4 ms·

Perhaps it sounds heretical, but how hard would it be to shift all the funding schools receive for sports into academics? Also, where exactly does the funding f

by jgg 16y ago

Perhaps it sounds heretical, but how hard would it be to shift all the funding schools receive for sports into academics? Also, where exactly does the funding for sports at major Universities come from?

yequalsx 16y ago
Except for a few, elite sports schools the funding for sports comes, in large part, from student fees and the general academic fund. Athletics is a highly corrupting influence on the university. EDIT: It would be very hard to shift funding from sports to academics because it's a cultural thing now. People are much more readily accepting of spending x million dollars to build a new stadium than to build a new research facility.
- anamax 16y ago
  > Except for a few, elite sports schools the funding for sports comes, in large part, from student fees and the general academic fund. Citation or definitions needed. For example, while Stanford is elite in some ways, it isn't a sports school. However, its "big athletic programs" (football, basketball, baseball, and possibly tennis) are more than self-supporting via directed donations and tickets. The profits are used to fund less lucrative sports. Yes, including the newish football stadium.
  - yequalsx 16y ago
    Well, citation is needed as well for the belief that sports brings in money. Do some research on the Google. Sports is a money loser for all but a handful of universities. You especially have to be careful when doing this research because universities are creative when it comes to accounting for sports expenditures. Your perception is almost entirely wrong.
    - anamax 16y ago
      I had access to Stanford's numbers. Its big ticket sports are profitable. The lesser sports aren't., although some are closer to break even than others. If Stanford has a loss in sports as a whole, it's because the lesser sports cost more than the profit from the big ticket sports. And yes, that includes the new football stadium and the newish tennis stadium.
  - yequalsx 16y ago
    OK, I'll be generous and give a link. http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/college_sports_a_money_loser/ http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/college_sports_a_m... Do you have sources for the belief that sports pay for themselves?
    - smallblacksun 16y ago
      Repeal title 9, kill the women's sports that produce no revenue but have large costs, and the problem is solved.
      - yequalsx 16y ago
        You have not the slightest idea of what you are talking about. Research sports spending at colleges and you will find that except for a few schools football programs do not support themselves. Few sports program anywhere or any type pays for itself.
- jgg 16y ago
  > It would be very hard to shift funding from sports to academics because it's a cultural thing now. Sadly, you're probably right about this. Sports seem to have become so ingrained in the popular paradigm of what you do at a university that it would be impossible to change. Oh well.
- jdminhbg 16y ago
  "People are much more readily accepting of spending x million dollars to build a new stadium than to build a new research facility." Really? It appears to me anecdotally that the run-up in tuition has been accompanied by a run-up in university building programs. My alma mater, a large state-related research school with a big sports program, is nearly unrecognizable ten years after I graduated, with a new IS building, a new science building, a new business school building, and a new law school building.
  - jimbokun 16y ago
    I read that Harvard spent tons of money on building projects they could no longer afford when the market tanked. None of them had anything to do with sports, if I recall correctly.
- yardie 16y ago
  It might be the case for your school but the funding for sports at my school came from alumni, the overwhelming majority of whom were former athletes from the school. The university did charge an athletic fee. This was to cover the publicly accessible tennis courts, basketball courts, football, baseball, and soccer fields. They also provide buses for the intramural teams. And part of it went to subsidize student football tickets to the nationally ranked football team, played in a stadium the football boosters paid for. I've watched the college next door to me transform from a small community college to a full fledged university. And they got there by having a serious athletic program.
  - yequalsx 16y ago
    It's the case for almost all schools. Sports does not lead to increase in enrollment, generally speaking. Sports do not pay for themselves except at a few schools.
    - yequalsx 16y ago
      Wow, the ignorance here is amazing. Why is my comment being down voted? Only around 20 division I schools have their sports teams making money. All of the rest are subsidized by the general academic fund. Ignorance is bliss.
pmichaud 16y ago
Sports is a profit center for the schools, which is why they get so much focus.
- jgg 16y ago
  Right, but to some degree it seems self-perpetuating: the schools get big because they get money for sports, which causes to them to get bigger, so they put more money into sports, etc. My question is, I guess, why aren't schools founded around the idea of education? It's the same feeling I have towards fraternities and sororities. I find it incredible that most people tout school as a place to learn, and yet it's quite obvious that a lot of people attend for any reason but that.
  - robryan 16y ago
    Maybe the answer is more aggressive pruning, I don't know what it's like in America but in Australia someone can probably spend 5 or 6 years barely trying before they would get kicked out.
  - jimbokun 16y ago
    I don't think that playing a sport or living a fraternity/sorority prevents someone from getting an education at the same time. For the people that do those things to the exclusion of their education, they deserve to flunk out and lose their place at school.
    - jgg 16y ago
      My point was that so much extra time and money that could be focused on improving academics is spent by the university (and by donors to the university) on irrelevant activities. I don't really care what someone does in their free time.
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  Certain sports are a profit center for certain schools. Football at U-Texas, yes. Football or rowing at Rutgers, no. They receive a disproportionate focus even when they are not. The main reason is academic politics: a physics professor is busy doing research, while the athletic department has time for lobbying.
mrduncan 16y ago
Also, where exactly does the funding for sports at major Universities come from? I'm not totally sure (so please correct me if I'm wrong), but here are my best guesses: - Money for sports complexes, stadiums, etc. mostly comes from donors who want to help make their alma mater more competitive and/or get something named after themselves. - Conferences and the NCAA pay schools with money from sponsorships, TV contacts, etc. - Schools are willing to spend some money on sports because it brings exposure to schools. For example, I'd be willing to bet that Butler's applicant pool is much larger next year due to their recent success in the NCAA tournament.
tokenadult 16y ago
Sports appear to help a university have an overall positive reputation with the general public, http://www.gallup.com/poll/9109/Harvard-Number-One-University-Eyes-Public.aspx http://www.gallup.com/poll/9109/Harvard-Number-One-Universit... so it may be that even in the Ivy League, which is on top of just a few sports, the sports generate more applicant interest in the universities, and thus help them recruit stronger (both physically and mentally) students.
philwelch 16y ago
The same place funding for professional sports comes from--ticket sales, sponsorship, TV deals, etc. The reason a university pays the football coach more than the president is because the football coach can bring in more money. (So can the players, incidentally, but there are NCAA regulations--in other words, a cartel agreement--that you don't actually pay the players, aside from giving them a generous scholarship.) At schools where sports are profitable, the profits are indeed taken in by the university and used for academics, facilities, etc.
- davidw 16y ago
  I've always wondered if it might make sense to hive off college sports into "minor leagues", wholly owned (at least initially) by universities. They get to keep their revenue stream, and could actually hire players for their market rates. I guess it wouldn't have the emotional attachment or something like that that I don't really get about college sports.
  - jdminhbg 16y ago
    All of this has basically already happened except for the part where the teams pay players market rates, so you can see where the universities would be reluctant to change anything.
robg 16y ago
The recent TV contract for NCAA basketball is $10.8 Billion over 14 years. http://chronicle.com/article/NCAA-Signs-108-Billion-Deal/65219/ http://chronicle.com/article/NCAA-Signs-108-Billion-Deal/652... The Rose Bowl (one college football game) alone is $300 Million over eight years. Basically basketball and football subsidize the other sports. Shift that funding into academics and you lose the other sports.
- RK 16y ago
  Depends on the school. I went to one of the smallest schools with a D1 football team and it is my understanding that the football team there only survives due to funds alloted by the conference, which are collected as dues from the other universities.
dantheman 16y ago
Schools don't have a funding problem. Look at the massive building campaigns they embarked on -- money is not the problem.
- jbooth 16y ago
  Depends on the school. One thing about speaking in absolutes is that you're guaranteed to be some % wrong. Harvard doesn't have a funding problem. Many universities do right now, though, including nearly all public schools due to the state budget crunch.
smallblacksun 16y ago
If you eliminated sports, alumni giving would drop significantly, almost certainly by enough to offset the small gains you got from eliminating sports.
- yequalsx 16y ago
  This is completely wrong. There is not a shred of evidence to support your statement here. Sports programs do not pay for themselves and almost never give money back to the general academic fund.

by jgg 16y ago

yequalsx 16y ago

Except for a few, elite sports schools the funding for sports comes, in large part, from student fees and the general academic fund. Athletics is a highly corrupting influence on the university. EDIT: It would be very hard to shift funding from sports to academics because it's a cultural thing now. People are much more readily accepting of spending x million dollars to build a new stadium than to build a new research facility.

anamax 16y ago
> Except for a few, elite sports schools the funding for sports comes, in large part, from student fees and the general academic fund. Citation or definitions needed. For example, while Stanford is elite in some ways, it isn't a sports school. However, its "big athletic programs" (football, basketball, baseball, and possibly tennis) are more than self-supporting via directed donations and tickets. The profits are used to fund less lucrative sports. Yes, including the newish football stadium.
- yequalsx 16y ago
  Well, citation is needed as well for the belief that sports brings in money. Do some research on the Google. Sports is a money loser for all but a handful of universities. You especially have to be careful when doing this research because universities are creative when it comes to accounting for sports expenditures. Your perception is almost entirely wrong.
  - anamax 16y ago
    I had access to Stanford's numbers. Its big ticket sports are profitable. The lesser sports aren't., although some are closer to break even than others. If Stanford has a loss in sports as a whole, it's because the lesser sports cost more than the profit from the big ticket sports. And yes, that includes the new football stadium and the newish tennis stadium.
- yequalsx 16y ago
  OK, I'll be generous and give a link. http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/college_sports_a_money_loser/ http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/college_sports_a_m... Do you have sources for the belief that sports pay for themselves?
  - smallblacksun 16y ago
    Repeal title 9, kill the women's sports that produce no revenue but have large costs, and the problem is solved.
    - yequalsx 16y ago
      You have not the slightest idea of what you are talking about. Research sports spending at colleges and you will find that except for a few schools football programs do not support themselves. Few sports program anywhere or any type pays for itself.
jgg 16y ago
> It would be very hard to shift funding from sports to academics because it's a cultural thing now. Sadly, you're probably right about this. Sports seem to have become so ingrained in the popular paradigm of what you do at a university that it would be impossible to change. Oh well.
jdminhbg 16y ago
"People are much more readily accepting of spending x million dollars to build a new stadium than to build a new research facility." Really? It appears to me anecdotally that the run-up in tuition has been accompanied by a run-up in university building programs. My alma mater, a large state-related research school with a big sports program, is nearly unrecognizable ten years after I graduated, with a new IS building, a new science building, a new business school building, and a new law school building.
- jimbokun 16y ago
  I read that Harvard spent tons of money on building projects they could no longer afford when the market tanked. None of them had anything to do with sports, if I recall correctly.
yardie 16y ago
It might be the case for your school but the funding for sports at my school came from alumni, the overwhelming majority of whom were former athletes from the school. The university did charge an athletic fee. This was to cover the publicly accessible tennis courts, basketball courts, football, baseball, and soccer fields. They also provide buses for the intramural teams. And part of it went to subsidize student football tickets to the nationally ranked football team, played in a stadium the football boosters paid for. I've watched the college next door to me transform from a small community college to a full fledged university. And they got there by having a serious athletic program.
- yequalsx 16y ago
  It's the case for almost all schools. Sports does not lead to increase in enrollment, generally speaking. Sports do not pay for themselves except at a few schools.
  - yequalsx 16y ago
    Wow, the ignorance here is amazing. Why is my comment being down voted? Only around 20 division I schools have their sports teams making money. All of the rest are subsidized by the general academic fund. Ignorance is bliss.

pmichaud 16y ago

Sports is a profit center for the schools, which is why they get so much focus.

jgg 16y ago
Right, but to some degree it seems self-perpetuating: the schools get big because they get money for sports, which causes to them to get bigger, so they put more money into sports, etc. My question is, I guess, why aren't schools founded around the idea of education? It's the same feeling I have towards fraternities and sororities. I find it incredible that most people tout school as a place to learn, and yet it's quite obvious that a lot of people attend for any reason but that.
- robryan 16y ago
  Maybe the answer is more aggressive pruning, I don't know what it's like in America but in Australia someone can probably spend 5 or 6 years barely trying before they would get kicked out.
- jimbokun 16y ago
  I don't think that playing a sport or living a fraternity/sorority prevents someone from getting an education at the same time. For the people that do those things to the exclusion of their education, they deserve to flunk out and lose their place at school.
  - jgg 16y ago
    My point was that so much extra time and money that could be focused on improving academics is spent by the university (and by donors to the university) on irrelevant activities. I don't really care what someone does in their free time.
yummyfajitas 16y ago
Certain sports are a profit center for certain schools. Football at U-Texas, yes. Football or rowing at Rutgers, no. They receive a disproportionate focus even when they are not. The main reason is academic politics: a physics professor is busy doing research, while the athletic department has time for lobbying.

mrduncan 16y ago

Also, where exactly does the funding for sports at major Universities come from? I'm not totally sure (so please correct me if I'm wrong), but here are my best guesses: - Money for sports complexes, stadiums, etc. mostly comes from donors who want to help make their alma mater more competitive and/or get something named after themselves. - Conferences and the NCAA pay schools with money from sponsorships, TV contacts, etc. - Schools are willing to spend some money on sports because it brings exposure to schools. For example, I'd be willing to bet that Butler's applicant pool is much larger next year due to their recent success in the NCAA tournament.

tokenadult 16y ago

Sports appear to help a university have an overall positive reputation with the general public, http://www.gallup.com/poll/9109/Harvard-Number-One-University-Eyes-Public.aspx http://www.gallup.com/poll/9109/Harvard-Number-One-Universit... so it may be that even in the Ivy League, which is on top of just a few sports, the sports generate more applicant interest in the universities, and thus help them recruit stronger (both physically and mentally) students.

philwelch 16y ago

The same place funding for professional sports comes from--ticket sales, sponsorship, TV deals, etc. The reason a university pays the football coach more than the president is because the football coach can bring in more money. (So can the players, incidentally, but there are NCAA regulations--in other words, a cartel agreement--that you don't actually pay the players, aside from giving them a generous scholarship.) At schools where sports are profitable, the profits are indeed taken in by the university and used for academics, facilities, etc.

davidw 16y ago
I've always wondered if it might make sense to hive off college sports into "minor leagues", wholly owned (at least initially) by universities. They get to keep their revenue stream, and could actually hire players for their market rates. I guess it wouldn't have the emotional attachment or something like that that I don't really get about college sports.
- jdminhbg 16y ago
  All of this has basically already happened except for the part where the teams pay players market rates, so you can see where the universities would be reluctant to change anything.

robg 16y ago

The recent TV contract for NCAA basketball is $10.8 Billion over 14 years. http://chronicle.com/article/NCAA-Signs-108-Billion-Deal/65219/ http://chronicle.com/article/NCAA-Signs-108-Billion-Deal/652... The Rose Bowl (one college football game) alone is $300 Million over eight years. Basically basketball and football subsidize the other sports. Shift that funding into academics and you lose the other sports.

RK 16y ago
Depends on the school. I went to one of the smallest schools with a D1 football team and it is my understanding that the football team there only survives due to funds alloted by the conference, which are collected as dues from the other universities.

dantheman 16y ago

Schools don't have a funding problem. Look at the massive building campaigns they embarked on -- money is not the problem.

jbooth 16y ago
Depends on the school. One thing about speaking in absolutes is that you're guaranteed to be some % wrong. Harvard doesn't have a funding problem. Many universities do right now, though, including nearly all public schools due to the state budget crunch.

smallblacksun 16y ago

If you eliminated sports, alumni giving would drop significantly, almost certainly by enough to offset the small gains you got from eliminating sports.

yequalsx 16y ago
This is completely wrong. There is not a shred of evidence to support your statement here. Sports programs do not pay for themselves and almost never give money back to the general academic fund.