# Big Money and US College Football **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Tags:** football-nfl\ **Created:** [August 6, 2023, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-money-and-us-college-football/988149 "2023-08-06T17:26:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2023, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-money-and-us-college-football/988149/21 "2023-08-07T02:05:19Z")
That is the conclusion of the study I linked to above ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2023, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-money-and-us-college-football/988149/22 "2023-08-07T02:07:47Z")
Sure, just giving a little historical context. ---
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2023, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-money-and-us-college-football/988149/23 "2023-08-07T02:16:52Z")
Which is much appreciated! ---
**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2023, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-money-and-us-college-football/988149/24 "2023-08-07T19:14:31Z")
> [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](#): > > Sorry, no cites, and some caveats: there were a handful of sources that indeed said that the majority of Div I programs were profitable (and I did not have the expertise to evaluate these claims), the answers may depend partly on how you define “big-time” college football programs, and of course things may have changed since 1998. But the basic argument has been around for quite some time. I remember finding the not-so-profitable side of the argument compelling back then, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find that it’s still the case. Up through 2016, the NCAA [released a financial report](https://ncaaorg.s3.amazonaws.com/research/Finances/2017D1RES_D1RevExpReportFinal.pdf) that included how many schools reported “generated revenues exceeded expenses” in football, men’s basketball, and women’s basketball. In 2016, of the 65 Power 5 schools that reported information (I am pretty sure Notre Dame is included in this), 64 reported a profit in football, and 54 in men’s basketball. None reported a profit in women’s basketball, although 1 did in 2014, and remember that UConn is not a Power 5 school. (“Generated revenues” do not include money given to the athletic department by the school, but does include booster donations.) Of the remaining 282 Division I schools, 9 football programs and 15 men’s basketball programs made money. There is a [separate report](https://www.ncaa.org/sports/2019/11/12/finances-of-intercollegiate-athletics-database.aspx) that shows that, up through 2020, usually about 25 Division I schools, all in Power 5 conferences, had an overall profitable athletics department. The number for 2021 is much lower, but that could be because of the reduced amount of money received from the NCAA because of the cancellation of the 2020 men’s basketball tournament. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Wiggler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/red_wiggler/32/13190_2.png) [@Red\_Wiggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Wiggler)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-money-and-us-college-football/988149/25 "2023-08-11T18:45:28Z")
I would just like to caution about using a college football program’s “profitability” as an important metric. The most powerful programs are maintained (1) as a marketing arm of the school and (2) to retain alumni engagement (with the end goal being to keep donor checks rolling in). ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-money-and-us-college-football/988149/26 "2023-08-11T19:12:19Z")
In other words, to ensure profitability. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-money-and-us-college-football/988149/27 "2023-08-11T19:26:24Z")
Yes, it’s profit at the end of the day, not a net loss for the university, or merely breaking even. Profit. Looking through the links provided earlier, it’s certainly more of a gray area that I previously believed. I’m not sure I’m willing to believe university-provided financials. “Dear distinguished alum, as you can see by these not-cooked-whatsoever accounting books, our athletic department just barely scraped by last year. With just a $1000 donation, you can be entered into the ticket lottery for preferred seats at our newly-renovated student-athlete community space (aka “the stadium”) for the upcoming season.” Universities wouldn’t be dedicating resources to the athletic programs if there wasn’t a massive return on investment for the university at large. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-money-and-us-college-football/988149/28 "2023-08-11T19:30:59Z")
Correction: Unless they thought that it was a massive return on investment. There’s always the possibility that they’re just idiots. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-money-and-us-college-football/988149/29 "2023-08-11T19:35:14Z")
> [@Red\_Wiggler](#): > > alumni engagement I always assumed that boosters are what made college sports profitable. Are such donations included in the above links analyzing profit and loss? ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-money-and-us-college-football/988149/30 "2023-08-11T20:00:52Z")
They are, insofar as the universities declare any particular donated dollar as being a result of the athletic department. There are certainly hardline ways to define that (i.e. only allowing dollars donated with the donor’s expressed intention of being for the athletic dept.), but I doubt that’s the case. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-money-and-us-college-football/988149/31 "2023-08-11T20:09:18Z")
Note this is why college football is the focus, especially around the conference realignments. Football far and away brings in the athletics money. Most of the other sports (with the occasional exception of men’s basketball) are more often breakeven or even loss leaders or outright losers. And why many smaller sports get cut. Case in point - several programs at [Iowa](https://www.thegazette.com/iowa-hawkeyes/did-three-hawkeyes-teams-have-to-be-cut/) or [Minnesota](https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-title-ix-compliance-minnesota-371ade995cdecce6cd8ad1d975f93fcc). Sometimes these get reinstated (if times get better or if there’s a Title IX lawsuit - potentially the case for Michigan State’s swim teams) but more often not. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-money-and-us-college-football/988149/32 "2023-08-11T20:32:21Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > You know what you need to have access to the top intramural activity at most colleges? A Frisbee. I doubt that very much and it was definitely not true at UC San Diego when I went there. We didn’t have a football team or athletic scholarships. Intramural teams played basketball, volleyball, floor hockey, water polo, flag football, softball and many others including admittedly ultimate frisbee. There were three levels of play in the leagues, beginner, intermediate and advanced or something like that. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-money-and-us-college-football/988149/33 "2023-08-11T20:39:30Z")
> [@Red\_Wiggler](#): > > I would just like to caution about using a college football program’s “profitability” as an important metric. The most powerful programs are maintained (1) as a marketing arm of the school and (2) to retain alumni engagement (with the end goal being to keep donor checks rolling in). This is key. They get more money from alumni, especially the whales, if the football team is successful. It may even get them better students (non athlete students) if they have good sports. ---
**Author:** ![glowacks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/glowacks/32/5548_2.png) [@glowacks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glowacks)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2023, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-money-and-us-college-football/988149/34 "2023-08-17T22:04:14Z")
And a field with lines painted on it. For some schools, access to the requisite open space is going to be far from free. Of course, the same could be said for the facilities for whatever intramural sports you’re talking about. Ultimate is probably the one sport that needs the least in terms of other facilities, and at some places the land is effectively free, but the labor and materials to paint the lines is not, and because of those lines, the field is unusable for something like soccer, which in some places is probably more popular and requires only slightly more in facilities cost to run. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2023, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-money-and-us-college-football/988149/35 "2023-08-21T19:11:53Z")
> [@Kropotkin](#): > > I stand to be corrected, but I think this article makes a different argument > > [I found 18 profitable & 211 money-losing NCAA Division-I public athletic programs in 2020](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/i-found-18-profitable-211-money-losing-ncaa-public-scott-hirko-ph-d-) This is an impressive, concise piece of analysis. But to really nail down whether a football program is profitable you’d need to include alumni contributions in revenue–more specifically, _how much_ of alumni contributions are a result of the team’s success. I don’t see how this study does this. But I too stand to be corrected. ---
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2023, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-money-and-us-college-football/988149/36 "2023-08-21T19:13:53Z")
And in Canada, alumni sports donations are very much less of a thing, and you make an excellent point that hadn’t occurred to me up here. ---
**Author:** ![Ponch8](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponch8/32/9883_2.png) [@Ponch8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponch8)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2023, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-money-and-us-college-football/988149/37 "2023-08-21T20:10:30Z")
There are some interesting disparities in there. My alma mater, the U. of Florida Gators, are #3 for most profitable, while their evil rival Florida State is fifth from the bottom with a $40 million loss. I dislike FSU as much as anyone else, but I have a hard time believing these figures are correct. ---
**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2023, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-money-and-us-college-football/988149/38 "2023-08-22T15:55:21Z")
Perhaps when you compare how much Florida gets from the SEC TV contract versus what Florida State gets from the ACC contract, it makes a little more sense? Okay, maybe by that measure, every SEC school’s athletic department “should” make money, but you also have to take into account how many sports each one has. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2023, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-money-and-us-college-football/988149/39 "2023-09-12T07:55:23Z")
You assume that university decision makers are fully rational actors. They’re not. Athletics programs are mostly vanity projects. If you’re a university chancellor it’s probably the only way you can get on TV unless there is a campus murder. But it does also serve as a promotional tool for the university. ---
**Author:** ![songsoflovetrouble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@songsoflovetrouble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/songsoflovetrouble)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2023, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-money-and-us-college-football/988149/40 "2023-09-12T08:43:25Z")
Almost no college sports programs make money, and the idea that they are indirectly making money by “encouraging donations” doesn’t hold water at 95% of schools. There is no prestige attached to going 6-4 as the University of New Hampshire football team every year that is going to make a UNH alum donate $10M that he otherwise was not going to. As you get further down the ladder of divisions and sports the idea becomes even more ludicrous. Outside of DI-BCS football, 100 or so men’s basketball teams, and 8 or 10 women’s basketball teams, the opportunity to compete in sports is purely a service offered to the students. The effect is actually magnified outside of the main revenue attractions - you can play minor league football or overseas basketball if you’re good enough and want to do so, but there isn’t really such a thing as the “professional swimming league” or national-scale women’s lacrosse, especially for the 1500th-best athlete in those sports. Playing through a college is the only opportunity to do these things seriously for anyone who doesn’t make an Olympic team and wants to participate for multiple full seasons. Two trends have made it harder for non-prestige sports: Title IX and the realignment of conferences for the benefit of P5 football. The interpretation that you must have the same gender ratio in sports as in the student body has led to the cutting of tennis, track, baseball, and other second-tier men’s sports to try to produce “equality” and paper over the combined effect of less women being interested in sports and the desire to preserve an enormous football program with no women’s equivalent. The grouping of teams across the country into conferences has made travel costs prohibitive. Stanford football will always be given the money to fly to Chapel Hill, North Carolina for its regular ACC in-conference games. Stanford golf and Stanford volleyball may find themselves in a budgetary crisis over the same issue. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-money-and-us-college-football/988149.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-money-and-us-college-football/988149.md?page=3)