

Nearly All US Universities Lose Money on Sports - ojbyrne
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=easterbrook/101207_tuesday_morning_quarterback&sportCat=nfl

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burgerbrain
I will _never_ understand what quality education and sports have in common.

In fact, with the rate of brain-damage suffered by american football players,
I suspect sports are actually a detriment to education, not even counting the
resources they suck from it.

EDIT: Another case against college sports, and sports scholarships:
[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/26/drexel-
basketball-r...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/26/drexel-basketball-
robbery_n_659387.html)

~~~
parfe
_I will never understand what quality education and sports have in common._

Ever seen 50,000 alumni show up on campus for a theoretical physics
conference?

~~~
burgerbrain
Excellent point. People showing up to a school for non-academic reasons
clearly provide an academic benefit... Not.

I also haven't seen a theoretical physics conference gather dozens students
late on a Friday night, but that doesn't mean kegs are good for education.

~~~
micks56
Should we also cancel the drama program, debate team, musical ensembles, and
school newspaper?

~~~
jhaglund
Of course not. The question is does the amount we spend on athletics
(millions) really do anything for academics? No one is saying athletics have
no place in university. But why are we spending so much on it, compared to the
drama program, debate team, musical ensembles, and school newspaper? When
those subjects which tie into academics better than athletics.

~~~
micks56
> No one is saying athletics have no place in university.

burgerbrain seems to be saying this, which is what I responded to.

> When those subjects which tie into academics better than athletics.

Tie in differently, not better. There are many ways to learn and many lessons
to be learned. Drama, debate, music, newspaper, and sports, among others, are
all different paths to learn those lessons.

I am not justifying the large amounts of money spent on sports programs. What
I am saying is that sports do educate people and provide an important
opportunity for students in many ways. Saying "nothing is learned while
playing sports" is false.

~~~
burgerbrain
_" > No one is saying athletics have no place in university.

burgerbrain seems to be saying this"_

Absolutely incorrect. I merely believe they should _not_ receive
disproportionate funding, compared to other non-academic clubs; and assert
that like other _non-academic_ clubs, they should play _absolutely no_ role in
acceptance.

 _"Tie in differently, not better"_

BULLSHIT. Journalism (newspaper club) is a respected academic study. Tackling
dudes on a lawn over a ball is _not_. Drama, debate, and music are similarly
intellectual endeavours, _not_ sports.

 _"What I am saying is that sports do educate people"_

Spoken like a true meathead. Even if they _did_ educate, which is a laughable
claim, they have no place in the curriculum of universities.

~~~
asr
Please keep this respectful. I happen to agree with you but there's way too
much virulence running through this post (and much of this thread, IMHO).

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jrbran
As much as I love TMQB, and I do agree about the excesses in administration
levels at both college and pro ranks (I believe his post superbowl column
dealt with the extravagance of pro front offices, in terms of the labor
talks). There are obvious biases to his work :

 _Some coaches' salaries are covered by booster funds, not by the school
itself: but booster funds funnel money that otherwise might have been donated
to a school's academic programs_

This is simply untrue for most major sports universities. Boosters by and
large donate to the school for sports, primarily, and then to education,
secondarily. Phil Knight's largesses to the University of Oregon help both
athletic and scholarly activities, but when the rumor that he gets to call one
play a game [1] indicate the real reason for his contributions. Robert
Burton's several million dollar donation to UCONN was primarily focused on its
athletics [2] and his lack of approval in their hiring of Paul Pasqualoni
resulted in his desire to have his $3million donation refunded.

Rich people aren't bragging to their friends about the SAT scores of their
schools, but are bragging when their team beats your team.

[1][http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2011/feb/06/uconn-
contro...](http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2011/feb/06/uconn-controversy-
shines-light-on-influence-of/?tigerextra)

[2][http://terrapinstationmd.com/2011/01/26/uconn-donor-
writes-v...](http://terrapinstationmd.com/2011/01/26/uconn-donor-writes-very-
angry-letter-mentions-randy-edsall/)

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ajays
One of the big reasons Universities compete in sports is to attract alumni
donors. If you just look at it at a micro level, the direct expense on sports
is probably more than the revenue from sports. But if you factor in alumni
donations, then I've heard that the benefits far outweigh the costs.

I was in a Division II school, and they made a big push to get into Division
I. And the main reason they gave was to get alumni involvement in the school.

~~~
fourspace
The article address this fallacy. More often than not, those alumni donors are
giving money to the athletic booster programs, not the school's academic
programs. As a result, everyone who attends the university and pays tuition
pays for the athletic program, even though only a small percentage actually
play sports.

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snowmizuh
Did anyone actually read the article and his source?!? The article's author,
Gregg Easterbrook, appears to have misread the NCAA report that supports his
main thesis.

Here is the key statement from Easterbrook's article: "Recently the NCAA
reported that only 14 Division I-A programs clear a profit, while no college
or university in the United States has an athletic department that is
financially self-sustaining. Nobody in Division I -- not Alabama, not Auburn,
not Oklahoma, nobody -- has an athletic department that pays its own way. "

In this quote he makes reference to this NCAA report:
[http://www.ncaapublications.com/productdownloads/REV_EXP_201...](http://www.ncaapublications.com/productdownloads/REV_EXP_2010.pdf)

Apparently, he got that statement from the page 8 of the report, where there
is a summary of findings. Here is the statement: "A total of 14 athletics
programs in the FBS reported positive net revenues for the 2009 fiscal year,
which represents a decrease from the 25 reported in 2008. The gap between the
“profitable” programs and the remainder continued to grow, however a bit more
slowly. (3.5)"

Anyone notice the mistake he made?

Revenue is the _input_ side of the ledger. Profit is the revenue minus
expenses.

The claim in the NCAA report is that only 14 schools had a net increase in
revenue (year over year).

It does not claim that only 14 schools were profitable!!!

This can be further confirmed by using the NCAA's own financial database:

<http://www2.indystar.com/NCAA_financial_reports/>

Univ of Mich had a net profit of $17mil Univ of Texas had a net profit of
$7mil Auburn Uni. had a new profit of $121k Univ of Alabama (Roll Tide)
reported a neglible loss for 2010, but I suspect this is an anamoly (big
capital improvement plans just completed--new stadium expansion etc.)

Note where most of the profit comes from: football! Also note that typically
the men's programs (football and basketball) make huge profits which cover the
losses for women's and other programs.

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30thElement
Theses statistics come up several times a year, and they are always
misleading. It's Hard to measure how much money a University makes on sports
teams. I go to a school that has a BCS football program that makes more money
then it spends (objectively, spent ~18 million last year and made ~23
million). I don't know about the athletic program at large. But beyond that
$23M in revenue directly from the football program, there are some other
revenue sources that are hard to measure.

Schools like UT make a whole lot of their money off of alumni donating
directly to the program. When UT lost their head coach, on of the alumni flew
in several potential candidates for the position on his private jet. How do
you measure that in revenue?

Further, I would not have gone to the school I chose if it weren't for the
football program. Season tickets, even in the nosebleeds, for a team that has
won its conference more often then not in the past 5 years, has way more value
to me then the ~$300 that I pay. That definitely reflected in my decision to
go here, and I probably would have gone somewhere else otherwise. So we can
claim at least ~$30k per year to my school for their athletic program.

Also, depending on what they include in the athletic program, it can be even
more involved. Would you have gone to a school with no intramural programs?
What about if they had no gym? Maybe a lot of people would have, but the
majority would not.

~~~
chris11
If it made 5 million that year it is one of the few that made money. And
besides, I doubt the school would have made money if only profitable teams
were allowed to play in the division, so its still a net loss.

And that plane trip shouldn't be considered profit. The lack of a major sports
team would have meant the lack of a free plane trip, but it would also have
meant the lack of a need for a plane trip.

And I highly doubt your school's net profit is 30k per student per year.

~~~
30thElement
Yeah, the plane trip wasn't meant as an example of where schools make extra
money, just an example of how donors contribute that may or may not show up in
the revenue. If they donated their private jet, they also donated a fair bit
of cash, which I'm not sure if it shows up in revenue.

Also, the ~$5M profit wasn't meant to be presented as the standard, just to
give context as to where my comment was coming from. It was meant as "I don't
need to rationalize my school's waste of money, and I might be in a minority
of schools that do make a profit". My school sinks a lot of money into a not
very good (but getting better) basketball program, so it wouldn't surprise me
if we were a net loss for athletics.

Profit per student is also a tricky thing. Most professors are a sunk cost
(tenure), so while the profit per student is less then $30k per year, the
marginal profit per student is ~$30k. But ignoring that, they have to be
making at least some profit off of me and other students that would not have
gone here if it weren't for the football program. It wouldn't be $30k per
person, but it also wouldn't be 0.

My comment wasn't meant to disprove the statistic, as it wouldn't surprise me
if a significant portion of schools lose on their athletic program, but to
argue that it might be less then they asserted.

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ojbyrne
This is a weekly football column, most of which is about the topic in
question, when you get to the words "Brett Favre" you can stop reading. Do
follow the links, though, the USA Today one is especially damning.

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A1kmm
So why are student clubs being giving an effectively unlimited budget out of
proportion with the number of members?

At all the universities in my country, student clubs (whether they are about
sport, non-sport competitive activities, interests and hobbies, or even
'drinking clubs') get paid by the student association (which has a finite
budget to provide services to students) based on the number of students in the
club. Student sports clubs are unlikely to be able to afford any full-time
staff - but that isn't really necessary when there are plenty of club members
willing to volunteer.

I have to wonder how any university could not have at least some limits on how
much university money clubs could spend per member.

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skilesare
There clearly seems to be an agenda with this post (and certainly in some of
the comments). My question is, why would you make THIS your agenda?

Clearly there is a benefit to Universities having athletics. As other
commenters have stated, this mostly shows itself in alumni donations, alumni
engagement, and alumni pride.

Other reason probably have to do with the fact that when recruiting 18 year
old kids to pursue a 4 year course of study it may be helpful to select
individuals that have show the ability to focus on something to a level of
success. It takes a lot of effort to be a collegiate level athlete in
anything. My guess is that this generally and consistently translates to the
ability to succeed in academics and life in general. When your 18 you may not
have had a whole lot of chances to apply your self to anything. Just something
gets you halfway there.

At least 6 US presidents have played athletics for a university.(random
tidbit)

I didn't play. I received an academic scholarship for making an awesome grade
on a standardized test that I paid a bunch of money to prep for. Yeah me. At
the time I thought they gave it to me because I did awesome on the test. 15
years later I look back realize that it was the fact that I did the focused
work to succeed that they were more interested in.

Beyond the actual contribution of athletics to the University ecosystem, why
do we have to live in a world that is so small that we have to make a decision
one way or another? Who peed in your cheerios? Who is hurt by college
athletics? Certainly there are some issues around Football Concussions at the
moment, but that is addressable outside of 'Lets get rid of sports because you
don't have to study'.

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sb
That's just appalling. In Europe, AFAIK there is usually no such thing as
college/university sports--competition-wise, that is (aside of the known the
Oxford/Cambridge rowing competition.)

I just recently discovered the following site, which just makes me sad:
<http://www.sacbee.com/statepay/?name=papadimitriou>

Why are UC-Berkeley and UCLA head coaches earning more than 8 times as much as
Christos Papadimitriou? Granted his salary is stellar by comparison, but there
are a couple of other well-known UC professors who earn _much_ less. (Richard
Karp [of Rabin-Karp fame and Turing-Award winner] gets 166k [14 times less
than the UC-Berkeley head-coach].) In addition, the professors from the med-
schools seem to do a lot better; even though they are quite out of proportion,
at least they're saving lives.

Previously, I supposed these were profitable investments, but when one head
coach salaries buys you 14 Dick Karps or 8 Christos Papadimitrious, I really
think it doesn't make any sense at all...

~~~
pero
In Europe, they do do it differently. Players turn professional at 16-18
depending on the sport and then ride the bench until their mid-20s unless they
are truly prodigies. Pro teams are responsible for developing talent and have
feeder clubs that field toddlers; they also support B/C/D/E-level leagues
which play on town/village level.

What's happening in the US is that the educational system is subsidizing
player development and regional promotion for the big pro leagues--which are
such a big business it's not even funny.

~~~
henrikschroder
"The High School Football Team" is an incredibly common movie and TV
stereotype, that has no equivalent whatsoever over here, and until recently I
never really thought about how completely different the situations are.

How did this happen? Why did junior sports become attached to high schools and
colleges in the US when there's nothing like it in Europe?

~~~
smcl
In scotland rugby developed this way, so that now the "FP" (i.e. school) teams
feature promininently in the top two tiers: GHA, Boroughmuir, Watsonians,
Heriots, Dundee High, Edinburgh Academicals, Aberdeen Grammar, Stewart's
Melville are all such teams.

School\Uni rugby (universities compete in a separate competition) is the
closest equivalent we have, though it's utterly unable to compete in terms of
attendance and money :)

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Alex3917
Nearly all US universities lose money on education too. The average Ivy league
school spends 3x more per student than it charges for tuition.

~~~
burgerbrain
All the more reason why they shouldn't be losing money on sports as well.

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aspir
Oklahoma pays it's own way. In fact, it gives nearly $1 MM to the general
scholarship fund annually.

Of course, the only citation I can offer is being a former student athlete,
and having my support staff, coaches, and university executives repeat the
statistic on the record like, well, a broken record. I haven't seen the line
items though myself -- I wasn't on the student liaison committee.

~~~
jhaglund
Heresay is what that is called. You ought find a better source and stop
repeating heresay.

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JWyme
Colleges are only partially there for academics. All in all they exist to
prepare you for "the real world" and to be a productive part of society.
Certainly you can go to college and not socialize and not watch/play any
sports and focus only on preparing for your career in academia. That's a
choice. However, most people gain a lot more out of their college experience
outside of the classroom. I was a student-athlete in the ACC and I certainly
gained a lot more preparation for life after school from my experience as an
athlete than as a student. To say sports aren't important in college is simply
naive. As a matter of fact, to the poster that said "that doesn't mean kegs
are good for education" I'll play devil's advocate and say that there is a ton
of education that comes out of socializing and partying. It helps you become a
lot more comfortable in social settings. In turn this helps you in other
facets of your future career.

tldr; IMO, out-of-class activities during college are just as important if not
more important than the in class education.

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dustingetz
look guys, when nearly every single player in a mature market is doing the
same thing, its a good bet that what they're doing is good for business.
instead of screaming about it, maybe we should try to understand.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
public schools do not exist in a market. what private schools do is their
business, the issue here is that they are spending your money on what amounts
to a hole in the ground benefits wise.

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enjo
What about merchandise sales? I doubt those directly show up on the athletic
department balance sheets, but every time a Alabama hoodie is sold, that is
almost entirely because of athletics. I strongly doubt that in reality most of
these departments are operating in anything resembling the red.

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Prisen
I see no numbers for individual sports. Athletic departments losing money does
not mean that the football team is losing money.

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jdminhbg
My college quiz bowl team did not make my university any money, and I am not
more educated because I participated in it.

Maybe there are better places to re-fight high school nerds v jocks battles
than HN?

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fleitz
It's advertising. I bet most University research programmes don't make money
either. But they do move undergrad degrees, and endowments. Harvard does not
have a rowing team for the benefit of the Winkelvoss twins, it has a rowing
team because that is the kind of thing that their parents and other alumni
expect.

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gChinkin
Of course this would be on HN.

