenses differently. Texas, for instance, includes Longhorn Foundation donations as football revenue. How can you possibly compare them to A&M which doesn't?

The only real way to do it is to take total expenses for the AD and compare to revenues, and then consider how much debt service the school is paying for facilities.

This board has links to a variety of sources and studies already. Zimbalist, Orzsag, etc. I don't know why we treat this as a mystery.
 
Yes the value of winning tonight is hits on their website. The navel gazing on the internet is approaching insanity.
 
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whaler11 said:
Yes the value of winning tonight is hits on their website. The navel gazing on the internet is approaching insanity.
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Those hits are worth at least $3 billion, according to the advertising guys.
 
upstater said:
Those hits are worth at least $3 billion, according to the advertising guys.
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I don't think anyone suggested the hits, in and of themselves, have value but to discount the value of the media coverage seems a bit silly. Figuring out advertising equivalencies is relatively simple ( see study on butler) and that exposure is worth millions. You can poo poo marketing /ad folks all you want but the reality is the free advertising FCGU is getting would cost millions to purchase.
 
CAHUSKY said:
I don't think anyone suggested the hits, in and of themselves, have value but to discount the value of the media coverage seems a bit silly. Figuring out advertising equivalencies is relatively simple ( see study on butler) and that exposure is worth millions. You can poo poo marketing /ad folks all you want but the reality is the free advertising FCGU is getting would cost millions to purchase.
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I was in the biz. Snake oil.
 
upstater said:
I was in the biz. Snake oil.
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You may not believe the exposure is valuable but the free advertising does have value and its in the millions. That's just the reality.
 
I mean none of us here heard of this school before. Now we all know,they have a beach on campus. That has to be mean and be worth something. I wasn't suggesting they were going to be competing against Yale for students with the op.
 
CAHUSKY said:
You may not believe the exposure is valuable but the free advertising does have value and its in the millions. That's just the reality.
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Can someone explain to what end this is valuable?

Assuming they go back to the beach and we never hear from them again...

What is the actual impact to the university?

More people apply? Well the sort of student who applies to a school because it has a beach is probably not going to improve your academics.

It's a public school - the fact that more people know you exist doesn't much change anything for them. Many public schools aren't even looking to really improve their academic standing anyway. States need universities to provide an education to a broad spectrum of students.

It would defeat the purpose for a school like say Central to be hell bent on improving their academics anyway. The state needs them to educate the type of students they currently enroll.
 
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