Sonia Sotomayor for USSC?

[Valmy]

I would guess that most, if not all, of the BCS schools manage to make money or at least break even on football and basketball.

I know Texas Tech was operatiing a huge loss in Football for awhile at least to try to catch up to Texas, Texas A&M, and Oklahoma.

[alfred russel]

Obviously big spending on college sports is necessary: look at the top rankings of academic institutions and you will see that they closely match the top rankings of football and basketball.

As for canceling men's sports because of title ix, why is it so expensive for a college to have a sport? Thousands of high schools have track teams, swimming teams, tennis teams, soccer teams, etc. that cost almost nothing. If schools don't insist on hiring coaches for obscene salaries and having venues that aren't modern day cathedrals, we might avoid the horror of a world without men's college wrestling.

[Valmy]

As for canceling men's sports because of title ix, why is it so expensive for a college to have a sport? Thousands of high schools have track teams, swimming teams, tennis teams, soccer teams, etc. that cost almost nothing. If schools don't insist on hiring coaches for obscene salaries and having venues that aren't modern day cathedrals, we might avoid the horror of a world without men's college wrestling.

It is because of travel and scholarships mostly.  The facilities obviously already existed before the program was cut.

[Berkut]

Obviously big spending on college sports is necessary: look at the top rankings of academic institutions and you will see that they closely match the top rankings of football and basketball.

As for canceling men's sports because of title ix, why is it so expensive for a college to have a sport? Thousands of high schools have track teams, swimming teams, tennis teams, soccer teams, etc. that cost almost nothing. If schools don't insist on hiring coaches for obscene salaries and having venues that aren't modern day cathedrals, we might avoid the horror of a world without men's college wrestling.

Actually, the teams that hire coaches for obscene slaries do so because they want to continue to be profitable.

This was a minor issue at Arizona recently - people were bitching about how much Sean Miller was going to be paid at a time when the university was cutting everywhere (supposedly). But that misses the entire point. Miller is being hired to be the head coach at a school that makes a LOT of money off of the basketball program - if you are not willing to pay top dollar, you can save a million or two a year in salary, at the cost of a $15 million/year program.

A classic example of being penny wise and pound foolish.

[Berkut]

Obviously big spending on college sports is necessary: look at the top rankings of academic institutions and you will see that they closely match the top rankings of football and basketball.

That is just a silly argument - are you claiming that any program that does not contribute to making some school somewhere in the "top ranking of academic institutions" is not necessary?

Being in the top ranking of academic instutions is possible, by definition, for only a few schools - should everyone else just close their doors since they cannot be a top ranked academic school? Should that be the goal for every single school in America, to make it into the top academic rankings?

[alfred russel]

As for canceling men's sports because of title ix, why is it so expensive for a college to have a sport? Thousands of high schools have track teams, swimming teams, tennis teams, soccer teams, etc. that cost almost nothing. If schools don't insist on hiring coaches for obscene salaries and having venues that aren't modern day cathedrals, we might avoid the horror of a world without men's college wrestling.

It is because of travel and scholarships mostly.  The facilities obviously already existed before the program was cut.

So why not keep the programs without scholarships?

[Berkut]

As for canceling men's sports because of title ix, why is it so expensive for a college to have a sport? Thousands of high schools have track teams, swimming teams, tennis teams, soccer teams, etc. that cost almost nothing. If schools don't insist on hiring coaches for obscene salaries and having venues that aren't modern day cathedrals, we might avoid the horror of a world without men's college wrestling.

It is because of travel and scholarships mostly.  The facilities obviously already existed before the program was cut.

So why not keep the programs without scholarships?

They do, it is called Division II and Division III.

[Valmy]

So why not keep the programs without scholarships?

Good question and I have no idea.

Edit:  Well certain leagues and classifications might have scholarship requirements.  I know Iowa State couldn't have just dumped all their scholarships and continued to compete in the Big XII so they just dumped their program (no now the Big XII is the Big X in baseball, Colorado dropped their program also).  I think you have to have at least 3 scholarships for Division I status.

Speaking of Baseball the NCAA tournament starts today and I have tickets for the first two rounds.  Wahoo!  Lots of scholarships will be on display this afternoon.

[alfred russel]

They do, it is called Division II and Division III.

So then why do the departments have to lose money? If Arizona basketball is a cash cow, then by all means make the cash and pay the coach to do so. But then don't spend so much on other sports that it starts taking away from academics. I doubt that the brand of Arizona is enhanced by the rowing team. Compete at a lower division if it is too expensive to give scholarships.

[Valmy]

So then why do the departments have to lose money? If Arizona basketball is a cash cow, then by all means make the cash and pay the coach to do so. But then don't spend so much on other sports that it starts taking away from academics. I doubt that the brand of Arizona is enhanced by the rowing team. Compete at a lower division if it is too expensive to give scholarships.

I do not even know if that is an option.

It seems that you either compete in your division of the NCAA or you have club teams.

[alfred russel]

So then why do the departments have to lose money? If Arizona basketball is a cash cow, then by all means make the cash and pay the coach to do so. But then don't spend so much on other sports that it starts taking away from academics. I doubt that the brand of Arizona is enhanced by the rowing team. Compete at a lower division if it is too expensive to give scholarships.

I do not even know if that is an option.

It seems that you either compete in your division of the NCAA or you have club teams.

Can you change divisions? Could Arizona switch to Division II to save money?

[Berkut]

They do, it is called Division II and Division III.

So then why do the departments have to lose money? If Arizona basketball is a cash cow, then by all means make the cash and pay the coach to do so. But then don't spend so much on other sports that it starts taking away from academics. I doubt that the brand of Arizona is enhanced by the rowing team. Compete at a lower division if it is too expensive to give scholarships.

The departments do not have to lose money, and Arizona has a profitable athletic department overall - football and basketball pay for all the other sports.

And actually, the brand of Arizona is most certainly enhanced by the baseball team, the womens softball team, swimming, golf, and a variety of other sports.

I am not sure what the issue is here. Universities do lots of things that cost money that do not directly contribute to academics. Why are sports getting special attention?

And of course non-revenue generating sports are being cut all over the country. I guess that is fine, except that it just over-emphasizes the role of money in college athletics - if it really is so much about money that we aren't interested in any sports that don't make a profit, then who can complain about that focus?

There really isn't anything broken here - what are you trying to fix? Different schools consider athletics to be more or less important, and fund them appropriately. If you think mens rowing is not worth spending money on, don't go to a school that has mens rowing....I guess.

[Admiral Yi]

So then why do the departments have to lose money? If Arizona basketball is a cash cow, then by all means make the cash and pay the coach to do so. But then don't spend so much on other sports that it starts taking away from academics. I doubt that the brand of Arizona is enhanced by the rowing team. Compete at a lower division if it is too expensive to give scholarships.

You're overlooking the possibility, already mentioned by Speesh, that alumni giving is linked to sports.

I have a veeery vague recollection of someone telling me that Georgetown alumni donantions jumped 100% after they signed Patrick Ewing.

[alfred russel]

They do, it is called Division II and Division III.

So then why do the departments have to lose money? If Arizona basketball is a cash cow, then by all means make the cash and pay the coach to do so. But then don't spend so much on other sports that it starts taking away from academics. I doubt that the brand of Arizona is enhanced by the rowing team. Compete at a lower division if it is too expensive to give scholarships.

The departments do not have to lose money, and Arizona has a profitable athletic department overall - football and basketball pay for all the other sports.

And actually, the brand of Arizona is most certainly enhanced by the baseball team, the womens softball team, swimming, golf, and a variety of other sports.

I am not sure what the issue is here. Universities do lots of things that cost money that do not directly contribute to academics. Why are sports getting special attention?

And of course non-revenue generating sports are being cut all over the country. I guess that is fine, except that it just over-emphasizes the role of money in college athletics - if it really is so much about money that we aren't interested in any sports that don't make a profit, then who can complain about that focus?

There really isn't anything broken here - what are you trying to fix? Different schools consider athletics to be more or less important, and fund them appropriately. If you think mens rowing is not worth spending money on, don't go to a school that has mens rowing....I guess.

If the point of the athletics department is to make money, then it should be maximizing the revenue it returns to academics. If it is to teach athletics, then we should be fostering other college programs and not cutting them. It seems to me we aren't doing either: we aren't returning money to academics, and we are cutting unprofitable sports.

I guess my main complaint is really just cultural annoyance--it seems 90% of the time I hear of some schools it is because of their sports teams, manned by people who may never graduate.

Yi has a good point about fostering donations though.

[Valmy]

Can you change divisions? Could Arizona switch to Division II to save money?

Except that wouldn't save them money.  In fact it would lose them lots of money.