At 05:53 PM 6/11/97 -0500, Eeyore wrote:
>Dave Hendrickson wrote:
>>
>> One thing may have changed significantly since the 1986 (or so) study
>> that claimed only five football programs made money.  The TV packages
>> have exploded over the last ten years or so, as evidenced by the multitude
>> of games on the tube.  To ignore this enormous increase in revenue and
>> assume that the previous study still holds (assuming it once did) doesn't
>> make sense.
>
>Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.  Supply has so outstripped demand in
>all of sports that, except for the Crown Jewels (which in college
>football is about 2-3 bowl games), TV revenues have *dropped* since
>1986.  Every conference wants to get its games on the tube and they keep
>underbidding each other.  A lot of the games that you see are in fact
>produced in house by the conferences, which try to sell the ad time
>themselves.  Some of these self-production efforts actually lose money.
 
You say, "Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong."   What did the three major
networks and ESPN pay the NCAA, the major conferences and individual schools
in 1986 and in 1996?  What is your source?  The data by network would be
interesting...please provide it if you have it.  You also claim that, "Some
of these self-production efforts actually lose money." I don't recall seeing
any major conferences doing their own productions.   Which major conferences
are doing self-productions and which of these conferences are losing money?
How much?  Being a skeptic, it is hard for me to believe that the networks
would allow a conference to do network programing.   Which of the conference
telecasts on ABC, CBS, NBC and ESPN being produced by the conferences and
not the networks?  What is your source?
 
>> Frankly, the revenue/expense numbers from the USA Today site are SO lopsided
>> that the only way you could get to anything close to only five or ten
>> football teams making a profit would be to invoke the kind of Hollywood
>> accounting practices that still show movies like E.T. still in the red.
 
I have to agree with you Dave. I guess it is possible if the Athletic
Department transfers those funds to the university's general fund.  I've
worked with state organizations and they are required by regulation or law
to use prescribed accounting practices.  Their books are audited both by
internal and external auditors.  Claims of laundering data without proof are
simply that "claims" and not "facts".  Even when they are repeated over and
over they do not become fact.
 
In an earlier comment on the same subject, Michael wrote, "With all of the
football facilites dotting the Ann Arbor landscape, plus some other costs
incurred along the way (such as having the team stay in an expensive hotel
before every HOME game),
Michigan's expenses are much greater than the figure listed."
 
The USA TODAY study placed Michigan's revenues from football
at......$16,866,465  and their expenses at....$4,772,343.  Thus, their net
revenue from football was   $12, 094,122.  According to The Daily, Michigan
football donated $9,735,000 to the athletic department in 1995 which most
likely was used for non revenue and women's sports.  It looks like there may
have been additional funds going to other parts of the university.  The
revenue figures look relatively small since admission revenues alone are
roughly $2.5 million per game before a single hot dog, coke and program are
sold or a penny is added from its bowl reciepts, TV and radio rights and
other concessions.
 
 
>I think that these numbers are so laundered that you can't even use them
>as a starting point.  Most schools do not include capital and facilities
>costs in these reports.  That may be the single largest expense item
>they have.  I don't trust that the revenue numbers aren't equally
>doctored, though it isn't as easy to be creative.  Your assessment is
>widely off the mark; it's the athletic departments that are engaging in
>Fantasyland accounting in order to make their books look good.
 
What is your proof that these numbers have been laundered?  You state that
"most" schools do not include capital and facilities costs in these reports.
 To make that statement you must have a study to back up these sweeping
claims and shows which schools do and which do not include these costs in
their expenses.  What is that study?   Wouldn't the laundering of revenue
and expense data and the use of "Fantasyland accounting" you accuse the
universities of using be caught by either the internal or outside audits?  I
don't recall anyone being prosecuted for fraud.  Or is this conspiracy to
fake the financial records for college football so widespread that
legislators, Boards Of Trustees, administrators ,  the faculty, the
financial officers responsible for safeguarding public funds, and both
internal and external auditors get together to fake financial records?  I
wonder if all of these people get together at a  covention and decide how to
to launder the data?  :-)  If proof isn't available, maybe someone, besides
the accountants, is in FANTASYLAND.
 
Bob Svec
 
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