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.
Nearly All US Universities Lose Money on Sports
51–60 of 74 posts
Re: Nearly All US Universities Lose Money on Sports
#52I 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...
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. Res…
While I cannot argue on any point of your post, I distinctly remember that sometime ago on HN there was a post how essentially Stanford and MIT "live" on military grants. The story was about Stanfrod being US-Army stronghold, while the Navy "sponsors" MIT (Just searched: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1416348.)
I have no data, but I think that those DARPA grants are at least substantial, some concrete figures would be nice though.
Re: Nearly All US Universities Lose Money on Sports
#53[deleted]
Re: Nearly All US Universities Lose Money on Sports
#54That'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? Grant…
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.
Re: Nearly All US Universities Lose Money on Sports
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
They pay for the university's existence.
If what they pay is less than what the university spends on them, in what sense are they paying to improve education?
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.
Re: Nearly All US Universities Lose Money on Sports
#56There 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'.
Re: Nearly All US Universities Lose Money on Sports
#57That'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? Grant…
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 de…
"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?
Re: Nearly All US Universities Lose Money on Sports
#58That'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? Grant…
In the UK there's the British Universities competition (used to be BUSA in my day, now it's BUCS - http://www.bucs.org.uk).
It can in no way compete with US college football in terms of attendance or revenue. However there is no revenue to speak of, teams are funded by each Uni's sports union and by the players themselves. And all the money goes towards paying for facilities, transportation and maybe new strips every other year.
All the same it exists, it's well organised and has many thousands of participants in lots of sports each wednesday afternoon.
Re: Nearly All US Universities Lose Money on Sports
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 de…
"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?
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 :)
Re: Nearly All US Universities Lose Money on Sports
#60I see no numbers for individual sports. Athletic departments losing money does not mean that the football team is losing money.