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"Capitalism" wouldn't have occurred to me here. I live in the shadow of a Big Ten university that's a government institution. And this will reveal my ignorance

"Capitalism" wouldn't have occurred to me here. I live in the shadow of a Big Ten university that's a government institution. And this will reveal my ignorance about sports, but I don't know of any private university that's at the championship level in football at the present time. Disclosure: Notre Dame won the championship when I was in grad school there.

dfee 1y ago
I’m a fellow Notre Dame alumnus, and would point you to our university competing in the College Football National Championship just five months ago. Go Irish.
slg 1y ago
I was more remarking on your criticism of competition as an appropriate way to deal with scarcity and/or try to maximize societal benefit. Although now that you mention the public/private distinction, the difference in that has been drastically reduced over the years as state appropriations have shrunk as a percentage of overall funding. You mentioned the Big Ten and "championship level in football", so let's look at Ohio State as an example since they won the last championship (and for what it is worth, they beat Notre Dame in the title game). They get only 10% of their revenue via state appropriations[1]. For sake of comparison, the OSU athletic department brought in a little over half that in revenue[2]. Meanwhile, 21% of the school's revenue comes from "tuition and fees", so offering an appealing product in the competitive market of higher education is incredibly important to their long term mission. [1] - https://cga.ct.gov/2025/rpt/pdf/2025-R-0074.pdf https://cga.ct.gov/2025/rpt/pdf/2025-R-0074.pdf [2] - https://www.elevenwarriors.com/ohio-state-athletics/2024/01/145087/ohio-state-athletics-generated-nearly-280-million-in-revenue-for-2023-fiscal-year https://www.elevenwarriors.com/ohio-state-athletics/2024/01/...

3 ms·

"Capitalism" wouldn't have occurred to me here. I live in the shadow of a Big Ten university that's a government institution. And this will reveal my ignorance

by analog31 1y ago

dfee 1y ago
I’m a fellow Notre Dame alumnus, and would point you to our university competing in the College Football National Championship just five months ago. Go Irish.
slg 1y ago
I was more remarking on your criticism of competition as an appropriate way to deal with scarcity and/or try to maximize societal benefit. Although now that you mention the public/private distinction, the difference in that has been drastically reduced over the years as state appropriations have shrunk as a percentage of overall funding. You mentioned the Big Ten and "championship level in football", so let's look at Ohio State as an example since they won the last championship (and for what it is worth, they beat Notre Dame in the title game). They get only 10% of their revenue via state appropriations[1]. For sake of comparison, the OSU athletic department brought in a little over half that in revenue[2]. Meanwhile, 21% of the school's revenue comes from "tuition and fees", so offering an appealing product in the competitive market of higher education is incredibly important to their long term mission. [1] - https://cga.ct.gov/2025/rpt/pdf/2025-R-0074.pdf https://cga.ct.gov/2025/rpt/pdf/2025-R-0074.pdf [2] - https://www.elevenwarriors.com/ohio-state-athletics/2024/01/145087/ohio-state-athletics-generated-nearly-280-million-in-revenue-for-2023-fiscal-year https://www.elevenwarriors.com/ohio-state-athletics/2024/01/...