RE: Biggest Threat to UAB football and basketball is occuring
uabbean,
Perhaps under the scenario you expressed, we will finally see universities stop the crying about athletics money they are "spending"!
Let's discuss the $15 million PDF amount that Watts is spending (I thought he agreed to $20 million, but we'll use $15 million). The main expense covered by the discretionary funds are scholarships. But UAB charges the UAB Athletic Department the price of FULL tutition!!! I'll repeat that: UAB charges UAB! Those aren't real expenses!
Let's use an example:
Football Player A signs a scholarship to play at UAB. So, UAB charges UAB Athletics $14,000 for his education. How much of that money goes to an intitity that is outside of UAB? The number is about $4,000 (according to some who have studied this, i.e. Andy Schwartz). So, the university says that fielding a football team costs $14,000 X 85 (actually more because they charge more for out of state athletes even though they don't require any more expense). That is a minimum of about $1.2 million (again with out of staters, it is much more).
However, the actual number should be $4,000 X 85, which is $340,000. That's what football scholarships actually cost UAB the institution. Now, UAB will field about 30 walk-on football players, students who are only attending UAB because of football! Without football there, these kids would be students somewhere else. So UAB football has recruited these 30 kids at full price! So, those students are costing UAB about $4,000, but they are paying $14,000, so that's a difference of $10,000 each. So, 30 X $10,000 = $300,000. So, now UAB Football is in the hole $40,000 on scholarships. Blazer Club raises WAY more than that. Plus, there are girlfriends, friends, band members, and cheerleaders that come to UAB because they have a footballl program. If not, they would go somewhere else.
UAB Football does NOT lose money!!! It never has!
Let's look at Women's soccer. Surely they lose money. There are 24 girls on their roster. The NCAA allows 12 full scholarships. 12 X $4,000 = $48,000
The other 12 girls are paying $10,000 more than they cost. So, 12 X $10,000 = $120,000!!! They are $72,000 to the good right off the bat!! Now, with coaching salaries and travel, they may lose money, but it's not millions.
The idea of college athletics costing universities tens of millions every year is a bold face lie, and they need to stop telling that lie! The universities want to sing you a sad song, but the way they calculate things is dishonest.
(This post was last modified: 03-20-2017 09:16 AM by the Dragon.)
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