Dave Hendrickson wrote:
 
> The previous comments that football was a big money loser at all but
> a couple of schools would seem to be disputed by these figures.  According
> to this, men's football and basketball together account for 49 percent of
> all revenues while those two sports plus women's basketball account for 43
> percent of all athletic expenditures.
 
I am not familiar with this particular study.  I am, however, highly
dubious about the numbers produced by the NCAA.  In the past, there has
very often been a large amount of creative accounting that goes on in
athletic departments.  Some examples include tutoring costs or the
expenses from running football dorms moved to other parts of the
university.  One of the largest hidden costs is very often the football
stadium; it is often owned by the university and rented by the athletic
department at well below market rates (sometimes for nothing).
 
Take the University of Texas.  Granted, this goes back to a quote from
John Silber (former BU president) circa the mid-70s.  The numbers might
be out of date, but considering inflation since then, the problem might
be worse.  The estimate was that UT had 50-60 million dollars invested
in its football plant.  Try servicing the debt on that, even after the
explosion in revenues during the 1980s.
 
In 1988, Purdue University began work on an indoor training facility.
Half of the funds for this came from donations given to the university's
general fund.  They could just as easily been spent on a library, or
classrooms or whatever.  Instead, the athletic department's funds were
magically increased by $3 million.
 
Quite frankly, the NCAA's numbers don't stand up to serious scrutiny.
Before I believe anything they say, I'd like to see a qualified,
INDEPENDENT accounting agency turned loose for a thorough audit.
>
> Although this is incomplete information, this would show that on the average
> football and basketball combined are less of a drain on athletic budgets
> than all the rest.
 
Less of a drain than all the rest?  Maybe.  But it's a net drain none
the less.  The justification for putting football on a pedestal is that
it MAKES money, which doesn't happen.
 
> > Another big lie.  Every study that has been done has shown that the
> > relationship between winning football and alumni donations is inverse,
> > at least for the university in general.  Portland State cancels football
> > and the university gets more dollars from alumni.
>
> First, I'd want to see more documentation than just one or two isolated
> cases like Portland State (which you later pointed out was Wichita State).
> As someone else pointed out, there are other instances of a football program
> going to be cancelled and the alumni came through with the $$$$$$.  Sadly,
> this hasn't happened with college hockey.  But the incomplete evidence would
> seem to point more towards football and alumni dollars in fact being related.
 
Please understand what I said.  I'm not talking about donations to the
athletic department.  Those are covered in the question of whether or
not the athletic department makes or loses money.  I'm talking about
donations to the rest (i.e. educational part) of the university.  A
booster stumping up the money to save the football program don't count.
>
> Second, the point wasn't won-loss records and football but having a football
> program at all.  And it would seem intuitive based on TV ratings alone that
> the exposure that football gives to a school would be a good thing in terms
> of alumni fundraising.
 
        "It has been our experience that athletic success does not
        correlate with academic giving... In fact, we have the opposite
        problem here.  We are forever trying to convince people that we
        keep athletics in perspective, that this is first and foremost
        an academic institution."
 
                -Richard Conklin, vice-president, Notre Dame
 
It's not just Wichita State.  Tulane cancelled its basketball program
for several years after the point shaving scandal and saw donations go
up.  Seattle University did away with intercollegiate athletics
altogether and got the same results.  One would think that more people
would have learned the lesson provided by the University of Chicago
fifty years ago.  Under Amos Alonzo Stagg, the were as powerful a
football as any in the land.  The decision to do away with the program
hasn't done much to hurt them as an academic insitution (besides
providing a good location to build the world's first atomic pile).
>
> I am far from being a college football defender.  I saw perhaps one
> college football game on TV (and none in person) all last year, as
> opposed to something like 50-60 college hockey games in person and maybe
> another 15 or so on TV or tape.  But I'm concerned that in our
> attempts to stack the arguments in favor of the sport we love, we're
> not taking an even-handed look at the evidence.
 
I, on the other hand, like to watch and enjoy college football.  But I
think that it's out of control.  This is a sentiment in which I'm not
alone.  Some of college football's fiercest critics are very close to
the game.  Perhaps foremost among them is Rick Telander, author of "The
Hundred Yard Lie".  Telander was a fine cornerback at Northwestern and
covered college football for a decade at Sports Illustrated and now does
so for the Chicago Sun-Times.
 
J. Michael Neal
 
HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey;  send information to
[log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.