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Nearly All US Universities Lose Money on Sports

67 points by ojbyrne 16y ago

ojbyrne 16y ago
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.
burgerbrain 16y ago
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-robbery_n_659387.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/26/drexel-basketball-r...
- burgerbrain 16y ago
  To the downvoter: A downvote won't change reality. http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/f/football/head_injuries/index.html http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects...
- parfe 16y ago
  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?
  - tokenadult 16y ago
    Ever seen 50,000 alumni show up on campus for a theoretical physics conference? And when those 50,000 alumni show up on campus, what do they do to make the education at that university better?
    - keiferski 16y ago
      They pay for the university's existence.
      - tokenadult 16y ago
        If what they pay is less than what the university spends on them, in what sense are they paying to improve education?
        muuh-gnu 16y ago
        And even if they paid more back thant the university invested, it still has not to do anything with education. It is then just a part-time money making scheme to keep the university alive. Since such investments into the sports business do not have anything to do with the core business of the university, education, they could they could easily invest into other kinds of non-educational but profitable businesses like, for example, porn. It then also means that universities can obviously not survive financially just by doing their core business, i.e. by offering educational and research services and _have_ to invest into more profitable but completely non-intellectual endeavours.
        parfe 16y ago
        the core business of the university, education Bzz, wrong. Education is a college's job. A university's core business is research. Education is just a part-time money making scheme to keep the university alive.
        keiferski 16y ago
        You are oversimplifying the educational system to a very large degree (pun intended). Education isn't about the 'information', it's about the collective sum of benefits that a university provides. If it were strictly about the education (courses, books, etc.) there would be no purpose -- most of it can be found for free online. University is about the whole package, of which a strong alumni network is often a major piece. Without a strong sports program, many of these schools would lose a large fraction of their alumni's attention - and I don't mean dollars and cents. To use a previous commenter: Ding ding ding. I went to a D3 school for football, and when considering a possible MBA, something I was looking at half jokingly, but half legitimately, was whether the school was large - because I thought it would make watching sports on TV for the rest of my life, and having true attachment, a lot more fun. Undoubtedly, as I progress further in my career, that fervor would have grown with team success, and also made my attachment more real - while my current alma mater (Chapman University in Southern California) - would have fallen away from consciousness with no legitimate way to grab my attention. Whether I make a donation to any school in the future is up for debate, and I am now not likely to get an MBA based on many of the points raised here and elsewhere - but the point made on this comment hits the nail on the head. I find it extremely unlikely that I will ever donate to my small private school in Southern California - because the thoughts of how it's helped me depart with every passing second, and they have no way to get it back. This obviously leads to a weakening of the school on a whole, in terms of future enrollment and overall reputation, leading to a decline in the quality of education.
  - burgerbrain 16y ago
    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 16y ago
      Should we also cancel the drama program, debate team, musical ensembles, and school newspaper?
      - jhaglund 16y ago
        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 16y ago
        > 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 16y ago
        "> 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.
  - absconditus 16y ago
    Were the Japanese forced into submission by a great football match?
    - lucasjung 16y ago
      More than they were by homework sets. Academic research certainly played a role in winning the second world war. I'd say that quality leadership played an even bigger role. Cadets and Midshipmen at our service academies have always been required to participate in athletics because team sports develop leadership, teamwork, and tactical and strategic thinking (in the '30s through the '60s, the service academies were powerhouses in college football). Academy graduates were a minority of overall officers in the war, but were a majority of the most senior officers. Prior to the war, the cadre of war college students and faculty who developed the tactics and strategies which won the war were also predominantly academy graduates.
      - Wientje 16y ago
        As far as 26 July '45, the Japanese refused to surrender. The guys that forced Japan in to submission were Little Boy and Fat Man and they had an academic background. The only leadership required from the 'sport trained' generals was choosing which city had the most juicy civilians.
        lucasjung 16y ago
        The "only" leadership required to use Little Boy and Fat Man was fighting our way across the world's biggest ocean to get into range to use them. To accomplish the same task, academics would have needed another couple of decades (and a boat-load of stolen German scientists) to invent the ICBM. Nukes certainly ended the war earlier, and I believe they saved tens if not hundreds of thousands of lives on both sides, but they didn't create victory. Victory was already a foregone conclusion by the time we used them--they just accelerated it and lowered the cost dramatically.
  - bbgm 16y ago
    > Ever seen 50,000 alumni show up on campus for a theoretical physics conference? One can be Utopian and wish for that day.
- aspir 16y ago
  I've personally seen more 1 generation college attendees in my athletics career circle than not; they're not ignorant jocks trying to skate into the pros, they're trying to better their standing by any means necessary. Most athletes also understand that they "go pro in something other than sports," to steal the NCAA tagline. Ask your alma mater's department heads, deans and development officers if sports matters. Research (even tech transfer) doesn't raise enough cash to fund our current university system. Tuition doesn't either; and state support (if applicable) doesn't get far either. Donors provide the rest. The best way to butter up a donor is through university brand prominence. A non Ivy League school can't compete in the same fields as an MIT, Stanford, Cal Tech, etc. You have to increase your university brand through any respectable means necessary. Sports is often that angle. Go ask your endowed profs if sports matters in any factor to their compensation. It's likely they'll admit that it helps, at minimum.
  - burgerbrain 16y ago
    This is and always has been a terrible argument. Academic scholarships will always be a better use of money. There is no reason those first generation students can't get the attention of schools with academic excellence instead of sports, particularly if they are generally as bright as you claim.
    - micks56 16y ago
      Not every lesson or piece of information can be learned from a book or in a classroom. Good luck getting soft skills there. Real learning occurs while playing sports. Soft skills, discipline, teamwork, personal fitness, and long-time dedication are just a few areas where sports help the whole person.
      - lambda 16y ago
        If real learning occurs while playing sports, then why isn't every student at a university allowed on a sports team? If it's so essential to education, then it should be part of the curriculum. And are soft skills, discipline, teamwork, and long-term dedication not things that people learn running clubs, competing at quiz bowl, going hiking, hacking software in their free time? Then why is there such disproportionate funding for sports vs all of these other activities? Having been involved in several clubs and club sports in college, you're treated like shit compared to varsity athletes. I'll be damned if the juggling club could reserve a room in the gym once a week to practice. The Tang Soo Do club had to fight to get enough funding from the college to buy pads and gloves for practicing and sparring with, and that's mostly because it actually brought in money as people outside the college paid to be able to take classes. And yet the football team, which was notorious for losing almost every game it played, had several full-time coaches and staff, its own building and stadium reserved only for their use, got bussed or flown all over the east coast for games and so on. Most other club activities were lucky if they could wrangle a hundred bucks a semester from the college for support.
30thElement 16y ago
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 16y ago
  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 16y ago
    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.
Alex3917 16y ago
Nearly all US universities lose money on education too. The average Ivy league school spends 3x more per student than it charges for tuition.
- tokenadult 16y ago
  The College Results website http://www.collegeresults.org/search1b.aspx?institutionid=166027 http://www.collegeresults.org/search1b.aspx?institutionid=16... allows drilling down to a comparison of similar colleges to any college you care to name, and looking at a Finance and Faculty tab to see the spending per student at the college.
- burgerbrain 16y ago
  All the more reason why they shouldn't be losing money on sports as well.
A1kmm 16y ago
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.
jrbran 16y ago
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-controversy-shines-light-on-influence-of/?tigerextra http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2011/feb/06/uconn-contro... [2]http://terrapinstationmd.com/2011/01/26/uconn-donor-writes-very-angry-letter-mentions-randy-edsall/ http://terrapinstationmd.com/2011/01/26/uconn-donor-writes-v...
ajays 16y ago
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.
- InfinityX0 16y ago
  Ding ding ding. I went to a D3 school for football, and when considering a possible MBA, something I was looking at half jokingly, but half legitimately, was whether the school was large - because I thought it would make watching sports on TV for the rest of my life, and having true attachment, a lot more fun. Undoubtedly, as I progress further in my career, that fervor would have grown with team success, and also made my attachment more real - while my current alma mater (Chapman University in Southern California) - would have fallen away from consciousness with no legitimate way to grab my attention. Whether I make a donation to any school in the future is up for debate, and I am now not likely to get an MBA based on many of the points raised here and elsewhere - but the point made on this comment hits the nail on the head. I find it extremely unlikely that I will ever donate to my small private school in Southern California - because the thoughts of how it's helped me depart with every passing second, and they have no way to get it back.
- fourspace 16y ago
  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.
aspir 16y ago
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 16y ago
  Heresay is what that is called. You ought find a better source and stop repeating heresay.
gChinkin 16y ago
Of course this would be on HN.
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dustingetz 16y ago
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 16y ago
  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.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
fleitz 16y ago
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.
jdminhbg 16y ago
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?
sb 16y ago
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 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 16y ago
  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 16y ago
    "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 16y ago
      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 :)
enjo 16y ago
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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skilesare 16y ago
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'.
Prisen 16y ago
I see no numbers for individual sports. Athletic departments losing money does not mean that the football team is losing money.
snowmizuh 16y ago
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_2010.pdf http://www.ncaapublications.com/productdownloads/REV_EXP_201... 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/ 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.
JWyme 16y ago
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.

67 points by ojbyrne 16y ago

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.

burgerbrain 16y ago

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-robbery_n_659387.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/26/drexel-basketball-r...

burgerbrain 16y ago
To the downvoter: A downvote won't change reality. http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/f/football/head_injuries/index.html http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects...
parfe 16y ago
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?
- tokenadult 16y ago
  Ever seen 50,000 alumni show up on campus for a theoretical physics conference? And when those 50,000 alumni show up on campus, what do they do to make the education at that university better?
  - keiferski 16y ago
    They pay for the university's existence.
    - tokenadult 16y ago
      If what they pay is less than what the university spends on them, in what sense are they paying to improve education?
      - muuh-gnu 16y ago
        And even if they paid more back thant the university invested, it still has not to do anything with education. It is then just a part-time money making scheme to keep the university alive. Since such investments into the sports business do not have anything to do with the core business of the university, education, they could they could easily invest into other kinds of non-educational but profitable businesses like, for example, porn. It then also means that universities can obviously not survive financially just by doing their core business, i.e. by offering educational and research services and _have_ to invest into more profitable but completely non-intellectual endeavours.
        parfe 16y ago
        the core business of the university, education Bzz, wrong. Education is a college's job. A university's core business is research. Education is just a part-time money making scheme to keep the university alive.
      - keiferski 16y ago
        You are oversimplifying the educational system to a very large degree (pun intended). Education isn't about the 'information', it's about the collective sum of benefits that a university provides. If it were strictly about the education (courses, books, etc.) there would be no purpose -- most of it can be found for free online. University is about the whole package, of which a strong alumni network is often a major piece. Without a strong sports program, many of these schools would lose a large fraction of their alumni's attention - and I don't mean dollars and cents. To use a previous commenter: Ding ding ding. I went to a D3 school for football, and when considering a possible MBA, something I was looking at half jokingly, but half legitimately, was whether the school was large - because I thought it would make watching sports on TV for the rest of my life, and having true attachment, a lot more fun. Undoubtedly, as I progress further in my career, that fervor would have grown with team success, and also made my attachment more real - while my current alma mater (Chapman University in Southern California) - would have fallen away from consciousness with no legitimate way to grab my attention. Whether I make a donation to any school in the future is up for debate, and I am now not likely to get an MBA based on many of the points raised here and elsewhere - but the point made on this comment hits the nail on the head. I find it extremely unlikely that I will ever donate to my small private school in Southern California - because the thoughts of how it's helped me depart with every passing second, and they have no way to get it back. This obviously leads to a weakening of the school on a whole, in terms of future enrollment and overall reputation, leading to a decline in the quality of education.
- burgerbrain 16y ago
  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 16y ago
    Should we also cancel the drama program, debate team, musical ensembles, and school newspaper?
    - jhaglund 16y ago
      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 16y ago
        > 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 16y ago
        "> 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.
- absconditus 16y ago
  Were the Japanese forced into submission by a great football match?
  - lucasjung 16y ago
    More than they were by homework sets. Academic research certainly played a role in winning the second world war. I'd say that quality leadership played an even bigger role. Cadets and Midshipmen at our service academies have always been required to participate in athletics because team sports develop leadership, teamwork, and tactical and strategic thinking (in the '30s through the '60s, the service academies were powerhouses in college football). Academy graduates were a minority of overall officers in the war, but were a majority of the most senior officers. Prior to the war, the cadre of war college students and faculty who developed the tactics and strategies which won the war were also predominantly academy graduates.
    - Wientje 16y ago
      As far as 26 July '45, the Japanese refused to surrender. The guys that forced Japan in to submission were Little Boy and Fat Man and they had an academic background. The only leadership required from the 'sport trained' generals was choosing which city had the most juicy civilians.
      - lucasjung 16y ago
        The "only" leadership required to use Little Boy and Fat Man was fighting our way across the world's biggest ocean to get into range to use them. To accomplish the same task, academics would have needed another couple of decades (and a boat-load of stolen German scientists) to invent the ICBM. Nukes certainly ended the war earlier, and I believe they saved tens if not hundreds of thousands of lives on both sides, but they didn't create victory. Victory was already a foregone conclusion by the time we used them--they just accelerated it and lowered the cost dramatically.
- bbgm 16y ago
  > Ever seen 50,000 alumni show up on campus for a theoretical physics conference? One can be Utopian and wish for that day.
aspir 16y ago
I've personally seen more 1 generation college attendees in my athletics career circle than not; they're not ignorant jocks trying to skate into the pros, they're trying to better their standing by any means necessary. Most athletes also understand that they "go pro in something other than sports," to steal the NCAA tagline. Ask your alma mater's department heads, deans and development officers if sports matters. Research (even tech transfer) doesn't raise enough cash to fund our current university system. Tuition doesn't either; and state support (if applicable) doesn't get far either. Donors provide the rest. The best way to butter up a donor is through university brand prominence. A non Ivy League school can't compete in the same fields as an MIT, Stanford, Cal Tech, etc. You have to increase your university brand through any respectable means necessary. Sports is often that angle. Go ask your endowed profs if sports matters in any factor to their compensation. It's likely they'll admit that it helps, at minimum.
- burgerbrain 16y ago
  This is and always has been a terrible argument. Academic scholarships will always be a better use of money. There is no reason those first generation students can't get the attention of schools with academic excellence instead of sports, particularly if they are generally as bright as you claim.
  - micks56 16y ago
    Not every lesson or piece of information can be learned from a book or in a classroom. Good luck getting soft skills there. Real learning occurs while playing sports. Soft skills, discipline, teamwork, personal fitness, and long-time dedication are just a few areas where sports help the whole person.
    - lambda 16y ago
      If real learning occurs while playing sports, then why isn't every student at a university allowed on a sports team? If it's so essential to education, then it should be part of the curriculum. And are soft skills, discipline, teamwork, and long-term dedication not things that people learn running clubs, competing at quiz bowl, going hiking, hacking software in their free time? Then why is there such disproportionate funding for sports vs all of these other activities? Having been involved in several clubs and club sports in college, you're treated like shit compared to varsity athletes. I'll be damned if the juggling club could reserve a room in the gym once a week to practice. The Tang Soo Do club had to fight to get enough funding from the college to buy pads and gloves for practicing and sparring with, and that's mostly because it actually brought in money as people outside the college paid to be able to take classes. And yet the football team, which was notorious for losing almost every game it played, had several full-time coaches and staff, its own building and stadium reserved only for their use, got bussed or flown all over the east coast for games and so on. Most other club activities were lucky if they could wrangle a hundred bucks a semester from the college for support.

30thElement 16y ago

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 16y ago
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 16y ago
  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.

Alex3917 16y ago

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

tokenadult 16y ago
The College Results website http://www.collegeresults.org/search1b.aspx?institutionid=166027 http://www.collegeresults.org/search1b.aspx?institutionid=16... allows drilling down to a comparison of similar colleges to any college you care to name, and looking at a Finance and Faculty tab to see the spending per student at the college.
burgerbrain 16y ago
All the more reason why they shouldn't be losing money on sports as well.

A1kmm 16y ago

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.

jrbran 16y ago

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-controversy-shines-light-on-influence-of/?tigerextra http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2011/feb/06/uconn-contro... [2]http://terrapinstationmd.com/2011/01/26/uconn-donor-writes-very-angry-letter-mentions-randy-edsall/ http://terrapinstationmd.com/2011/01/26/uconn-donor-writes-v...

ajays 16y ago

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.

InfinityX0 16y ago
Ding ding ding. I went to a D3 school for football, and when considering a possible MBA, something I was looking at half jokingly, but half legitimately, was whether the school was large - because I thought it would make watching sports on TV for the rest of my life, and having true attachment, a lot more fun. Undoubtedly, as I progress further in my career, that fervor would have grown with team success, and also made my attachment more real - while my current alma mater (Chapman University in Southern California) - would have fallen away from consciousness with no legitimate way to grab my attention. Whether I make a donation to any school in the future is up for debate, and I am now not likely to get an MBA based on many of the points raised here and elsewhere - but the point made on this comment hits the nail on the head. I find it extremely unlikely that I will ever donate to my small private school in Southern California - because the thoughts of how it's helped me depart with every passing second, and they have no way to get it back.
fourspace 16y ago
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.

aspir 16y ago

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 16y ago
Heresay is what that is called. You ought find a better source and stop repeating heresay.

gChinkin 16y ago

Of course this would be on HN.

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dustingetz 16y ago

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 16y ago
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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fleitz 16y ago

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.

jdminhbg 16y ago

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?

sb 16y ago

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 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 16y ago
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 16y ago
  "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 16y ago
    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 :)

enjo 16y ago

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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skilesare 16y ago

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'.

Prisen 16y ago

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

snowmizuh 16y ago

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_2010.pdf http://www.ncaapublications.com/productdownloads/REV_EXP_201... 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/ 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.

JWyme 16y ago

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.