Death Threats for Exposing College Athlete Literacy Rates

[Gaidin]

Isn't scholarship something you receive to learn the major your applied scholarship for? Like, I receive an IT scholarship and I must therefore learn IT things and eventually get a degree in IT?

How does being an athlete be relevant to that? Or is this a US situation where politicians don't want to pour money into scholarships but will happily pay for the university's team to compete on TV?

There are academic scholarships yes(though I don't know if they're tied to a field), but the treasure trove that is football(and basketball depending on your region) will fund the "cheaper" sports that can't attract crowds and let them have scholarships as well.

[PainRack]

I kept reading that one of the main reasons for maintaining a sports league is that the revenue from much of these sports programs are helping to keep the university afloat.

I mean, why invest in an IT lab where the only potential source of revenue is from donors or hiking student fees? A huge sports stadium on the other hand generates tons of revenue from the sports events as well as increase recognition and hence donors.......

[Gaidin]

I kept reading that one of the main reasons for maintaining a sports league is that the revenue from much of these sports programs are helping to keep the university afloat.

I mean, why invest in an IT lab where the only potential source of revenue is from donors or hiking student fees? A huge sports stadium on the other hand generates tons of revenue from the sports events as well as increase recognition and hence donors.......

Well, there's a lot of reasons, yes. And if you sit down and look at the athletics programs, and I'm spitballing honestly here, there's two, maybe three "big" sports. Football, basketball, and depending on where you are maybe baseball. But baseball actually runs a good minor league and the students that do baseball actually usually do the minors as well as far as I can tell in most cases, so I'm not sure I'd even want to hold that up on the level of the other two anyway. If we were to call the other sports dirty just for being in the NCAA, there's no way we could call them dirty anywhere near the level of Football and Basketball. Rare is the person who's on the rifle team and has a career out of the rifle competitions, but they can get a college education out of it, and they can do well. But at the same time, that rifle team is typically funded by the outrageous amount of money football is raking in. It's a little bit of an ethical dance.

As far as the IT lab, or any lab, you usually don't need a reference to sports. You often just need a good department as far as I can tell. At least, that's all it took to get the new building the Computer Science and Electrical Engineering professors are sharing at the University of Kentucky. The new dorm for the basketball players? You have a point there.

[Ralin]

I kept reading that one of the main reasons for maintaining a sports league is that the revenue from much of these sports programs are helping to keep the university afloat.

I don't know much about the subject (though I did/do go to a school with a very good football team), but I've heard that's not as true as you would think and that while football and basketball may generate huge amounts of revenue most of that revenue gets funneled right back into...football and basketball. Some parts of the school are definitely making bank off of sports, but the academics side is near the bottom of that list.

Because a most of these kids become productive members of society and wouldn't be able to go to school without the scholarships?

Possibly, but I think we can take it as a given that everyone here who's complaining about school athletics programs also supports increased funding for education, including scholarships to replace those sports scholarships.

[Block]

Because a most of these kids become productive members of society and wouldn't be able to go to school without the scholarships?

Possibly, but I think we can take it as a given that everyone here who's complaining about school athletics programs also supports increased funding for education, including scholarships to replace those sports scholarships.

And where does the money come from for thousands of scholarships?

[Ralin]

And where does the money come from for thousands of scholarships?

Taxes?

[Thanas]

I would like some statistics that suggest football etc. actually bring in more money for the university than they cost to maintain.

[Block]

And where does the money come from for thousands of scholarships?

Taxes?

Good luck with that. The California state university system can't even afford to admit students in the spring at this point.

[Dominus Atheos]

Huh? Besides the scholarships, most sports shouldn't cost a whole lot to maintain. I suppose there's the ridiculous coach's salary...

[Simon_Jester]

On the other hand, a typical university has a LOT of sports teams that aren't bringing in very much money apiece, so the athletics department has to split that money a lot of ways.

[Wicked Pilot]

I kept reading that one of the main reasons for maintaining a sports league is that the revenue from much of these sports programs are helping to keep the university afloat.

There are plenty of universities that do fine without athletics, or athletics in a deemphasized role. Any of the universities, of say the SEC, could lose their football and basketball programs tomorrow and come out just fine.

[Terralthra]

I would like some statistics that suggest football etc. actually bring in more money for the university than they cost to maintain.

It doesn't look like they do.

[Thanas]

I would like some statistics that suggest football etc. actually bring in more money for the university than they cost to maintain.

It doesn't look like they do.

Thank you.

[Alferd Packer]

Yeah, definitely not at the lower levels. Though my alma mater, by virtue of joining the Big Ten in July, will see TV revenue splits go from 3 million per year to about 40 million per year in 2017. But on the flip side, they had to squeeze donors for some 60 million dollars to bring all athletic facilities up to conference standard.

I'm also given to understand that the university will receive access to collaborative research programs that are exclusive to Big Ten schools, so there very well may be academic benefits to jumping to a different athletic conference...in some instances, anyway.

[Lord Relvenous]

I would like some statistics that suggest football etc. actually bring in more money for the university than they cost to maintain.

It doesn't look like they do.

Thank you.

Those numbers don't include merchandising sold or TV rights. That's where football makes the money, not in tickets. "The retail marketplace for college licensed merchandise in 2012 was estimated at $4.62 billion." That's only merchandising, and most of that is concentrated in the top 50 teams. Additionally, universities see a lot of income from other sources. For example, the Longhorns have their own network for their sports, the appeal of which is constructed on the foundation of football and basketball. That's what drives the demand for cable and satellite providers to carry the channel.

That's why these colleges want football and basketball. The tickets sells themselves probably pay the salaries of the coaches. Everything else and more is funded by the brand name exposure and resultant sales of licensed shit.

All that said, college football and basketball are a farce with the NCAA at the head. The NCAA trots out lines about "student-athletes" to give themselves a noble air, but it's nothing but a money-making enterprise.

[Broken]

All that said, college football and basketball are a farce with the NCAA at the head. The NCAA trots out lines about "student-athletes" to give themselves a noble air, but it's nothing but a money-making enterprise.

A money-making enterprise where everyone but the people (players) who make the actual product (the game) are making out like bandits. Joe Nocera who writes for the New York Times editorial page has some interesting columns on the NCAA and their behavior. The NCAA needs some serious reforms or should be broken up, but good luck with that when so much money is spilling on everyone but the players.

[Gaidin]

And by people I'd include the coaches of the other sports as well. Though shockingly Calipari makes most of his from other places. Other coaches are just making a legitimate six figure salary from the state government in at UK and UofL once you get past baseball for the most part. Pitino and Strong are just insane as he doesn't even have to go into side forays of commercials and what not to make it into the millions. But UofL's coaches seem to be a decent chunk higher on average anyway. So those numbers may just depend on the University sometimes as well. I haven't looked up any numbers for other sets of Universities, but, those two can be found here for numbers from 2012.

Pitino - Basketball Coach, UofL - 3,000,000
Strong - Football Coach, UofL - 2,300,000
Calipari - Basketball Coach, UK - 400,000
Philips - Football Coach, UK(former?) 400,000
Henderson - Baseball Coach, UK - 325,000
Lolla - Men's Soccer Coach, UofL - 250,000
Craig - Coach, Men's Golf, UK - 101,275
Cedergren - Soccer Coach, UK - 100,000
Borst - Coach, Women's Golf, UK - 81,000
Mullins - Coach, Women's Rifle, UK - 70,000

[Terralthra]

Those numbers don't include merchandising sold or TV rights. That's where football makes the money, not in tickets. "The retail marketplace for college licensed merchandise in 2012 was estimated at $4.62 billion." That's only merchandising, and most of that is concentrated in the top 50 teams. Additionally, universities see a lot of income from other sources. For example, the Longhorns have their own network for their sports, the appeal of which is constructed on the foundation of football and basketball. That's what drives the demand for cable and satellite providers to carry the channel.

That's why these colleges want football and basketball. The tickets sells themselves probably pay the salaries of the coaches. Everything else and more is funded by the brand name exposure and resultant sales of licensed shit.

All that said, college football and basketball are a farce with the NCAA at the head. The NCAA trots out lines about "student-athletes" to give themselves a noble air, but it's nothing but a money-making enterprise.

If most of that is concentrated in the top 50 teams, then college sports are still a gigantic money sink for American academia, a way of transferring money from small schools to large schools, and taking time and energy away from academics and research.

[Alferd Packer]

If most of that is concentrated in the top 50 teams, then college sports are still a gigantic money sink for American academia, a way of transferring money from small schools to large schools, and taking time and energy away from academics and research.

I agree, but taking sports out of the equation, and all other things being equal, wouldn't the most cutting edge research be going on at the big universities anyway? For the various liberal arts, I can see where a tiny college with an extreme specialization in a particular field could offer a superior program to that of a big school, but most scientific work requires access to expensive equipment and resources. Big universities will always win on that front, because they have the infrastructure(from faculty to electricity to the donor network) to support it.

[Thanas]

Sure, but even smaller universities can get by with having basic facilities and then asking bigger ones for help (or a few get together and start pooling resources). Having less resources due to sports is a detriment in any case, unless one can make an argument that sports are good for entertainment purposes and culture and said things are worth more than research.