Is College Football an Expensive Luxury for Many Universities?

James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal ^ | September 25, 2020 | Laurence Peterson

[Alas Babylon!]

University of Alabama got $174.3 million revenue in 2019.

[Alas Babylon!]

Forgot link:

Where does the money go in Alabama's $174.3 million athletics revenue

[Mouton]

Come to think of it, maybe this is a good thing.

Yup, and exactly why football will never go because if it does all of the other programs go with it with the possible exception of basketball and golf.

IMO, the college sports of the past are not the college sports of today wherein some look at them as a stepping stone to a professional sport. Used to be you picked a school and stayed for 4 years. Today they have changed that so one can move to a school that suits their talent or where there is not a better player ahead of them. Lastly in our dumbed down nation, it seems a good number of individuals soaking up space, money, and other resources at schools are there for the party life. It galls me to see foreign students outperforming our local people in academics but it seems like everything else, our nation is sinking. With Trump we have an individual who promotes excellence, accountability, and patriotism verses what he fights against which is anathema to my beliefs.At 75 I believe I have the observed history to make these statements. Nothing is like it was 50 years ago, and mostly not in a good way.

[mjp]

college sports = athlete privilege

get rid of it

[libertylover]

It may not make economic sense, but neither does buying an ice cream cone.

[libertylover]

I don't know how much tickets cost these days here, but do the math. Between this, sales of merchandise, vendor sales, broadcast rights, this is a HUGE cash cow for most state universities.

I'm not in favor of abolishing football but it's only a cash cow for large schools like Michigan in Power 5 conferences. For others, they lose money but football keeps them from losing quite so much.

[ConservativeInPA]

Too many Americans have lost perspective on sports. Sports offer a metaphor for competition, winning and losing in life while maintaining one's physical health. Multi-million dollar programs are not required to achieve this result.

It can also be said that too many Americans have lost perspective on post-secondary education. Multi-million dollar programs exist in academia to teach subjects that end in "-Studies", such as General Studies, Gender Studies, Women Studies and Black Studies. They consume vast resources to pay for physical buildings and faculty while indoctrinating generations that go into jobs payed by tax payers.

Education used to develop minds full of mush into minds that could critically think and full of enough knowledge that people knew there was much more to learn. Education used to prepare people for careers. (Note: it still does in some subjects, but that's where perspective has been lost - those subjects are subordinate to liberal studies programs.)

It seems everything surrounding colleges and universities, whether sports or academics, has turn into big business when most running those institutions are against capitalism. The one thing that they don't get about business is the notion of providing a superior product that is affordable. That's where their Marxist principles come into play - they expect government to pay. Which really means taxpayers pay for it.

It's time to put them on a diet. No more taxpayer funding of colleges/universities. No more government backed loans for tuition. Make students and their families go and see a loan officer at a bank and answer the question, "How are you going to pay this loan back with a degree Gender Studies?"

This entire line of thought leads to another diet. Every job in government, or is funded by tax dollars, that requires one of these bogus degrees should be defunded. It's a perfect acid-test to shrink the size of government. Go to HR and get the list of job positions and their qualifications. If the qualifications call for one of these Marxists majors then make everyone holding that position redundant. Hire a thousand clerks from temp agencies for two weeks to get the job done. Pink slips can follow a week later. It's a great way to get rid of the deep state, reduce government intrusion in our lives, cut taxes and ultimately pay down the debt. (All of these things used to be goals of conservatives.)

[libertylover]

I went to the Michigan site to find out how much season tickets would cost and it’s more complicated than Japanese arithmetic. I’m sure they’re very expensive and then there’s the required booster club membership and parking.

[machman]

Always have been a huge college football fan, but they now have ruined it too. I used to follow college basketball too, but stopped caring about it years ago. Time to end all athletic scholarships, make college sports truly amateur sports again. If some kid wants to play professionally, turn pro when you get out of high school, college is not the place for them.