(02-22-2017 05:39 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  

(02-22-2017 05:18 PM)TrojanCampaign Wrote:  I cannot blame any school for not wanting to move up. If you do the research it's not worth it. There are quite a few FBS teams now who would be better off just not having football teams at all but would get a massive backlash if they did that.

FBS is just a waste of millions of dollars to appease your ego if you are not a major program like USC, Ohio State, Texas, Alabama, etc. If you are someone like Louisiana Monroe you will never play for a championship, you will never be able to keep a good coach, you will never have the same level of athletes as other schools, you will never have the budget that other schools have, you wont get the tv exposure other schools do.

It's literally choosing to play a costly sport at a handicap just because other people are doing it.

Generally speaking: I reject this mindset.

Universities are not supposed to be about saving money just for the sake of saving money. They're not investments. They're not businesses.


If you want something nice that you can be proud of, it's gonna cost ya. That's as true about your own home, as it is college athletics.

Note: I am a TN fan, and recognize any bias I may have because of that.

Even on the academic side, many programs (particularly on the masters and doctorate level) are money-losers, but the institutions keep the programs for various reasons.

On the same level, even if football is a money loser, if it accomplishes the purposes that the institution desires for it, they will keep it.

Let's take a completely made up school: Made Up Directional University competes in Made Up Athletic Conference every year. In the Made Up Athletic Conference, MUDU is a middling school, on occasion being decent to good, rarely great. They are losing money on football and wondering if they should drop football. But, student enrollment and donations to the academic side of the school went up when football was started. In addition, all MUDU's peer schools play football. Dropping football may save money, but will 1) cause enrollment and donations to go down, and 2) mean playing in a conference with perceived lesser institutions. Football is kept.