A few years ago I got pretty mad that the public was subsidizing what were at that time BCS athletics, and with my temper flaring proceeded to post incendiary opinions on message boards stating that such departments should not be subsidized. I pointed out that there is no way the typical "soccer mom" would want such heavy subsidies of college sports at the cost of better education. Also wrote state legislators on the education committee in addition to those representing me.

The responses I got back were incendiary in the opposite direction. Many posters denied that subsidies existed, others tried to justify them, and others said I was just bitter and to shut up.

Well, it took years, but it looks like the media is finally waking up. Here are a couple of newspaper articles published yesterday about subsidies, and how they should be eliminated:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/86563...sense.html

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/86563...ports.html

I feel some vindication there.


Glad to see more people are waking up to the problem. My personal opinion is that part of the distributions from TV contracts should pay for overhead, just like the typical university scientific grant or research grant - especially for P5 teams.

(07-10-2015 09:47 AM)HawkeyeCoug Wrote:  A few years ago I got pretty mad that the public was subsidizing what were at that time BCS athletics, and with my temper flaring proceeded to post incendiary opinions on message boards stating that such departments should not be subsidized. I pointed out that there is no way the typical "soccer mom" would want such heavy subsidies of college sports at the cost of better education. Also wrote state legislators on the education committee in addition to those representing me.

The responses I got back were incendiary in the opposite direction. Many posters denied that subsidies existed, others tried to justify them, and others said I was just bitter and to shut up.

Well, it took years, but it looks like the media is finally waking up. Here are a couple of newspaper articles published yesterday about subsidies, and how they should be eliminated:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/86563...sense.html

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/86563...ports.html

I feel some vindication there.


Glad to see more people are waking up to the problem. My personal opinion is that part of the distributions from TV contracts should pay for overhead, just like the typical university scientific grant or research grant - especially for P5 teams.

How much does the church subsidize BYU athletics?

(07-10-2015 09:51 AM)bullet Wrote:  

(07-10-2015 09:47 AM)HawkeyeCoug Wrote:  A few years ago I got pretty mad that the public was subsidizing what were at that time BCS athletics, and with my temper flaring proceeded to post incendiary opinions on message boards stating that such departments should not be subsidized. I pointed out that there is no way the typical "soccer mom" would want such heavy subsidies of college sports at the cost of better education. Also wrote state legislators on the education committee in addition to those representing me.

The responses I got back were incendiary in the opposite direction. Many posters denied that subsidies existed, others tried to justify them, and others said I was just bitter and to shut up.

Well, it took years, but it looks like the media is finally waking up. Here are a couple of newspaper articles published yesterday about subsidies, and how they should be eliminated:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/86563...sense.html

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/86563...ports.html

I feel some vindication there.


Glad to see more people are waking up to the problem. My personal opinion is that part of the distributions from TV contracts should pay for overhead, just like the typical university scientific grant or research grant - especially for P5 teams.

How much does the church subsidize BYU athletics?

You may be surprised to find out that the BYU athletic department actually cannot use tithing money, runs in the black, and actually contributes money back to the school.



The same is true of Notre Dame and Texas as far as I know, and I would guess there are a couple of other schools that do it as well. Unfortunately, it is still rather rare. With the money coming in from TV contracts, it should be more common.

(07-10-2015 09:51 AM)bullet Wrote:  

(07-10-2015 09:47 AM)HawkeyeCoug Wrote:  A few years ago I got pretty mad that the public was subsidizing what were at that time BCS athletics, and with my temper flaring proceeded to post incendiary opinions on message boards stating that such departments should not be subsidized. I pointed out that there is no way the typical "soccer mom" would want such heavy subsidies of college sports at the cost of better education. Also wrote state legislators on the education committee in addition to those representing me.

The responses I got back were incendiary in the opposite direction. Many posters denied that subsidies existed, others tried to justify them, and others said I was just bitter and to shut up.

Well, it took years, but it looks like the media is finally waking up. Here are a couple of newspaper articles published yesterday about subsidies, and how they should be eliminated:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/86563...sense.html

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/86563...ports.html

I feel some vindication there.


Glad to see more people are waking up to the problem. My personal opinion is that part of the distributions from TV contracts should pay for overhead, just like the typical university scientific grant or research grant - especially for P5 teams.

How much does the church subsidize BYU athletics?

The LDS Church owns the Deseret News, the paper that published those articles. So no coincidence that they are going after athletic spending at public schools in Utah (i.e., every college in Utah with an athletic department except BYU). They also seem to be pretending that student fees are the sole means of supporting these programs, when in fact they are just a small part of the athletic department's budget.

(07-10-2015 10:07 AM)Wedge Wrote:  

(07-10-2015 09:51 AM)bullet Wrote:  How much does the church subsidize BYU athletics?

The LDS Church owns the Deseret News, the paper that published those articles. So no coincidence that they are going after athletic spending at public schools in Utah (i.e., every college in Utah with an athletic department except BYU). They also seem to be pretending that student fees are the sole means of supporting these programs, when in fact they are just a small part of the athletic department's budget.

I just did a google news search for "college athletic subsidies." The first item was an editorial from the Salt Lake Tribune - without a doubt the most anti-LDS mainline newspaper. The second was from "The Herald Journal" - a paper I'm not familiar with. After that comes KSL.com (connected to LDS church), then the Shreveport Times talking about LaTech. After the 3 Deseret News articles (the one I didn't mention was about the State Auditors report) come article from Breitbart (irrelevant), Des Moines Register, Forbes, and USA today. That is as far as I am following it.

So, the topic is one that is spread over many news sources, including those that are antagonistic towards the LDS church and BYU. There are also sources discussing athletic subsidies that are mentioning it outside the context of the State Auditors report (source for Deseret News coverage).

When I originally got annoyed enough to post about taking away subsidies, I predicted that the "soccer moms" would not like it. I think the soccer moms are finding out, and they are not happy about it.

As long as student fees don't make up some outlandish percentage of the athletic budget, I don't consider them "public subsidies". Athletics are as much a part of the college experience as anything else (save the actual coursework), and there are also things like "technology" fees that go towards whatever and fees that help support club sports and student organizations. I see this as no different.

And many schools charge a student athletics fee, but then allow students into football and basketball games for free, without having to buy a student ticket package.

(07-10-2015 10:27 AM)HawkeyeCoug Wrote:  

(07-10-2015 10:07 AM)Wedge Wrote:  

(07-10-2015 09:51 AM)bullet Wrote:  How much does the church subsidize BYU athletics?

The LDS Church owns the Deseret News, the paper that published those articles. So no coincidence that they are going after athletic spending at public schools in Utah (i.e., every college in Utah with an athletic department except BYU). They also seem to be pretending that student fees are the sole means of supporting these programs, when in fact they are just a small part of the athletic department's budget.

I just did a google news search for "college athletic subsidies." The first item was an editorial from the Salt Lake Tribune - without a doubt the most anti-LDS mainline newspaper. The second was from "The Herald Journal" - a paper I'm not familiar with. After that comes KSL.com (connected to LDS church), then the Shreveport Times talking about LaTech. After the 3 Deseret News articles (the one I didn't mention was about the State Auditors report) come article from Breitbart (irrelevant), Des Moines Register, Forbes, and USA today. That is as far as I am following it.

So, the topic is one that is spread over many news sources, including those that are antagonistic towards the LDS church and BYU. There are also sources discussing athletic subsidies that are mentioning it outside the context of the State Auditors report (source for Deseret News coverage).

When I originally got annoyed enough to post about taking away subsidies, I predicted that the "soccer moms" would not like it. I think the soccer moms are finding out, and they are not happy about it.

The point is that it's a self-interested BYU argument, not a pro or anti church thing.

I'm sure Wake Forest, Baylor, Northwestern, and Vanderbilt would also love it if their public-school competitors couldn't collect student fees for athletics.

Why can't private schools have athletic fees? What's preventing that?

(07-10-2015 09:59 AM)HawkeyeCoug Wrote:  

(07-10-2015 09:51 AM)bullet Wrote:  

(07-10-2015 09:47 AM)HawkeyeCoug Wrote:  A few years ago I got pretty mad that the public was subsidizing what were at that time BCS athletics, and with my temper flaring proceeded to post incendiary opinions on message boards stating that such departments should not be subsidized. I pointed out that there is no way the typical "soccer mom" would want such heavy subsidies of college sports at the cost of better education. Also wrote state legislators on the education committee in addition to those representing me.

The responses I got back were incendiary in the opposite direction. Many posters denied that subsidies existed, others tried to justify them, and others said I was just bitter and to shut up.

Well, it took years, but it looks like the media is finally waking up. Here are a couple of newspaper articles published yesterday about subsidies, and how they should be eliminated:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/86563...sense.html

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/86563...ports.html

I feel some vindication there.


Glad to see more people are waking up to the problem. My personal opinion is that part of the distributions from TV contracts should pay for overhead, just like the typical university scientific grant or research grant - especially for P5 teams.

How much does the church subsidize BYU athletics?

You may be surprised to find out that the BYU athletic department actually cannot use tithing money, runs in the black, and actually contributes money back to the school.



The same is true of Notre Dame and Texas as far as I know, and I would guess there are a couple of other schools that do it as well. Unfortunately, it is still rather rare. With the money coming in from TV contracts, it should be more common.

You are correct.

I would be all for this. If university subsidization of college athletics was made impermissible the first change would be a mandate for fully transparent and completely standardized financial reporting between the athletic departments, universities, and the parent and sibling organizations.

That would be the end of the little shell game down in Provo where the Mormon church uses its media holdings to hide the costs of subsidizing its athletics department. How many tens of millions a year does BYU-TV lose paying the BYU AD for rights to programming, providing the production facilities, and broadcasting the events while generating ZERO carriage fees and only a few advertising dollars from small local businesses (which also all go to the AD)?

How much is that ESPN contract worth when you account for the fact that all the rumored revenue comes to the AD but all the production expenses (which BYU-TV covers for ESPN), which are never mentioned, go on BYU-TV's books as losses? It's the same racket as before when KSL (church subsidy) paid BYU. My wager is that the average US tithe-paying Mormon, whether he/she cares about football or not, is subsidizing BYU-TV, and by extension BYU athletics, at least to the level as if he/she had an HBO subscription.

And it's only getting worse as BYU tries to keep up with the rapidly escalating costs associated with trying to keep up with growing P5 revenues. It's a sham, and the only people who buy it, much like the rest of the garbage pyramid scheme products coming out of Utah County, are the people who are selling it.

I also think it's ironic that the author of the first article received his college education as a student athlete at a subsidized state university (Utah State). What a tool.

(07-10-2015 10:34 AM)Wedge Wrote:  

(07-10-2015 10:27 AM)HawkeyeCoug Wrote:  

(07-10-2015 10:07 AM)Wedge Wrote:  

(07-10-2015 09:51 AM)bullet Wrote:  How much does the church subsidize BYU athletics?

The LDS Church owns the Deseret News, the paper that published those articles. So no coincidence that they are going after athletic spending at public schools in Utah (i.e., every college in Utah with an athletic department except BYU). They also seem to be pretending that student fees are the sole means of supporting these programs, when in fact they are just a small part of the athletic department's budget.

I just did a google news search for "college athletic subsidies." The first item was an editorial from the Salt Lake Tribune - without a doubt the most anti-LDS mainline newspaper. The second was from "The Herald Journal" - a paper I'm not familiar with. After that comes KSL.com (connected to LDS church), then the Shreveport Times talking about LaTech. After the 3 Deseret News articles (the one I didn't mention was about the State Auditors report) come article from Breitbart (irrelevant), Des Moines Register, Forbes, and USA today. That is as far as I am following it.

So, the topic is one that is spread over many news sources, including those that are antagonistic towards the LDS church and BYU. There are also sources discussing athletic subsidies that are mentioning it outside the context of the State Auditors report (source for Deseret News coverage).

When I originally got annoyed enough to post about taking away subsidies, I predicted that the "soccer moms" would not like it. I think the soccer moms are finding out, and they are not happy about it.

The point is that it's a self-interested BYU argument, not a pro or anti church thing.

I'm sure Wake Forest, Baylor, Northwestern, and Vanderbilt would also love it if their public-school competitors couldn't collect student fees for athletics.

Do students at private colleges and universities not pay any fees? I wouldn't know. Honest question.

I guess with all that exorbitant tuition they pay, maybe there are no fees.

(07-10-2015 12:44 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  

(07-10-2015 10:34 AM)Wedge Wrote:  

(07-10-2015 10:27 AM)HawkeyeCoug Wrote:  

(07-10-2015 10:07 AM)Wedge Wrote:  

(07-10-2015 09:51 AM)bullet Wrote:  How much does the church subsidize BYU athletics?

The LDS Church owns the Deseret News, the paper that published those articles. So no coincidence that they are going after athletic spending at public schools in Utah (i.e., every college in Utah with an athletic department except BYU). They also seem to be pretending that student fees are the sole means of supporting these programs, when in fact they are just a small part of the athletic department's budget.

I just did a google news search for "college athletic subsidies." The first item was an editorial from the Salt Lake Tribune - without a doubt the most anti-LDS mainline newspaper. The second was from "The Herald Journal" - a paper I'm not familiar with. After that comes KSL.com (connected to LDS church), then the Shreveport Times talking about LaTech. After the 3 Deseret News articles (the one I didn't mention was about the State Auditors report) come article from Breitbart (irrelevant), Des Moines Register, Forbes, and USA today. That is as far as I am following it.

So, the topic is one that is spread over many news sources, including those that are antagonistic towards the LDS church and BYU. There are also sources discussing athletic subsidies that are mentioning it outside the context of the State Auditors report (source for Deseret News coverage).

When I originally got annoyed enough to post about taking away subsidies, I predicted that the "soccer moms" would not like it. I think the soccer moms are finding out, and they are not happy about it.

The point is that it's a self-interested BYU argument, not a pro or anti church thing.

I'm sure Wake Forest, Baylor, Northwestern, and Vanderbilt would also love it if their public-school competitors couldn't collect student fees for athletics.

Do students at private colleges and universities not pay any fees? I wouldn't know. Honest question.

I guess with all that exorbitant tuition they pay, maybe there are no fees.

Some of them do give student fee money to the athletic department. But, putting pressure on state governments to stop the practice will only affect public schools. The state of Texas doesn't tell Baylor what fees to charge, Illinois doesn't regulate Northwestern's fees, etc.

It's not always easy to tell whether a student fee is going to the athletic department to fund varsity sports. Schools like to bundle up fees to make it difficult for non-insiders to determine how much student fee money goes directly into the varsity athletics budget.

For example, Vandy has a "Student Activities and Recreation Fees" of $1,092 for undergraduates, which looks like a bundle of money that gets divided up amongst intramural athletics, non-athletic student groups, and varsity sports (with students getting free or low-cost admission to sporting events).

Regular students being dunned fees to pay for athletic scholarships for other students and for facilities for those athletes is just ridiculous. Always has been.

(07-10-2015 01:18 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  Regular students being dunned fees to pay for athletic scholarships for other students and for facilities for those athletes is just ridiculous. Always has been.

Nonsense.

If the students want to have nice things, ie Division I college athletics, then that's what it costs.


As long as the students themselves get to vote for fee increases, I see no problem with it at all.

(07-10-2015 09:47 AM)HawkeyeCoug Wrote:  A few years ago I got pretty mad that the public was subsidizing what were at that time BCS athletics, and with my temper flaring proceeded to post incendiary opinions on message boards stating that such departments should not be subsidized. I pointed out that there is no way the typical "soccer mom" would want such heavy subsidies of college sports at the cost of better education. Also wrote state legislators on the education committee in addition to those representing me.

The responses I got back were incendiary in the opposite direction. Many posters denied that subsidies existed, others tried to justify them, and others said I was just bitter and to shut up.

Well, it took years, but it looks like the media is finally waking up. Here are a couple of newspaper articles published yesterday about subsidies, and how they should be eliminated:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/86563...sense.html

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/86563...ports.html

I feel some vindication there.


Glad to see more people are waking up to the problem. My personal opinion is that part of the distributions from TV contracts should pay for overhead, just like the typical university scientific grant or research grant - especially for P5 teams.

First, when an athletic department grants a scholarship, it pays for that athlete's tuition. Tuition covers both fixed cost, variable costs, and everything in between. So, part of the payment that the athletic department makes when it grants scholarships covers academic expenses that would be incurred with or without an athletic department (i.e. building upkeep for Old Main). At least a portion of any subsidy from a college to an athletic department is just reversing that imbalance, potentially bringing the athletic department to profit neutral (or at least less positive) with regards to the rest of the university. Contrary to popular opinion, subsidized athletic departments are not necessary profit negative.

Second, athletic departments provide a service to the university as a whole. They provide a platform that enhances the university's advertising efforts, which helps with academic recruitment, name recognition, and general goodwill. As such, failure to make inter-organization value transfers (i.e. "subsidies") would cause the athletic department to become under-utilized, thereby hurting the overall university.

In short, although the average "soccer mom" might not want subsidies to happen, the average "soccer mom" with any business/economics training absolutely does. The real issue is determining how much of a subsidy there should be. That's where many schools makes mistakes, some of which involve over-subsidizing athletic departments.

(07-10-2015 09:47 AM)HawkeyeCoug Wrote:  A few years ago I got pretty mad that the public was subsidizing what were at that time BCS athletics, and with my temper flaring proceeded to post incendiary opinions on message boards stating that such departments should not be subsidized. I pointed out that there is no way the typical "soccer mom" would want such heavy subsidies of college sports at the cost of better education. Also wrote state legislators on the education committee in addition to those representing me.

The responses I got back were incendiary in the opposite direction. Many posters denied that subsidies existed, others tried to justify them, and others said I was just bitter and to shut up.

Well, it took years, but it looks like the media is finally waking up. Here are a couple of newspaper articles published yesterday about subsidies, and how they should be eliminated:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/86563...sense.html

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/86563...ports.html

I feel some vindication there.


Glad to see more people are waking up to the problem. My personal opinion is that part of the distributions from TV contracts should pay for overhead, just like the typical university scientific grant or research grant - especially for P5 teams.

Universities use athletics as the public face of the school and the primary marketing arm of the university. For the cost of the athletic program, they get literally thousands of mentions a year in the local paper, they get hundreds of thousands of mentions in papers across the nation, they get a dozen 3-hour nationally televised infomercials glorifying campus life at State U (we call them football games), plus many nationally televised basketball/other events. You cant buy that kind of publicity for the money you spend on an athletic program. Even if you spent all the money on national infomercial--most people wouldn't watch them. But millions will watch every second for a football game. Because of athletics, a high school junior has literally heard/read the schools name hundreds of thousands of times and is familiar with much of the schools culture before he ever gets a single piece of mail form the school. Heck, he may have decided to attend that school based strictly on the football or basketball team.

But its even better than that. Most corporate marketng arms are just a cost and offer no direct benefit to the customer and do not generate income. The university athletic department operating as a "marketing" arm of the school---pays a significant part of its own cost, generates so much goodwill among alumni that it creates donations when things go well, provides an amenity for the customers (students), and is sometimes the primary reason some students select your school. I'll bet Progressive doesn't get that kind of mileage out of "Flo". She is just a cost for the company and provides no direct benefit to Progressive customers. Furthermore, I'll bet its been a while since Flo ever got a Progressive customer to straight up donate money to the company.

Its really not fair to look at the athletics budget as a profit and loss center when its actually a marketing budget, a student amenity, and a fund raising program. No internal corporate marketing department makes money. No other corporate marketing department serves a amenity for its customers. A university athletic department serves as a marketing department as well as a student amenity--plus it sometimes functions a fundraiser as well. The fact it covers much of its own costs makes this a pretty sweet model for the schools.

(07-10-2015 01:47 PM)nzmorange Wrote:  First, when an athletic department grants a scholarship, it pays for that athlete's tuition. Tuition covers both fixed cost, variable costs, and everything in between. So, part of the payment that the athletic department makes when it grants scholarships covers academic expenses that would be incurred with or without an athletic department (i.e. building upkeep for Old Main). At least a portion of any subsidy from a college to an athletic department is just reversing that imbalance, potentially bringing the athletic department to profit neutral (or at least less positive) with regards to the rest of the university. Contrary to popular opinion, subsidized athletic departments are not necessary profit negative.

Second, athletic departments provide a service to the university as a whole. They provide a platform that enhances the university's advertising efforts, which helps with academic recruitment, name recognition, and general goodwill. As such, failure to make inter-organization value transfers (i.e. "subsidies") would cause the athletic department to become under-utilized, thereby hurting the overall university.

In short, although the average "soccer mom" might not want subsidies to happen, the average "soccer mom" with any business/economics training absolutely does. The real issue is determining how much of a subsidy there should be. That's where many schools makes mistakes, some of which involve over-subsidizing an athletic department.

It's very difficult to actual account for the cost of educating a group of students, and when you consider athletes, there are a lower proportion that are majoring in the more resource intensive STEM majors. Many state schools "pay" the university the in state tuition rate for the scholarships even though sports draw predominantly out of state students. The university writes of the unpaid difference between in state and out of state tuition as an athletic department subsidy. That's just one instance of a subsidy that isn't really a university writing a check to the athletic department.

(07-10-2015 12:44 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  

(07-10-2015 10:34 AM)Wedge Wrote:  

(07-10-2015 10:27 AM)HawkeyeCoug Wrote:  

(07-10-2015 10:07 AM)Wedge Wrote:  

(07-10-2015 09:51 AM)bullet Wrote:  How much does the church subsidize BYU athletics?

The LDS Church owns the Deseret News, the paper that published those articles. So no coincidence that they are going after athletic spending at public schools in Utah (i.e., every college in Utah with an athletic department except BYU). They also seem to be pretending that student fees are the sole means of supporting these programs, when in fact they are just a small part of the athletic department's budget.

I just did a google news search for "college athletic subsidies." The first item was an editorial from the Salt Lake Tribune - without a doubt the most anti-LDS mainline newspaper. The second was from "The Herald Journal" - a paper I'm not familiar with. After that comes KSL.com (connected to LDS church), then the Shreveport Times talking about LaTech. After the 3 Deseret News articles (the one I didn't mention was about the State Auditors report) come article from Breitbart (irrelevant), Des Moines Register, Forbes, and USA today. That is as far as I am following it.

So, the topic is one that is spread over many news sources, including those that are antagonistic towards the LDS church and BYU. There are also sources discussing athletic subsidies that are mentioning it outside the context of the State Auditors report (source for Deseret News coverage).

When I originally got annoyed enough to post about taking away subsidies, I predicted that the "soccer moms" would not like it. I think the soccer moms are finding out, and they are not happy about it.

The point is that it's a self-interested BYU argument, not a pro or anti church thing.

I'm sure Wake Forest, Baylor, Northwestern, and Vanderbilt would also love it if their public-school competitors couldn't collect student fees for athletics.

Do students at private colleges and universities not pay any fees? I wouldn't know. Honest question.

I guess with all that exorbitant tuition they pay, maybe there are no fees.

I don't know if this is still the case, but at least in the past, Auburn did not charge any tuition what so ever; everything was structured as a fee.

(07-10-2015 10:29 AM)Marge Schott Wrote:  As long as student fees don't make up some outlandish percentage of the athletic budget, I don't consider them "public subsidies". Athletics are as much a part of the college experience as anything else (save the actual coursework), and there are also things like "technology" fees that go towards whatever and fees that help support club sports and student organizations. I see this as no different.

And many schools charge a student athletics fee, but then allow students into football and basketball games for free, without having to buy a student ticket package.

^^^ This ^^^
The athletic department would exist if there were no media deals or "revenue sports." Having media deals and revue sports greatly reduces the amount the school has to spend on athletics. Getting a $50,000,000 department for a modest $2,000,000 seems like a good investment to me.

The state of North Carolina recently committed ~$4 billion to facilities at UNC system schools. This was earmarked for repairs, expansion and new buildings. None of it was for athletics.

(07-12-2015 06:59 AM)chargeradio Wrote:  

(07-10-2015 12:44 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  

(07-10-2015 10:34 AM)Wedge Wrote:  

(07-10-2015 10:27 AM)HawkeyeCoug Wrote:  

(07-10-2015 10:07 AM)Wedge Wrote:  The LDS Church owns the Deseret News, the paper that published those articles. So no coincidence that they are going after athletic spending at public schools in Utah (i.e., every college in Utah with an athletic department except BYU). They also seem to be pretending that student fees are the sole means of supporting these programs, when in fact they are just a small part of the athletic department's budget.

I just did a google news search for "college athletic subsidies." The first item was an editorial from the Salt Lake Tribune - without a doubt the most anti-LDS mainline newspaper. The second was from "The Herald Journal" - a paper I'm not familiar with. After that comes KSL.com (connected to LDS church), then the Shreveport Times talking about LaTech. After the 3 Deseret News articles (the one I didn't mention was about the State Auditors report) come article from Breitbart (irrelevant), Des Moines Register, Forbes, and USA today. That is as far as I am following it.

So, the topic is one that is spread over many news sources, including those that are antagonistic towards the LDS church and BYU. There are also sources discussing athletic subsidies that are mentioning it outside the context of the State Auditors report (source for Deseret News coverage).

When I originally got annoyed enough to post about taking away subsidies, I predicted that the "soccer moms" would not like it. I think the soccer moms are finding out, and they are not happy about it.

The point is that it's a self-interested BYU argument, not a pro or anti church thing.

I'm sure Wake Forest, Baylor, Northwestern, and Vanderbilt would also love it if their public-school competitors couldn't collect student fees for athletics.

Do students at private colleges and universities not pay any fees? I wouldn't know. Honest question.

I guess with all that exorbitant tuition they pay, maybe there are no fees.

I don't know if this is still the case, but at least in the past, Auburn did not charge any tuition what so ever; everything was structured as a fee.

Auburn is a public flagship university in Alabama, not a private college.