# do college athletics really make money? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 18, 2005, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-college-athletics-really-make-money/317650 "2005-08-18T20:27:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 12
**Author:** ![Hyperelastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Hyperelastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hyperelastic)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2005, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-college-athletics-really-make-money/317650/12 "2005-08-19T19:10:57Z")
The book [College Sports, Inc](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0805014454/102-6381630-4861723?v=glance) talks about this. It’s been a while since I read it, but the basic conclusion was that only a few very successful college sports programs break even, and even then, they don’t take into account things like the cost of building stadiums, because that usually comes out of the general fund. That leaves the obvious question of why colleges put up with the likes of Bobby Knight if they’re not even making money - the answer given in the book was that a big-time college sports program drums up applicants who are not necessarily academically inclined, but like the idea of associating themselves with a famous sports school. Why that is considered a good thing, I don’t know. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-college-athletics-really-make-money/317650)._