(07-25-2019 11:03 AM)mlb Wrote: (07-25-2019 10:32 AM)quo vadis Wrote: (07-25-2019 08:41 AM)mlb Wrote: If you take out the sunk cost (scholarships) every AD department in the country is making money.
As i explained to Kitty, the notion of "taking out sunk costs" is absurd. But even if we did, I seriously doubt that. I bet 90% of G5 and below football programs still cost more than they bring in.
Tuition, room, board... it is probably $20M that is "accounted" for but real cost to UC is probably closer to 5%-10%. The professors would be there whether the 534 student athletes were there anyway considering there are over 46,000 total students. Health insurance is the biggest additional cost they could drop for those athletes. Take away the scholarship costs from the expenditure line, and UC suddenly is very close to breaking even or even profitable. Add in the donations to academics and athletics and any loss is dwarfed by the fundraising. The value of the recruiting tool for prospective students who watch games on TV is also worth millions (instead of a school having to advertise itself through 30 second ad buys).
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Look at a school like Cincy: What are the scholarship costs that are charged to athletics? What are the student subsidy costs?
If the athletic 'deficit' really is just a paper deficit not a real one, then student fees and institutional transfers should = athletic scholarships. Erase the athletic scholarships which you say are bogus paper 'costs' and if athletics is paying its way there should be no need for transfers/subsidies.
Is that the case? Does a student who is socked with a $800 a semester athletic fee get a check for that fee back a month later because the money just cycles back to the academic side from athletics, it's just one big you give me a dollar and i give it back paper shuffle right?
Of course not. The students who pay the fee do not get the money back, it is sucked up by athletics. Proof of this is that if athletics ceased to exist, surely the fees would too.
At best, your argument just boils down to something (IIRC) Attackcoog once claimed, which was in effect football and other athletics does not "run a deficit" because other students cover all their costs with their mandatory fees! So it's not really a "deficit" for UC or USF, because they've managed to pass those costs on to their non-athlete students.
But even from that jaded POV, athletics isn't "paying" for itself, much less anything else, it's being paid for by the other students.
Heck, using your and Kit-Kat logic, every single student -not just athletes, everyone - who attends UC or EMU or USF should be able to attend for free - tuition, books, room, board, all for nothing - because by golly the sunk cost "infrastructure" and professors are all already there, so the campus incurs no costs when the student shows up and attends class, stays in a dorm, eats meals, etc.
Not very sensible to me.