Well these are pretty good one year numbers for the top twenty. (click the link for the top twenty in pictures for all the info) I'd say they're somewhat incomplete numbers that don't paint a totally rosy picture. Take a look at the numbers, for example, for the University of Michigan Wolverines: "Value: $85 million Profit: $36.2 million... Michigan will add 83 luxury suites and 3,200 club seats to "the big house" next year at a cost of $226 million. " What's not explained is where the $226 million comes from. Plus, as I said before, this is a relatively small number of schools. Is this the rule for football? Even for Div I football? I doubt it. Lots of things cost a school money. Football isn't the only school program that may run in the red and still be kept around. My hunch is that football and men's basketball are a few activities that occasionally make the school some coin. But that's the point, which bperk made way back when, and which I've made since: the mission of an educational institution, particularly one receiving public money (and any school subject to Title IX regulation is receiving public money), is not to make money, it is to educate. Educational institutions don't axe departments for not turning a profit. So why should occasionally bringing in more revenue than your costs be grounds to elevate your program head and shoulders above everything else? Now, you can make a valid argument that collegiate athletics as a whole has gotten out of hand and that it's a bit of a joke to call it an educational program...but that horse left the barn a long time ago. Whether you feel it ought to be that way or not, in the present day, sports teams mean athletic scholarships, which mean educational opportunity. And, before you start saying that the notion of the scholar-athlete has become a joke, take a closer look at the female scholar-athletes who have benefited from Title IX -- who, without Title IX, would never have received scholarships. From UT's page on the top twenty: *In addition, the football program was directly responsible for $16.2 million in donations to the Volunteer Athletic & Scholarship fund via ticket reservation fees. "Ticket reservation fees" don't sound like what I think of as booster contributions -- it sounds more like what Ticket Bastard or another agency charges as an add-on to a ticket price. If I'm right about that, that money didn't come from checks written by boosters motivated by the football program, but was tacked on to the ticket prices, and no one who "contributed" that money had any choice in the matter. Even if that were booster dollars, it doesn't support the assertion that most of the football team's expenses are paid for by booster dollars. It could be true, it's just that that figure doesn't support it. The article wasn't bashing Title IX, it just suggests that it may need some tweaking to be more reasonable. The article's got an agenda. See my first comment in the thread. And when the article states this: The total number of women's teams has exceeded the total number of men's teams since 1995. I have to wonder if Title IX has been a reasonable "solution" to gender inequities. Not sure what you mean there...that things are now "unequal" because (according to the article) the total number of women's teams exceeds the total number of men's teams? If so, what about the total number of athletes? What about the total number of athletic scholarships? What about the total number of athletic scholarship dollars? Also, I don't know or have missed all the cites regarding "CU." I commented on it at length back when it happened, but here's a recap: in 2006, CU athletic director Mike Bohn found himself with a $2 million budget deficit, a large chunk of which was directly attributable to the football program (mostly a buyout of former head coach Gary Barnett's $3.1 million contract when he got canned in December 2005, and an additional $700k a buyout for the existing contract of incoming coach Dan Hawkins). Bohn's response to this unenviable situation was to cut $1 million from the athletic budget, $350,000 of which was made up by eliminating the men's tennis team. The elimination of the team, which was announced in late March of 2006, was effective at the end of the current academic year. Efforts were made to raise $1 million dollars privately, to effectively fund the tennis team for three years, but Bohn would not reconsider his decision -- the team was out. No one in the CU tennis program had any illusion that they lost their jobs and their team because of Title IX. They know why they lost their jobs. They know exactly why. A final note: while Bohn expressed regret over the axing of the men's tennis program, he stated in an article in the CU paper that that the decision was based on "revenue-producing ability, traditions and/or competitiveness. "It came down to the heritage of different sports," he said." In its final season, after receiving the axe from Bohn, the men's tennis team achieved its highest national ranking in the team's nearly one hundred year history.
So why should occasionally bringing in more revenue than your costs be grounds to elevate your program head and shoulders above everything else? One of the main jobs of a university president--and consequently significant people under him, such as an AD--is to raise money. You're right, programs aren't cut at universities solely because they don't turn a profit, particularly academic programs. On the other side of that coin, if you have a program that does make you money and has a possibility of making you lots of money, you want to encourage that. If you look at that list of top 20 valuable teams, there is mention of donations from the teams back to academic programs. Additionally, while it's likely that those ticket reservation fees are just a way of extorting more money from season ticket holders, there are still large donations made to schools that, while they may not explicitly hinge on the football or basketball team, they might be a little larger because the boys made it to a BCS game this year. Case in point, a former coworker of mine in Fairfax, VA left our office to become a project manager at nearby George Mason University in early 2006. We stayed in contact with him, and at lunch one day the following summer (after the Patriots made the run to the Final 4), he mentioned to us that due to a huge influx in donations, their budget for new buildings and renovating existing facilities (athletic and academic) had skyrocketed. I don't think that this is any different than what you would see at any other major university. On top of that, the impact of "money-making" sports teams also has to take into account money made from licensing and memorabilia, which could certainly be a large chunk. And lastly, there's publicity. In the Colorodo example (and I want to clarify up front that from what you've said, it really sounds like the tennis team got a raw deal), on the one hand, you have a football team in a BCS conference that has competed for major bowl games and national championships in the (not exactly recent but not too distant) past, with every game on television (some nationally) and a stadium that holds some 53,000 fans for every home game. On the other hand, you have a tennis team that is not on tv, has little or no spectators at it's matches and has won 5 conference titles (and only one since 1958) in it's 60 year history. In the words of Chris Rock, "I'm not saying he should have killed [the tennis team], but I understand." (As an aside: I played tennis in high school. It's a great sport, and it's a shame what happened, but it's a different animal from football.)
One of the main jobs of a university president--and consequently significant people under him, such as an AD--is to raise money. You're right, programs aren't cut at universities solely because they don't turn a profit, particularly academic programs. On the other side of that coin, if you have a program that does make you money and has a possibility of making you lots of money, you want to encourage that. No matter what? Even if it subverts the educational mission of the university? In the Colorodo example (and I want to clarify up front that from what you've said, it really sounds like the tennis team got a raw deal), on the one hand, you have a football team in a BCS conference that has competed for major bowl games and national championships in the (not exactly recent but not too distant) past, with every game on television (some nationally) and a stadium that holds some 53,000 fans for every home game. On the other hand, you have a tennis team that is not on tv, has little or no spectators at it's matches and has won 5 conference titles (and only one since 1958) in it's 60 year history. In the season following the sacrifice of the men's tennis team, the CU Buffs football team went on to rack up one of the most embarrassingly losing seasons that any football team has ever experienced. They squandered money in a way that makes drunken sailors look like Poor Richard, then turned around and stunk up the joint in record fashion. And you still want to argue that lavishing money and support on this team and getting rid of the tennis team was the right thing to do. If you can't see that the game is rigged, even from an example as stark as that one, I'm not going to be able to convince you. Yeah, Title IX did it. It's all Title IX's fault. Hail football, maker of revenue (just don't ask us to show you all the numbers, including expenses, and graduation rates, let's not talk about those either), and if those wussy little sports get cut, it's the fault of the damn Washington politicians and the damn uppity women.
Yeah, Title IX did it. It's all Title IX's fault. Hail football, maker of revenue (just don't ask us to show you all the numbers, including expenses, and graduation rates, let's not talk about those either), and if those wussy little sports get cut, it's the fault of the damn Washington politicians and the damn uppity women. I don't think anyone here or the article was saying that. I just don't get why football becomes the main topic whenever Title IX comes up. I don't get why it's so hard to accept that some football programs are profitable. I don't know what that has to do with Title IX possibly needing a look at since there has been time to see what it's strengths and possible weaknesses are. That is, if gender equity is still the ultimate goal here.
No matter what? Even if it subverts the educational mission of the university? When did that happen? In the season following the sacrifice of the men's tennis team, the CU Buffs football team went on to rack up one of the most embarrassingly losing seasons that any football team has ever experienced. They squandered money in a way that makes drunken sailors look like Poor Richard, then turned around and stunk up the joint in record fashion. And you still want to argue that lavishing money and support on this team and getting rid of the tennis team was the right thing to do. If you can't see that the game is rigged, even from an example as stark as that one, I'm not going to be able to convince you. But despite that epic disgrace of a following season, CU is still going to be on tv and they're still going to have thousands of people come to watch them play and they will rebound on the field eventually. I think I mentioned a couple times in my post that I don't like the cutting of their tennis team. If, as you say, private money was raised to fund the tennis team and the AD shot it down anyway, it sounds like perhaps he had some ulterior motive there. I don't know. You seem to be much more the expert than I am. With regard to Title IX, we've strayed a good bit away from there by now. It was not my point that Title IX was responsible for the killing of CU's tennis team or that it's bad for college sports even, but rather to say that the profitability of a team (football in particular) cannot simply be defined by Gate minus Expenses. ADs around the country don't spend 30% of their budgets on the football team because they don't mind losing money. Not to say that there aren't some schools in the red for football, but i'd be surprised if there were very many in BCS conferences in that situation. Sometimes you may have to make a tough decision, but when facing the (unique) situation described above, I think a lot of ADs would make the same decision.
Not to say that there aren't some schools in the red for football, but i'd be surprised if there were very many in BCS conferences in that situation. I think football teams in a major conference are a no-brainer. You have to spend the money because even if your team is not succesful, you get a pretty large chunk of the pie anyway. However, the vast majority of college football teams do not fall into this category. They still take a huge amount of money to operate. Schools argue that they help balance the women/men enrollment deficits at schools and bring a higher profile to schools. Are they worth their rather large cost? I don't really know. I do know that the schools choosing to operate a football team has to meet their obligations under title IX. If the football team is successful, then there should be more money to spend on all the other sports. If the football team is successful, then the school needs to consider how they are going to meet the obligations of title IX with a football program eating up a large chunk of the athletic department's budget.
I don't think anyone here or the article was saying that. I just don't get why football becomes the main topic whenever Title IX comes up. Because whenever Title IX comes up, someone has to point out that men's sports suffer, because when you allow them damn uppity women to play sports, there isn't enough money left for the wrestling team -- or the men's tennis team. And then it becomes a money thing, and then you have to ask yourself not just where the money comes from, but where it goes to, and who's getting the lion's share of the budget. The hit that CU took for the contract buyouts alone would have funded their tennis team for more than ten years. Why should football not be the main topic? I don't get why it's so hard to accept that some football programs are profitable. Strawman. I don't know what that has to do with Title IX possibly needing a look at since there has been time to see what it's strengths and possible weaknesses are. That is, if gender equity is still the ultimate goal here. Third time now: the author of the article has an agenda. The author wrote the article not in an honest spirit of inquiry, but because she is against Title IX. She is head of an organization that rather skillfully hides its promotion of neocon anti-women agendas. Consider the source.
When did that happen? It happens every time a functional illiterate is given a scholarship so that the football team can have a really great [insert position of choice]. But despite that epic disgrace of a following season, CU is still going to be on tv and they're still going to have thousands of people come to watch them play and they will rebound on the field eventually. And so what? Just...exactly...so what? Why do they have a university, to get their football team, with its wonderful reputation for off-the-field crime, onto TV? Because a bunch of morons will continue to fill seats in their stadium no matter how shitty they are? I think I mentioned a couple times in my post that I don't like the cutting of their tennis team. If, as you say, private money was raised to fund the tennis team and the AD shot it down anyway, it sounds like perhaps he had some ulterior motive there. I don't know. You seem to be much more the expert than I am. Yeah, I got chapter and verse on it. The CU men's tennis coaches used to run a lot of summer programs (they don't have any $3.1 million contracts, ya know) and my older brother used to train there all the time. I got to know Sam Winterbotham, who was the head coach who got axed -- during the whole raw deal, he was a gentleman and a professional throughout. Incidentally, if you follow tennis at all, you've probably seen one of his former athletes from when he was at Baylor -- Benjamin Becker, the guy who defeated Andre Agassi in Agassi's final match. Sam ended up as the head men's coach at Tennessee, and CU did at least offer to continue the scholarships of his non-graduating players. With no team to play on, though, I'm not sure if any of them stayed. With regard to Title IX, we've strayed a good bit away from there by now. It was not my point that Title IX was responsible for the killing of CU's tennis team or that it's bad for college sports even, but rather to say that the profitability of a team (football in particular) cannot simply be defined by Gate minus Expenses. No, it's Gate plus Alumni Donations plus TV Fees plus Merchandise minus Scholarships minus Salaries minus Facilities Cost minus Capital Costs minus Other Operating Costs minus Buyouts minus Bailouts minus Legal Fees minus Hush-up Money... ;-) ADs around the country don't spend 30% of their budgets on the football team because they don't mind losing money. Not to say that there aren't some schools in the red for football, but i'd be surprised if there were very many in BCS conferences in that situation. Sometimes you may have to make a tough decision, but when facing the (unique) situation described above, I think a lot of ADs would make the same decision. Now...after having seen those numbers, how can you honestly say that? The money got raised. It wasn't a dime out of Bohn's budget. Oh, he had reasons -- they just weren't good, honest or ethical ones.
I think football teams in a major conference are a no-brainer. You have to spend the money because even if your team is not succesful, you get a pretty large chunk of the pie anyway. However, the vast majority of college football teams do not fall into this category. The BCS still accounts for 66/120 (55%) teams in division 1-A. Of other 1-A conferences, I'd imagine a few schools are profitable in football, and more than a few break even or worse. In 1-AA or lower, the expenditures are significantly lower due to reduced travel, smaller teams, worse facilities, etc., although the revenues certainly would be significantly lower as well. I couldn't find any numbers in a quick search to see how that would break out--if anyone knows a good resource, I'd love to see it. Of course, the payday they get for taking the buyout from a 1-A school on one home game a year could cover the rest of their expenses.
It happens every time a functional illiterate is given a scholarship so that the football team can have a really great [insert position of choice]. I agree that the minor leagues that are college football and basketball do have some work to do with regard to student athletes, but (1) they do still allow for some students to go to college/receive scholarships who might not otherwise be able to, and (2) that doesn't detract from the institution's ability to fulfill their educational mission with the rest of the students. Besides, there are non-athletes who don't go to class as well. And so what? Just...exactly...so what? Why do they have a university, to get their football team, with its wonderful reputation for off-the-field crime, onto TV? Because a bunch of morons will continue to fill seats in their stadium no matter how shitty they are? No, the AD has an athletic department to work within the university and provide athletic opportunities for student athletes, and he has one team that has a recently tarnished reputation but still has the potential to be the one team that earns money to help pay for the other teams and get publicity to keep people interested in Colorado University. Now...after having seen those numbers, how can you honestly say that? The money got raised. It wasn't a dime out of Bohn's budget. Oh, he had reasons -- they just weren't good, honest or ethical ones. Perhaps I didn't phrase that part of my post very well. I meant when faced with the original situation, when he initially made the decision to cut the tennis team--not after the $1M was raised. Up to that point, it sounds like he was looking at a budget and had to make a cut somewhere, and unfortunately it affected some nice and unsuspecting people. The second decision sounds like he had his own agenda, and if you know any more about it, I'd be happy to hear about it.
I couldn't find any numbers in a quick search to see how that would break out--if anyone knows a good resource, I'd love to see it. I checked the DOE site posted above. You can search by aggregate institutions. I did a quick search of aggregate institutions in I-A and I-AA by expenses and by revenue. In I-A, the football revenue totalled quite a lot more than the expenses for football. In I-AA, those numbers about equalled out.
Lbb, So the CU tennis team got screwed and it had nothing to do with Title IX. Glad you keep bringing it up. And the article is complete trash because a super secret "anti-woman," neocon wrote it to promote her skillfully veiled agenda of ruining women's rights. No football program is good for the school and it is impossible that they may actually make any money because UM is investing in stadium renovations to lose some more money. As it would be impossible to consider that a sound investment. And you like to say "damn uppity women," so that anyone who may have found it interesting to question whether Title IX is perfect as it stands now, is some sort of women's rights oppressor. If I'm missing a real point in there somewhere, let me know. In the meantime I've enjoyed perusing through bperks link. UM's football team generates enough profit to subsidize the entire athletic program and then some. There is one more women's team than men's and participation is almost equal (the women had a handful more) It all looks good based on the numbers and football appears to be an excellent place to spend quite a bit of money due to it's excellent ROI. As bperk also points out, football in D-I seemingly across the board covers it's nut. So, we can not let the facts regarding football get in the way and continue to bemoan that it is the crux of all evil in college athletics, or we can leave it out of a discussion on how Title IX is working out.
bender: I agree that the minor leagues that are college football and basketball do have some work to do with regard to student athletes, but (1) they do still allow for some students to go to college/receive scholarships who might not otherwise be able to, and (2) that doesn't detract from the institution's ability to fulfill their educational mission with the rest of the students. Besides, there are non-athletes who don't go to class as well. You asked the question, I answered it. Now I have one for you: how does it not compromise a university's academic mission to pass, even graduate, an individual who is academically marginal at best? No, the AD has an athletic department to work within the university and provide athletic opportunities for student athletes, and he has one team that has a recently tarnished reputation but still has the potential to be the one team that earns money to help pay for the other teams and get publicity to keep people interested in Colorado University. And, of course, what better to interest people in CU than a losing football team with a reputation for shady off-field behavior? The NCAA champion ski team and cross-country team couldn't possibly have any appeal to anybody. The academic departments are of no interest to anybody. Shove them all to the back, it's football that'll bring in the kind of students we want to see! Perhaps I didn't phrase that part of my post very well. I meant when faced with the original situation, when he initially made the decision to cut the tennis team--not after the $1M was raised. Up to that point, it sounds like he was looking at a budget and had to make a cut somewhere, and unfortunately it affected some nice and unsuspecting people. The second decision sounds like he had his own agenda, and if you know any more about it, I'd be happy to hear about it. It was more back-office dealings that were not made public at the time of the announcement. It wasn't known until later, but Bohn had secured an $8 million "loan" from the university to bail him out. At that point, he didn't need the money the tennis team had raised, but refusing it would give him more future dollars -- he was going to have to "pay back" that $8 million, at least in theory (in reality, I think CU can kiss that $8 million goodbye, and all the academic programs that it might have funded), and the tennis team fundraiser would have funded them for three years, not forever. So, by axing the tennis team, he got himself $350K a year down the road.
tselson: So the CU tennis team got screwed and it had nothing to do with Title IX. Glad you keep bringing it up. I brought it up because I was asked, and because a certain individual implied that I was a hypocrite for mentioning the incident in passing without providing detail. Do you have a problem with that? And the article is complete trash because a super secret "anti-woman," neocon wrote it to promote her skillfully veiled agenda of ruining women's rights. Is this your statement? No football program is good for the school and it is impossible that they may actually make any money because UM is investing in stadium renovations to lose some more money. As it would be impossible to consider that a sound investment. Is this your statement? And you like to say "damn uppity women," so that anyone who may have found it interesting to question whether Title IX is perfect as it stands now, is some sort of women's rights oppressor. Do not tell me what I think. If I'm missing a real point in there somewhere, let me know. You're missing a great many "real points" that evidently trouble you to the point that you'd rather invent statements to put in my mouth than acknowledge them. So, we can not let the facts regarding football get in the way and continue to bemoan that it is the crux of all evil in college athletics, or we can leave it out of a discussion on how Title IX is working out. Yes, of course we're free to talk about "how Title IX is working out". We should use an article as a springboard for this discussion, but we must never, never take a closer look at the author of the article to see where she's coming from. We can measure the "harm" done by Title IX by talking about losses of men's wrestling and other teams, but we are not allowed to talk about the football team, because it is sacrosanct. Really, tselson, college football is a classic case of "sleeping next to an elephant". How can you not bring it into a discussion of college athletics?
Now I have one for you: how does it not compromise a university's academic mission to pass, even graduate, an individual who is academically marginal at best? As I mentioned before, I'm not going to argue that reforms couldn't be made to make a better effort at grooming "student athletes" in colleges, particularly in football and basketball. I do, however, still believe that there are still a much larger number of players on football and basketball teams across the country who benefit here and do forward the academic mission. When you factor in (as mentioned in the last few posts) that money from football helps fund many or all of the other sports predominantly including all of the athletes who the NCAA likes to advertise are "going pro in something other than sports", those are some pretty compelling reasons to keep football at the top of the list. The NCAA champion ski team and cross-country team couldn't possibly have any appeal to anybody. The academic departments are of no interest to anybody. Shove them all to the back, it's football that'll bring in the kind of students we want to see! Are these your words? During every college football game, there are numerous advertisements from the schools involved. While they might have a shot of the football team, most of them show professors and researchers and students and are advertisements for why you should want to attend and/or support the university. Were the NCAA skiing or cross-country championships even on tv? Thank you for the info on the CU tennis team. That is along the lines of what I expected may have been the case there, and that truly is a shame for those players and coaches. That said, given that information, I'm not sure how germane that is to this discussion given that the decisions had a lot more to do with a self-serving AD than Title IX, a real budget crisis, or anything else.
So the CU tennis team got screwed and it had nothing to do with Title IX. Glad you keep bringing it up. I brought it up because I was asked, and because a certain individual implied that I was a hypocrite for mentioning the incident in passing without providing detail. Do you have a problem with that? No, you brought it up on your own and told everyone to take a look at what a money pit the football team is: The facts don't support this. Men's football and basketball turn a profit at a relatively small number of Div I schools; at many others, they're huge money pits. Take a look at CU, just to use one example. If you take a look at CU's info, you'll find that football is indeed not a money pit. You will also find that even without the men's tennis team, the men's participation percentage is still higher than it should be. Look, I have a son who hopes to play golf for a small school. I also have two younger daughters who play competitive soccer and basketball. I want them all to have a fair opportunity. That's why I found the topic interesting. I didn't invent any statements. I simply interpreted them. I have no idea why you started on about uppity women or awful evil women feminists. If they were directed at comments that were deleted, sorry. I simply tried earlier to point out that no one here seemed to be harboring that point of view. And then you said it again, directed at my comment as if to put those words in MY mouth. So, that's where I was coming from.
