NFL has hard salary cap. NBA sets a max player contract. Euro soccer limits the $ a team can lose. Pro team owners recognize folly of competing in zero-sum industry with huge external pressure to spend. College athletics, though, continues to engage in self-destructing acts. 1/
Recently fired head football coaches (+ assistants) are owed buyouts of $24 mil @ Texas and $22-30 mil @ Auburn. That public universities are paying coaching staffs 8-figure payments NOT TO WORK during Covid-era budget cuts in academic programs is wrong on so many levels. 2/
Boosters and alums get caught in the obsession, thinking their school should be above average. If Boise State can do it… If Stanford…If Oklahoma… But by definition, half of teams will be below avg. The mindset becomes “we just need a different coach and better facilities…” 3/
"biz model in college sports: Prove to your customers that you are as irrationally committed as they are. Schools are far more likely to be criticized for not paying obscene salaries to coaches than for doing so. Which is why coaches’ salaries keep going up." -@Rosenberg_Mike 4/
Irony is as revenue keeps increasing, losses for most programs do as well. While a handful of programs run at breakeven or better, most are heavily subsidized by the university. Revenue gains never fall to bottom line; all $ is consumed by black hole of coaches & facilities. 5/
Rutgers athletics program, for instance, lost $45 million in 2018-9 (2019-20 will be much larger) covered by $15M from university, $12M in student fees, $15M from internal loan, & $3M from state support. Is this really the best use Rutgers has for $45M to further its mission? 6/
College sports must find a way to stop the arms race in the zero-sum game of college football. In a rational world, athletics at large universities would be profitable and subsidize the university’s greater mission, rather than vice-versa. 7/7
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