Quote:
Originally Posted by KSig RC
Well, for state universities, this is a matter of public record. One that I have offhand (as it's a good example) is the University of Iowa. Their 2011 fiscal year athletic budget, as reported to the Board of Regents:
Iowa is a little different because it accepts no general-fund money from the school and is athletically self-sufficient, but for a (probably) second-tier athletic school, the numbers are staggering, and even these are dwarfed by the likes of Texas and Florida.
Football drives the train, though, so there's good reason why a Texas State or UL-Monroe wants in on that particular action: it's absurdly profitable. That profitability opens new doors - admissions requests go up, endowment and donations increase, etc.
I can understand, on some level, why DF and others feel this is "dirty money" but there are about a dozen better arguments to counter that (increased opportunity for non-traditional students, destruction of regionalism in the student population, etc etc etc), plus the tangible cash benefits so greatly outweigh any of the intangible negatives or "seedy feelings" in my mind that it becomes a no-brainer.
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@ the bold - this seems to be the greatest driving force to build the school's football program. When you have a team with a winning season(s) then admissions go up.
Case-in-point: Texas. When they started winning a lot of football games admission requests went up, and they became very selective on their admissions requirements. For a while they only accepted the top 10% of students from their hs graduating class. This weekend I heard UT has now gone up to top 8%.