(04-09-2018 09:47 PM)McKinney Wrote:  What about the subsidies needed for the service academies? Those are the most concerning in my opinion because they don't come out of the pocket of, for all intents and purposes, "willing" students but rather directly out of the pocket of taxpayers.

I say this as a big fan of Army football, a brother of a cadet, and a member of family with many active servicemembers and veterans across every branch of the military - including five grads from the Military, Naval, and Coast Guard Academies and an OCS Air Force officer. Despite that bias I have to acknowledge that the service academies are a boondoggle. At $300k+ per officer they cost four times as much per officer compared to ROTC and OCS. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/...53ba2a7eaf

Surely sponsoring Division I FBS programs at three of the academies is a part of this cost. Especially when you consider since they're all G5 programs, they probably aren't making that much money (even though Army and Navy are some of the most storied football programs). Not to mention as members of the Patriot League, Army and Navy certainly aren't making any money in basketball. Air Force might be a bit better off as a member of Mountain West.

They're federal institutions, supported by the federal government. Spread out among the entire population of the United States, the sum total subsidy going to all three academies' football programs probably comes out to fractions of a cent per person. Non-factor.