America, you are all screwed up.
The article also makes the point that the athletic programs these universities sponsor are major loss leaders, draining money away from education to pay off overpaid coaches.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Wow, what is the deal with med school deans??? What can they possibly do that warrants a salary that dwarves their grad students combined? Speaking of course as a former grad stident and not future med school dean
‘merka loves it’s foo’ball ‘n bee-ball, huh?
One person coaches both basketball and football teams in Minnesota?
Double-dippers can really rake it in…
Funny how we never hear people complaining about how much coaches are paid. Whereas everyone knows that teachers are riding the gravy train.
@Tyrant al-Kalām
From what I’ve read about the medical schools in general, because most of them are tied to for profit hospitals they get higher compensation than anyone else at the school because they are treated as people who bring money into the school (like coaches). Even though their base salary isn’t that high, they (also like coaches) are guaranteed a certain amount of money on top of their base, and if the revenue of the hospital (or team) doesn’t meet what they were promised, the school has to make up the difference.
I’m torn between being completely disgusted and mildly impressed by Vermont. A hockey coach! Between that and Bernie Sanders, I totally want to move there now.
And all 50 of the states have public servants whose salaries could afford to be cut with no great loss to anyone, save themselves. I’ve never met any high-ranking administrator who was worth the candle, though I have nothing against the lower-ranking ones who actually do the day-to-day work of scheduling classes, hiring professors, laying in supplies, and a thousand other necessary tasks. Most college presidents/chancellors/provosts/whatever seem to behave like career politicians who got where they are by kissing others’ asses and covering their own.
In Ontario, the highest paid public employee is the CEO of Ontario Power Generation. He’s raking in $1.7 million. The highest paid coach I could find was the Men’s Basketball coach at Carleton U. who makes $151 000. There were 3 or 4 other university coaches who made between that and $100 000.
Ah but this makes putting all those millennials into inescapable crushing debt all worth it
Kind of interesting that the highest paid official in Connecticut is the women’s basketball coach. Presumably the reward for winning the championship so often. The coach, of course, is a man.
Speaking of UConn, I just gotta have a soft spot for a team whose nickname is based on a horrible pun.
Down in Texas, that’s high school money.
In some states, the athletic departments function independently of the rest of the university’s budget. Athletics don’t receive state funding. The money for the teams and salaries comes from broadcasting rights, licensing, and donations. University of Maryland has this arrangement. Other schools do as well, depending on the state in question.
Here’s an oldie (2008) but goodie from Ph.D. Comics. I added a bar for my university’s football coach, and had to extend the height of the graph by another 40-50%.
That’s the free market.
The more useless people are for a functioning society, the more they get paid. That there are still people willing to do useful jobs in such a system proves that the monetary incentive is not the all-encompassing motivator it is supposed to be.
Please think for 2-3 seconds before you say such stupid things.
I live in a place where one of the biggest employers is my government. The other is a cooperative bank. Those people get paid decent salaries, so they can afford to say, go to a restaurant once in a while. Buy new cars, or have their old one properly repaired when it breaks down. And a bunch of other things people who live on very little cash can’t afford.
So my mom and dad, neither of whom work as public servants, got to keep their own jobs, and even got their salaries raised during a major economic crisis.
I would choose having a good sized population of decently paid public servants regularly spending in local everyday businesses over a few rich suckers who buy one specialized luxury item once in a while and whine about paying 1% more in tax every. freaking. time.
I can appreciate the point this article is TRYING to make, but it’s mildly dishonest in its critique.
Terry McTigue touched on it; more athletic departments run in the black or at least on their own funding than the article portrays. I’m a Michigan alumnus. Our FOOTBALL program alone pays for the scholarships of all student-athletes, the renovations to athletic facilities, and still ends up with millions in profit margin. I have no problem whatsoever with the salaries of coaches as long as they’re not tied to public dollars.
And yet the comments section of the online version of the local paper is always full of jackassess saying state workers like me riding the gravy train with my $42,000 civil service job that required a college degree and a grueling year-long “trainee” phase to learn all the ins and outs of both human anatomy and the laws and regulations that apply to it. Thank FSM it’s my lunch break.
Ibis3, I’m looking at that map in disbelief. I’m also an Ontarian and I even work for …well, anyway, the point is even the most highly paid public employee works for a corporation that turns a profit. I don’t like the CEO of Ontario Power Generation’s salary, but considering the position he’s in and the fact that CEOs are a difficult bunch of people to maintain in position at low salaries, it’s at least a plausibly fair salary. I mean, just look at the CEOs of Ontario’s hospitals*, they really do rake it in, but the responsibility of the position kind of justifies it and those high salaries are required to attract and keep the kind of person you want in those positions.
So, meh.
But what the fuck?! One of those coaches made $5 million? That’s insanely irresponsible and the talent of the coach, and his (it invariably is a ‘he’) contribution to the public is what exactly? His main responsibility is sometimes getting a team to win? I’m actually shocked. And people aren’t upset by this? Or not very many are? Oh fuck.
*Go to google, type in Sunshine List Ontario 2013 and follow the linkies to the massive list of Ontario public employees who were paid over $100,000 dollars. The Government must publish the earnings of every public employee of a crown corporation, agency or ministry of the Province every year under a very …persuasive piece of legislation.
kemist @ #15:
Please think for 2-3 seconds before you say such stupid things.
Right back atcha. It should be obvious to anyone thinking for more than 2-3 seconds that I was talking about the public servants mentioned on the map. You know, the one at the top of the page. Had you continued reading before spouting off, the fact that I directed my attack at high-ranking school administrators but excluded the lowly- to middling-ranked administrators who actually get shit done might have been a clue that I wasn’t talking about all government employees.
Thomathy, it’s not irresponsible to pay coaches that much when these athletic programs are bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars annually…in no small part due to performance. I realize that this isn’t a big part of the culture in Canada, but when a college team does well, they get invited to a bowl game, and that alone pays tens of millions.
http://espn.go.com/blog/playbook/dollars/post/_/id/2556/texas-tops-in-football-profit-revenue
This article lists the top money-makers. They also happen to be the programs that pay their coaches the most. Despite the portrayal of the Deadspin article, a bunch of athletic programs run in the black by themselves and more get to that point every year.
Why are all those self-sustaining whateverball ‘programs’ cluttering up universities?
Uh, because they provide scholarships, maybe? A whole mess of those kids wouldn’t ever be able to afford college without them. The players ARE students, after all. At most big universities, the athletic programs are part of the storied tradition.
Did no one else here play sports?
Athletic Programs don’t pay for themselves, they are a drain on the budget of the institution of education.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/2013/05/07/ncaa-finances-subsidies/2142443/
http://seattletimes.com/html/collegesports/2010103078_ncaa21.html
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204720204577130893202202710.html
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-10-28/news/ct-met-football-money-main-20111028_1_high-school-football-football-field-coaching
http://www.dallasnews.com/sports/high-schools/football-news/headlines/20111117-special-report-an-inside-look-at-the-finances-behind-hs-football-in-the-dallas-area.ece?action=reregister
Christopher…what about the programs that DO make money? And how many of those programs still operate in the red when you remove all the student-related expenses such as scholarships?
I’m not going to argue that MOST FBS programs or athletic departments operate entirely in the black, but it’s an upward trend
The real injustice is how the media markets and bigwigs (BCS people, conference heads) make the vast majority of the money (it’s a several billion-dollar industry) when they’re not the ones producing the product.
There were only 10 big school that did not take general funds to make ends meet. Michigan was.not one of them, although their dip was under $200 thousand.
And relatively few schools turn profits on athletics. In 2012 only 23 of 228 made money: 16 of those took subsidies from the school, and of those 10 of those took more in 2012 than they had in 2011.
What part of catching a ball is scholastic, deserving of a scholarship?
Sports scholarships are a drain on the institution of learning because that scholarship money could go to someone who will better the world with their education.
And the handfull of schools that don’t totally bleed money through their sports programs does not offset the massive amount that do. Massive amounts of education dollars are pissed away on something who’s only affect on the brains of students is traumatic injury.
UnknownEric:
I made the same mistake when I saw this map on a friend’s facebook post†– that’s New Hampshire.
†Did you know that confusing two similarly sized states that are next to each other makes middle aged ladies weep for future generations? *eyeroll*
Ah, darn it, you’re right Audley. Damn you, New England for being packed full of small states!
Seriously! I’m right next door in NY and I still screw up New England all the damned time.
Easy to hate on basketball and football and their highly paid coaches. But do you also advocate the abolition of college tennis, track and field, swimming, etc.? Because all of those sports lose money for their universities, and if only basketball and football existed, a much much larger percentage of athletic departments would be profitable.
I am perfectly OK with intermural sports with a low incident of mild traumatic brain injury being semi-supported by the university through field and facility maintenance.
As opposed, to say, fine arts.
@ nullifidian
Sorry, didn’t read properly.
yesss! something North Dakota is NOT horrible at!
Having been born and raised in North Dakota, I would point out that not having a coach as the highest paid person is nothing to get excited about — I’m looking at you, Jadehawk :) — because we don’t have very many people and likewise really no major universities (though NDSU seems to be gaining ground). Point is ND (and likewise SD) would probably be on that list if it were not for these prevailing circumstances.
… It’s an upward trend”
No it is not. The percent that make money is essentially been constant.
This doesn’t begin to consider the low academic standards to which athletes at the big schools are held.
From what I’ve heard the outrageous payment for the coaches is more an artifact of the NCAA (combined with the huge sports budgets).
The schools obviously consider the athletes very valuable (rightly or wrongly), in a professional league they can pay the players more to get them on the team. But with the NCAA the top players basically have the same compensation package wherever they go. So instead of paying players extra they find the coach best at recruiting top talent and pay them the extra.
Not saying it’s right or wrong, just that it’s my understanding of why the coaches make so much.
kemist @ #32:
Sorry, didn’t read properly.
No sweat, but thanks for the apology. :-)
Relevant: http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2778
Why are all those self-sustaining whateverball ‘programs’ cluttering up universities?
Yeah, really. Privatize ’em and spin them out as privately or publicly held companies, and let the invisibul hand of teh markeet administer its slaps of loving correction. These are, after all, big businesses and they’re nothing remotely like not-for-profit in the public interest. Universities are getting pretty hinky about real estate investments, too. I always get a laugh when a certain university which owns a medical school and hospital that own gigantic swathes of Baltimore manages to be “non profit” (hint: if I take in a bazillion dollars on my football program and spend it all on tchotchkes and stadiums so I am not profitable, I still have a lot of tchotchkes and stadiums. Finance is a zero sum game, unless you have a license to print money.)
Uh, because they provide scholarships, maybe? A whole mess of those kids wouldn’t ever be able to afford college without them. The players ARE students, after all. At most big universities, the athletic programs are part of the storied tradition.
Yeah, it’s just like a, uh, you know – “job” – except the players don’t get ‘paid’ and can’t negotiate with their employer. But there’s all the free cartilage damage and traumatic brain injuries as a side-benefit. And then there’s the question of how good an education they’re getting.
It sure is a good deal for someone. I wonder who?
Disgusting beyond words
anchor@#41 : I concur.
That map reinforces the view I’ve had for decades about the idiotic ranking of priorities we have in this country. The question I’ve always asked myself, rhetorically, is how the hell can we change it?? I’m too pessimistic to think there can be any effective change on those priorities. I think to do that, there needs to be a mass consciousness change on the part of the majority population in this country, and that’s not about to happen any decade soon. The power of the gun lobby is a good example of intransigence of a good portion of the populace and political class to change priorities.
I recently flew my son around to his top 3 college choices to decide where he wanted to commit. On one leg, I sat next to the athletic director for the University of Kentucky. He was on his way to a conference of college athletic directors in Los Angeles. I was surprised that he was sitting next to me in coach (coach plus, actually — I upgraded my seat on this 5+ hour flight to save my knees from the ravages of the passenger in front of me, but I digress). Wondering if a Division 1 school was showing some financial restraint on the airplane ticket, I looked him up when I got home to see if he was who he said he was. I found his picture, right next to his salary, in a Kentucky newspaper. His salary in 2011 was 600,000. And he’s not the top earner, according to this map. I’m not critizing him directly; he was a pleasant and polite seatmate and seemed a decent fellow. He actually did spend most of the flight working. Heck, in his shoes, I’d like to think I would take at least two thirds of that money and push it back into the science education resources for the university, but basic human nature tells us all that is unlikely. We all seek the best stations we can for ourselves and our families in the society we find ourselves in.
It is a huge symptom of our basic societal illness, that decisions are made to pump disproportionate sums into athletics and entertainment (and of course, institutions of superstition).
I don’t understand why this spending bothers the people on this board so much. People are investing money in the things that interest them. In this country more people like sports and in particular Football than nearly any other extracurricular activity. The athletic programs get money from 3 sources.
The largest is the ticket revenue, sales and media rights to the games. It is a fantastic opportunity because the school is paid for an advertisement of the school.
The next largest source is booster money which is specifically allocated to the sports and facilities it is earmarked for. For example Oklahoma State University is the largest beneficiary in this regard. T Boone Pickens has donated 400 million dollars to the school. 265 million was for athletics. That included facilities and endowments to permanently fund all the schools athletic scholarships.
The last source as mentioned are student fees which vary from school to school but typically are in the 50 to 100 dollar range per student and these fees contribute to things like speakers, concerts, movies on campus and an assortment of non academic activities that usually do not return revenue.
None of these money sources are taking money away from academics because the money exists specifically for the purpose they are designated for. If it didn’t go to the sports programs it wouldn’t go to the school at all. Just as I’m sure every person on this board has a hobby and you choose to put that money towards that interest. No one is upset that you didn’t donate it to science education and no one should. You wouldn’t want people poo pooing your social interests and saying the country is going to heck because of it, so why have a problem with what others enjoy. They are investing their own money in it and they have the freedom to do so.
Did everyone follow the link at liokae #38?
reggiedunlap #44
Do you listen to yourself?
#46
Refute the statement with facts and an argument. Sarcastically dismissive statements are not a substitute for either.
How would the funds from team merchandise sales, parking, tickets, concessions, tv and radio broadcast rights, bowl game payouts, conference affiliation payouts, and money given by boosters directly to the athletic departments make its may to the university if the teams were not there?
What interests them isn’t the same as what’s good for society. It bothers me when we’re not doing what’s good for society, whether or not that’s an “interest” of people with money or even absolutely everyone except me. Yes, people do in fact invests money on all kinds of useless crap. You can talk about how “free” that makes them (some of them) until you run out of breath, but it doesn’t address what is or isn’t beneficial.
This is nonsense. Drop the teleological, free-market assumptions, and maybe you can understand what “bothers” people other than you, assuming that you were actually interested in finding out.
People shouldn’t be given a tax write off for giving money to the farm leagues of for-profit professional sports, just like they shouldn’t be given a tax write off for giving money to the invisible sky-fairy fan club.
kreativekaos: AGREED
#48
Would you like to present your itemized spending. We can have a debate on what is good for society and reallocate your income accordingly.
No, not on some random thread on a blog.
We sure can. I pay taxes, in case you’re wondering. Do you think it’s unfair that the big mean gubmint forces me to do that? Or what is your point?
Razor
I don’t think it is unfair to pay taxes. I think government is a valuable thing. I gladly pay my taxes and will pay more if it is needed for society to provide a safety net and protections. Did you spell gubmint as a form of ridicule? You somehow think that since I disagree with you on something you can assign all the opposing views you encounter on me and create a strawman out of me and run away from the argument?
It seemed to be the gist of your first response that you were not satisfied with the good that was done for society and were dissatisfied with how these people were spending their income because it was not being spent on the good of society. If you think that other people should be using their income for what you think is the good of society then it would be nice to know exactly what that good is. Furthermore if you wish others money were used for the societal good it would seem fair that we examine how your spending is contributing to that good. If your only requirement on others is that they pay taxes and are then free to use their money for whatever they think the societal good is then I am unsure what your problem is with my original post.
Sure, because the view I outlined in my question is ridiculous. If that isn’t your view or isn’t what you were implying, then I left that avenue open for you as well, as you might have noticed. It was hard to tell what you were implying with it or how your comment is supposed to be relevant.
We could get into the ethics of what I (or anyone) should do personally, but the ethical issue here is really political, since it’s about public institutions. You’re framing it as if it were about some people’s personal spending habits or interests, something I shouldn’t generally concern myself with so long as it doesn’t impinge on anyone else’s rights. However, I’m concerned with the fact that we have schools to benefit the public as a whole. They are not there to give rich people whatever they want because, by golly, they paid for it. If it’s really necessary that they exercise this “freedom” that they have (and few of the rest of us share), they can certainly waste their money some other way, on any luxury or business venture that they can dream up. There is no need for our educational system to be based on it.
Razor
I see the concern but lots of state spending and particularly university spending is not set up like a tax pool. In the federal government all people are concerned about where the money goes because money taken from one area means less in another. The large military budget could be reduced to increase investment in other areas However, in state schools tuition is typically the only form of revenue that is treated that way and that is why you pay the same for a 800 seat lecture class in an introductory subject as you do for a 400 level class with a dozen students. For other income streams things are earmarked. I give money for a few different activities. I donate to the Geography club to help them with their trip to the AAG conference every year. I contribute to the geography department for technology advancements. Then I go to the football games and in addition to my seat tickets I participate in a booster points system that through additional spending ensures a certain quality of seat and the money goes towards paying for the teams scholarships. My donations to both football and geography don’t pull away from other services the way that an increase in military spending would when all funds are coming from the same tax pool. I suspect that when many people look at the map they come to the conclusion the that the schools are spending the money on sports instead of education and that is not the case. The method in which sports are funded (specifically at large state schools which are the schools on the map) is not to the detriment of any other area of the university.
Now for the concern that the university is there to benefit the public as a whole and not to give things for rich people. The people who give donations are almost always alumni and I think they would get first dibs on influencing the direction of the school. Also for state schools, since the general fund from tuition is supplemented by state contributions, the majority of the people contributing with tax dollars may not have attended the school. However to get those tax dollars it benefits the school that the state takes pride in what the school does. In the world we live in now having a successful basketball or football team is the most visible aspect of the school. I think it would be great if maps from my geography department got millions of hits and each hit generated revenue and each person who clicked was distinctly aware of my school when they did so but it isn’t going to happen. Presently the best publicity for a school is its sports program. Unless you are an elite financially and academically exclusive school like the ivies, MIT or University of Chicago people aren’t familiar with schools far and wide unless it is by their athletics. Name recognition is important. When your graduates are applying for jobs you want employers to recognize the school name in that brief skim they take over the document. No other publicity a school can generate can achieve that. When a state school has a recognizable sports team non alumnus state residents are supportive of the school and this helps with state funding and that money helps with building funds and reducing in state tuition. Additionally investors in the school who are the alumni help build the endowment which allows the school to do really great things off the field.
There is a cup given out to schools who have the best overall athletic programs. Stanford wins every year and the other schools in the top ten are nearly all public universities of excellent academic stature. For the state schools being involved in athletics is a huge boon to the schools at large.
Ah yeah. I had suppressed the memory that those existed.
Have you dolt read the comments before yours? Apparently not, because otherwise you’d know that there are only 16 of 223 cases where any such money makes its way to the university! In the others, the university loses money from having a sports team. That’s right: most sports teams are net drains on university budgets.
That’s one reason why it’s evil to fund the universities so poorly they have to rely on donations from alumni!
The other reason is the preposterous amount of money US students have to pay in tuition. It lands them in debt for decades. What the fuck?!?
They do, however, profit from the research and the teaching there. That’s why it’s a good thing when university budgets come from taxes.
What does it help?
That’s ridiculous. If it’s true, it makes the USA as a country ridiculous.
Both of these effects have a common cause: Stanford is rich. It can afford to hire the best players, the best coaches, and the best teachers.
You’re trying to do science without math. Deal with the numbers in the comments above yours, or it didn’t happen.
And contemplate why college sports isn’t a thing outside the US.
It isn’t just colleges that take football seriously.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57583529-71/teen-suspended-for-tweet-critical-of-high-school-sports/
David M
I will address your first statement directed to me. I’ve never seen dolt used in that context before. Was it your intent to call me a dolt? Better luck insulting me on your next reply if that was the case. My point about the money from boosters is that the money is only for the athletic programs, not that football boosters go to academics, although as you listed in your unsubstantiated statistic it does. I’ll refer to my example to my geography contributions. If I do not donate the university has x money. If I donate the university has x money plus the amount that I have given directly to the geography department. If there were not a geography department I would not give to the university. My money goes elsewhere. The only way they can get my money is if it satisfies my interest. The money isn’t being pulled away from some other department or cause that you think is worthwhile. That is how the booster money works. They are giving to the athletic teams and it never gets subtracted from somewhere else.
The money for athletic programs isn’t spent to the detriment of academics.
You claim that there are statistics in the comments above mine but if you would actually read there is hardly substantial. A few people list the salaries of individual coaches and none of it is sourced. In fact the only link is to a cartoon that I couldn’t bother reading through because it was bland.
You suggest a preference for state funding over private funding. That is a philosophical difference. You are free to try to change the world that way but I won’t live to see the fruition of struggle.
You do not realize that when there are hundreds of resumes posted for jobs that recruiters don’t have the time to look at all of them at length. They look for very specific things that jump out and decide to call. In many instances that is the school. In some places in Texas if the person who makes hiring decisions is a Texas A&M grad you have zero chance of getting that position over competing A&M grads. I was the beneficiary of similar favoritism on two occasions that were revealed to me. I got the interview because I went to a school that someone else went to. It isn’t ridiculous.
You say “deal with the comments above yours, or it didn’t happen” There are few numbers and no sources. And science isn’t decided by who gets first on a comments thread. I didn’t make numbers claims. I explained the mechanics of where the money comes from for athletics and how it isn’t sacrificed from academics. If you want to refute a claim with a fact you are free to but it is not incumbent on me to work only with the invisible unsourced statistics in this thread.
Yes. I’m not a native speaker of English, though.
…Then your argument doesn’t make sense. You asked: “How would the funds from […] and money given by boosters directly to the athletic departments make its may to the university if the teams were not there?” Now you suddenly say it doesn’t make its way to the rest of the university anyway, it just goes to the team; if the team didn’t exist, the exact same amount of money would make its way to the rest of the university, namely zero. :-| Please explain.
“My unsubstantiated statistic” is from comment 22. I screwed up the numbers, though: it’s 23 of 228, not 16 of 223.
Plainly not true.
By “world” you mean “USA”. The USA is one of very few countries that have any noticeable amount of private funding for universities.
It is absolutely ridiculous that any employers behave as irrationally as that.
That is a numbers claim, because it claims that all athletics programs are self-sufficient. In reality, most of them have a deficit that is covered by the rest of the university’s budget.
Now scroll up to comment 22 and follow the five links there. It’s pretty long, you can’t miss it while scrolling through.
David M
I am not changing my position. It is a misunderstanding in my wording. I was asking that if people are giving to the athletic departments only for the purpose of supporting the athletic department and nothing else how would someone expect that money end up at the university. It was a question with an answer. People wouldn’t just give the money if it was different.
This story is about the USA and I was not being US centric. I meant that you can’t just wave a wand and fundamentally change the way hundreds upon hundreds of organizations with operation costs running in the hundreds of billions are funded over night. Just because it is done differently elsewhere you can’t change things that quickly. Just like we couldn’t easily convert your nation’s university system(wherever that is) into the us system overnight. It would be like reinventing the wheel.
I will have to look at the post 22 another time. The links aren’t active and appear to have mistranslated characters. Probably the reason why I didn’t notice it.
My claim has never been that athletic programs are paid for completely with the money they take in from revenues specifically. My claim is that the funding is not a sacrifice made by academics. It is a subtle but important distinction.
Where do you live? Do you have amateur or scholastic sports? How are they paid for?
What is wrong with America? There are states where the highest paid public employees aren’t coaches!
I’m surprised that PA has a football coach listed. I wouldn’t have been a few years ago, but with Joe Paterno (speaking of screwed up priorities) gone, I’d’ve figured there’d be some reshuffling.
@60 then there is something wrong with your browser, or perhaps blog/rss reader, as every link looks normal and works fine in Opera and FF.
Something is off about this reasoning…I can’t find it, but I smell BS. Football is hugely popular at the collegiate and pro level. Pro football turns a (very) hefty profit. College football, where the players make only tuition, room, and board, is somehow losing money?
Oh. Not on my computer.
I know. I know you haven’t explicitly made the first claim. I’m trying to point out that your second claim implies the first: the deficits of the athletic programs are covered from the general budget of the university in question – from money that would otherwise have gone to academics.
Germany now, before that France and Austria.
Universities don’t have sports teams; that’s a US thing. They commonly (perhaps always) provide facilities for students to do sports, so they can move a bit after sitting around all day, but that’s it.
Sports teams exist, and are funded by sponsors and presumably revenues from games (I have no idea about proportions or numbers in general), they’re just never affiliated with a university or highschool; they’re standalone organizations. There are many sports teams for kids/teenagers that are funded by membership fees as far as I know.
What reasoning? It’s an observed fact: college football is losing money in the vast majority of cases.
You’re simply trying to do science without numbers. No wonder you’re failing.
Anybody’s assumption that they really know what they’re talking about here is probably unwarranted.
I think we can be pretty sure that the bean-counters at every US college and U have run the football-program numbers. It is certainly possible for them to conclude that all things considered it’s a money sink, in which case the entire program can, and presumably therefore would, be cut (I know of 2 examples in recent years: Northeastern and Hofstra).
That it hasn’t happened more might be because administrators and boards of trustees are just, like, silly irrational American football-opiated bozos.
Or on the other hand, it might be that they have considered more of the things.
The one-word answer for why college and U football programs persist: alumni.
Or, symbolically, $.
reggiedunlap:
Sure!
…just as soon as I become a massive, publicly-funded and supported institution primarily tasked with preparing young adults for academic careers.
Or would that make your analogy kinda break down just a wee skosh?