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JNort
12-11-2018, 09:23 PM
I always see the "only X schools make enough money from sports to support themselves" claim. Where does this figure come from and if that is the case why do the smaller schools ala Western Carolina University still have an athletics program? Why continue to support something that only takes away from the school? Also when factoring in the revenue do those numbers include the money made from merchandise sold across the country?



I realize this has been discussed a multitude of times but I can't find the threads using the search function for some reason. Besides which I have more questions if these first few get answered. Links and citations would be greatly appreciated so I can read up on some of this myself as well.

Bluedog
12-11-2018, 09:34 PM
Don't know the answers to all your questions, but I watched a documentary once that mentioned Bowling Green and their football team and they declared that the program "loses money" but that it's worthwhile to the university because it increases their exposure (aka relatively cheap marketing to attract better students) and improves alumni relations and the likelihood alums donate. So, it makes sense that it's not a simple P&L to look at and that there are other intangible benefits that may be hard to quantify as the impact is not precisely known. Now, a volleyball team probably doesn't contribute as heavily to those buckets.

JNort
12-11-2018, 09:55 PM
Don't know the answers to all your questions, but I watched a documentary once that mentioned Bowling Green and their football team and they declared that the program "loses money" but that it's worthwhile to the university because it increases their exposure (aka relatively cheap marketing to attract better students) and improves alumni relations and the likelihood alums donate. So, it makes sense that it's not a simple P&L to look at and that there are other intangible benefits that may be hard to quantify as the impact is not precisely known. Now, a volleyball team probably doesn't contribute as heavily to those buckets.

Hmm see I would think donations would count towards a gross income. Again too with the volleyball part, wouldn't the university be better off cutting their losses there instead of paying for coaches, travel, uniforms, etc...

-jk
12-11-2018, 09:58 PM
Then there's also all the accounting shenanigans - and it gets fuzzy.

Take, for example, the Duke golf course. Is it a PE expense, where the varsity Golf teams pay to play? Or vice-versa? And the exercise loop around it - who claims that?

And where does the Washington Duke Inn and Golf Club fit in? And the Faculty Club?

It's all Duke money, but there're reportable buckets Duke gets to fill, and I imagine they fill them as it works best for Duke's interests.

And: "lather, rinse, repeat" for all the rest of Duke's programs, and every other collegiate program, no matter how small.

-jk

gocanes0506
12-11-2018, 10:12 PM
A quick example.

ECU just pulled 20 million from academics to athletics to improve their red budget. Also they are charging 800 in student fees to support athletcs. Football and basketball don’t make enough to fully support the needs of their athletic budgey.

Bigger schools sell out season tickets plus have giving levels to get those tickets. ECU has giving levels but not to the degree larger schools do.

It would be hard for any school that needs to charge students 800 dollars just to support athletics to then ask them to pay out to athletes.

Now the good argument is why are you paying coaches that much, have that good of facilities, and need so many uniforms. The answer: if the big boys do it, we need to do it too.

jimsumner
12-11-2018, 11:19 PM
The conventional argument is that athletics is the "front porch" of a university, an avenue for promotion first and foremost. And an inducement for happy alums to pull out their checkbooks.


Somehow, MIT, Cal Tech, the University of Chicago and others seem to have survived without bigtime athletic programs.

But, as Hyman Roth so eloquently put it, this is the business we've chosen.

As far as canceling the volleyball program, Title IX makes it very problematic to cut a women's program without also cutting a comparable men's program.

gocanes0506
12-12-2018, 07:35 AM
The conventional argument is that athletics is the "front porch" of a university, an avenue for promotion first and foremost. And an inducement for happy alums to pull out their checkbooks.


Somehow, MIT, Cal Tech, the University of Chicago and others seem to have survived without bigtime athletic programs.

But, as Hyman Roth so eloquently put it, this is the business we've chosen.

As far as canceling the volleyball program, Title IX makes it very problematic to cut a women's program without also cutting a comparable men's program.

Most schools have more problems with showing they are equally spending between men’s and women’s sports. A lot of schools are adding women’s programs as their internal budget for basketball and football go up. If they can balance their internal budget they could cut volleyball.

Clipsfan
12-12-2018, 07:53 AM
Most schools have more problems with showing they are equally spending between men’s and women’s sports. A lot of schools are adding women’s programs as their internal budget for basketball and football go up. If they can balance their internal budget they could cut volleyball.

I thought Title IX is just for scholarships, not total spend. I can't imagine that the spend is equivalent across genders.

HereBeforeCoachK
12-12-2018, 08:12 AM
I thought Title IX is just for scholarships, not total spend. I can't imagine that the spend is equivalent across genders.

There's kind of two calculations going on here at once.....one is the athletic accounting as part of the bigger university - the other is the internal athletic calculations. And of course, both of those are different from, say, Texas and Ohio State and Michigan and Alabama ....versus the Duke/Wake/Rice/Temple/Miami/BC class.........and then there's the Western Carolinas and Woffords and so on.

The problem with Title IX is that it tries to equalize things that cannot ever be equal. It punishes men's non rev sports because so many women's teams have to be supported to equalize the football scholarships.....which is ironic, because FB is paying for all or most of the budgets for many schools. Duke would be unusual in that basketball is the big rev producer...and really, Duke only makes money on football (if they in fact do) owing to the ACC haul (thank you Clemson) while several programs only make money in hoops due to the ACC haul (thanks to Duke, and the Duke-Cheats rivalry).

Coaching salaries are insane.....and the facility spend at some places is insane.....but if you think that there is a place for the non rev sports (and I do) - then the obscene sounding hauls from TV and conference monies and stadia that sell 60-70-80-90 thousand tickets seven times a year - should be celebrated as it makes all that other possible.

budwom
12-12-2018, 08:41 AM
I second the comments of those who mention that different schools do their accounting in different ways (it doesn't really matter how they do it). So relevant comparisons can rarely be made.
As one who worked in corporate finance for 30 years, I know how creative and utterly bizarre cost allocation can be.

cato
12-12-2018, 09:50 AM
The problem with Title IX is that it tries to equalize things that cannot ever be equal.


So, why fight for equality if things “cannot ever be equal”?

Not my credo, personally.

HereBeforeCoachK
12-12-2018, 02:05 PM
So, why fight for equality if things “cannot ever be equal”?

Not my credo, personally.

Nice virtue signal there. But logic: why fight for making sure the exact same amount of girls play sports as boys? It's a stupid thing to try and organize. As it stands now, it is infinitely harder (by percentage) for a male to get an athletic scholarship......so by trying to make it equal over here (scholarships total for boys and girls) they have made it very very unequal over there (percentage of male athletes who get scholarships versus female ATHLETES.) It's PHONY equality....sounds nice and virtuous and high minded, but when you dig down, it's hardly equal at all.

Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15
12-13-2018, 04:48 AM
There's kind of two calculations going on here at once....one is the athletic accounting as part of the bigger university - the other is the internal athletic calculations. And of course, both of those are different from, say, Texas and Ohio State and Michigan and Alabama ...versus the Duke/Wake/Rice/Temple/Miami/BC class.....and then there's the Western Carolinas and Woffords and so on.

The problem with Title IX is that it tries to equalize things that cannot ever be equal. It punishes men's non rev sports because so many women's teams have to be supported to equalize the football scholarships....which is ironic, because FB is paying for all or most of the budgets for many schools. Duke would be unusual in that basketball is the big rev producer...and really, Duke only makes money on football (if they in fact do) owing to the ACC haul (thank you Clemson) while several programs only make money in hoops due to the ACC haul (thanks to Duke, and the Duke-Cheats rivalry).

Coaching salaries are insane....and the facility spend at some places is insane....but if you think that there is a place for the non rev sports (and I do) - then the obscene sounding hauls from TV and conference monies and stadia that sell 60-70-80-90 thousand tickets seven times a year - should be celebrated as it makes all that other possible.

Except that non-revenue sports predate giant TV contracts, conference championship games, and a 64 team NCAA tournament.

HereBeforeCoachK
12-13-2018, 06:57 AM
Except that non-revenue sports predate giant TV contracts, conference championship games, and a 64 team NCAA tournament.

There are a few problems with your statement, quite a few frankly.
First, only SOME non rev sports pre date the big contracts for TV, etc. Many have been added as a result (softball at Duke for example).
Many of the non rev sports were NON SCHOLARSHIP sports...with little or no travel budget, poorly or unpaid coaching, etc. Do you think Chris Pollard is working for the monies Duke paid its baseball coach 5,10,20 years ago? Of course not. Did Duke baseball used to have about 15 versions of their uniform? Of course not. Do you think Duke baseball generates the revenues for this? Methinks not. And on and on.

Meanwhile, the rev sports still were the rev sports...you know, the ones people will pay to watch. The rev's were smaller, but the rev sports were still the rev sports. Everything is bigger now.
Old time, or modern era, it's the few revenue sports that pay for everything else...the only difference is the level of support and how many non rev sports are supported.

-jk
12-13-2018, 07:41 AM
And once upon a time, today's (and yesterday's) rev sports were non-rev sports.

-jk

Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15
12-13-2018, 07:49 AM
There are a few problems with your statement, quite a few frankly.
First, only SOME non rev sports pre date the big contracts for TV, etc. Many have been added as a result (softball at Duke for example).
Many of the non rev sports were NON SCHOLARSHIP sports...with little or no travel budget, poorly or unpaid coaching, etc. Do you think Chris Pollard is working for the monies Duke paid its baseball coach 5,10,20 years ago? Of course not. Did Duke baseball used to have about 15 versions of their uniform? Of course not. Do you think Duke baseball generates the revenues for this? Methinks not. And on and on.

Meanwhile, the rev sports still were the rev sports...you know, the ones people will pay to watch. The rev's were smaller, but the rev sports were still the rev sports. Everything is bigger now.
Old time, or modern era, it's the few revenue sports that pay for everything else...the only difference is the level of support and how many non rev sports are supported.

I'm not sure who you are arguing with here. You said that revenue sports make all other sports possible. I stated that revenue sports pre-date the insane money generated by today's football/basketball.

Obviously the revenue sports subsidize the others, making more things possible. Sort of like how they make the giant stadiums and HD highlights possible. The amount of money tossed around the college sports landscape is, frankly insane. No one will argue that there's not some effect down the line, but don't pretend that there weren't track and field or volleyball teams across America before ESPN. It happened.

The OP was asking whether college sports generate money. The short answer is "it depends who you ask." As the NCAA and member institutions are non-profit entities, they will assure you they don't. When you look at the sheer number of zeroes on the end of the money coming from television and going to coaches, it doesn't really pass the straight face test. It's sort of like if I make $5 million dollars on 2018 and argue to the IRS that I actually didn't make any money because I spent it all on lavish things.

The system is pretty dang broken.

dukelifer
12-13-2018, 07:51 AM
Duke makes most of its revenue from the football TV contract with the ACC and the revenue sharing from the NCAA tourney. This money then pays for most everything. Athletics has to pay for all the scholarships and at Duke this is more expensive than at, for example, State or FSU. Big Duke provides a 15 M subsidy to help cover the cost. This “loss”, which does not account for other non athletic directed donations is the norm. Stanford has big endowments for Athletics. Notre Dame has a sweet TV deal. Just a few programs like Alabama make money now. Many other schools do not have these massive revenue streams but feel the publicity and alumni bonding helps in general student recruiting and other academic donations. But that is usually true if you are a winner and not a loser. Duke has been extremely fortunate to be a winner in basketball. Without it- Duke would be near bottom of the ACC revenue list. So Duke gets its money from football and its reputation from basketball. In 10 years- Duke may be very different and time will tell as to whether Duke chooses to continue to spend money on athletics.

HereBeforeCoachK
12-13-2018, 08:17 AM
I'm not sure who you are arguing with here. ... but don't pretend that there weren't track and field or volleyball teams across America before ESPN. It happened.

The system is pretty dang broken.

I'm arguing with anyone who says that I made the assertion that there weren't non rev sports before the big money. I never said anything remotely close to that. You have now indicated it twice. I think I clarified that pretty well earlier.

As to the system being broken, it is and it isn't. Using a little logic here, if the rev sports didn't have the obscene revenues (the broken part) then the non rev universe would be much smaller and much poorer (the non broken reality of the obscene revenue piece).

For Duke, the rev stream from football is primarily from the ACC revenue sharing package, and the basketball revenue is also from the ACC rev sharing, plus Duke's unique marketability in drawing high profile TV games for hoops. The fact is, the ACC is living off of Clemson football, and Duke basketball, and to some extent the Duke NC rivalry (which drives ACC BB revenues).

The ACC in general, and Duke specifically, will perhaps face a future that simply does not include being a major college athletic program. It is precisely the obscene revenues overall from FB, BB and the NCAAT, that allow Duke, Wake, other small schools to continue to play in this sandbox. How do you think we pay Cut? Certainly isn't from any revenues generated in Wally Wade.

Programs that can sell 50-60-70-80 thousand tickets seven or eight times a year, plus parking, concessions, souvenirs, etc, can fund an athletic program without TV. It won't be as big, as grandiose, and it won't feature non rev sports to the extent we have now...but they can do it. If the mega revenue picture goes away, there may be scant reason for forums like this.

Some will say that's fine, and actually better, and I understand that argument. But I think some rail against the system without ever contemplating what good this corrupt system does spawn. And some of the good is in efforts like The V Foundation. Small time sports could NEVER do that. Be careful what you ask for.

Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15
12-13-2018, 08:24 AM
...if you think that there is a place for the non rev sports (and I do) - then the obscene sounding hauls from TV and conference monies and stadia that sell 60-70-80-90 thousand tickets seven times a year - should be celebrated as it makes all that other possible.

Okay, so it "makes it possible" then.

cato
12-13-2018, 10:18 AM
Nice virtue signal there. But logic: why fight for making sure the exact same amount of girls play sports as boys? It's a stupid thing to try and organize. As it stands now, it is infinitely harder (by percentage) for a male to get an athletic scholarship...so by trying to make it equal over here (scholarships total for boys and girls) they have made it very very unequal over there (percentage of male athletes who get scholarships versus female ATHLETES.) It's PHONY equality...sounds nice and virtuous and high minded, but when you dig down, it's hardly equal at all.

What is virtue signaling?

At any rate, I do not agree that it is “stupid” to increase access and participation in college athletics for young women. I think it is a great goal.

The questionable decision here is by the universities — institutions supposedly dedicated to higher education. Football teams do little to advance the mission of the university, yet vast resources are dedicated to fielding them. If a side effect is generating opportunities for young women to play sports while pursuing their degrees, at least it is providing a side benefit to the university community.

Phredd3
12-13-2018, 03:14 PM
[W]hy fight for making sure the exact same amount of girls play sports as boys? It's a stupid thing to try and organize.
Why is it stupid? Other than the word "exact" - which isn't accurate as things stand now, anyway - why is it 'stupid' to attempt to achieve parity for women in athletics? Is it also stupid to try to achieve parity in classrooms? In faculty? In the House and Senate? Where does the stupidity end?


As it stands now, it is infinitely harder (by percentage) for a male to get an athletic scholarship...so by trying to make it equal over here (scholarships total for boys and girls) they have made it very very unequal over there (percentage of male athletes who get scholarships versus female ATHLETES.) It's PHONY equality...sounds nice and virtuous and high minded, but when you dig down, it's hardly equal at all.It's harder (by percentage) for males to get scholarships precisely because there are fewer women playing sports in high school. Part of the reason there are fewer is because there just haven't been many opportunities available after high school, and extremely few opportunities as professionals. Although the Minnesota Lynx filled up the arena when I was there this summer, the league is still subsidized by the NBA. But as the arenas get full and the TV contracts come in for women's sports, too, perhaps some of those percentages will equalize.

That seems like a pretty good goal, to me, and not particularly stupid, whether we are talking about athletics or other pursuits.

HereBeforeCoachK
12-13-2018, 08:21 PM
Why is it stupid? Other than the word "exact" - which isn't accurate as things stand now, anyway - why is it 'stupid' to attempt to achieve parity for women in athletics? Is it also stupid to try to achieve parity in classrooms? In faculty? In the House and Senate? Where does the stupidity end?
.

You are simply ignoring reality in two very specific areas. There is nothing similar or the same about mens and women's sports at any level. In fact, in gymnastics all the time, and much of the time in tennis, the women's game attracts more spectators and participants...but it's the other way around in just about every other sport. The mens sports are paying for the women's sports for the most part. This is a fact in college and in the NBA. And that's fine. I have no problem with that...but I have no doubt about it's factuality and I have no problem admitting it. It is what it is.

My wife and two daughters are not upset about this reality. In fact, where they have interest in sports, it is always men's sports. My oldest daughter is HUGE Duke fan...and I doubt she could name a single women's athlete in the history of Duke. This is just the way it is with a lot of FEMALE FANS. Trying to square this circle is simply not ever going to work, nor should it be a goal IMO. It sounds very high minded and enlightened, but it ignores realities that are likely never to change.

And your explanation for the percentage situation is about 40 years out of phase. Heck, there were equal opportunities in HS when I was there.....and that is 40 years ago. Nice try.

Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15
12-13-2018, 08:33 PM
You are simply ignoring reality in two very specific areas. There is nothing similar or the same about mens and women's sports at any level. In fact, in gymnastics all the time, and much of the time in tennis, the women's game attracts more spectators and participants....but it's the other way around in just about every other sport. The mens sports are paying for the women's sports for the most part. This is a fact in college and in the NBA. And that's fine. I have no problem with that....but I have no doubt about it's factuality and I have no problem admitting it. It is what it is.

My wife and two daughters are not upset about this reality. In fact, where they have interest in sports, it is always men's sports. This is just the way it is. Trying to square this circle is simply not ever going to work, nor should it be a goal IMO. It sounds very high minded and enlightened, but it ignores realities that are likely never to change.

I appreciate your endless ability to point our reason and logic for the rest of us on this board. I also appreciate your statistically significant sample size of 3 to show women are only interested in men's sports.

Try spending time with different people. I know LOTS of men and women who follow various women's athletics programs and/or sports as enthusiastically as we all follow our beloved Duke basketball. Heck, there's folks on this board who are more passionate about Duke women's ball then men's.

I don't understand why you are against this twisted institution attempting to "square a circle" by offering opportunities to young women and encouraging participation in sports.

Moreso than that curious take, I would beg you to please do making all of your arguments so myopic and patronizing. This board has lots of divergent opinions, and we mostly manage to have discussions without using thinly veiled insults regarding our ability to reason or reckon with reality. It puts everyone on the defensive, and doesn't contribute to productive conversation, whether the subject be NFL mascots, Title 9, other potential PPB subjects, or even Blue Devil strategy.

We are all fanatic zealots here, self selecting into this strange community. But let's focus on what we have in common and be respectful where we don't share the same opinion.

I am not a mod your mileage may vary, blah blah.

Let's go Duke.

cato
12-13-2018, 09:53 PM
You are simply ignoring reality in two very specific areas. There is nothing similar or the same about mens and women's sports at any level. In fact, in gymnastics all the time, and much of the time in tennis, the women's game attracts more spectators and participants...but it's the other way around in just about every other sport. The mens sports are paying for the women's sports for the most part. This is a fact in college and in the NBA. And that's fine. I have no problem with that...but I have no doubt about it's factuality and I have no problem admitting it. It is what it is.

My wife and two daughters are not upset about this reality. In fact, where they have interest in sports, it is always men's sports. My oldest daughter is HUGE Duke fan...and I doubt she could name a single women's athlete in the history of Duke. This is just the way it is with a lot of FEMALE FANS. Trying to square this circle is simply not ever going to work, nor should it be a goal IMO. It sounds very high minded and enlightened, but it ignores realities that are likely never to change.

And your explanation for the percentage situation is about 40 years out of phase. Heck, there were equal opportunities in HS when I was there....and that is 40 years ago. Nice try.

I would love a less strident tone.

As far as I can tell, you are saying that you value certain things. Other people obviously value different things. To ignore that would be ignoring an important reality.

sagegrouse
12-13-2018, 10:20 PM
You are simply ignoring reality in two very specific areas. There is nothing similar or the same about mens and women's sports at any level. In fact, in gymnastics all the time, and much of the time in tennis, the women's game attracts more spectators and participants...but it's the other way around in just about every other sport. The mens sports are paying for the women's sports for the most part. This is a fact in college and in the NBA. And that's fine. I have no problem with that...but I have no doubt about it's factuality and I have no problem admitting it. It is what it is.

My wife and two daughters are not upset about this reality. In fact, where they have interest in sports, it is always men's sports. My oldest daughter is HUGE Duke fan...and I doubt she could name a single women's athlete in the history of Duke. This is just the way it is with a lot of FEMALE FANS. Trying to square this circle is simply not ever going to work, nor should it be a goal IMO. It sounds very high minded and enlightened, but it ignores realities that are likely never to change.

And your explanation for the percentage situation is about 40 years out of phase. Heck, there were equal opportunities in HS when I was there...and that is 40 years ago. Nice try.

OMG, HBCK, are you really peddling this junk? Women's participation is sports is one of the most positive social developments in the past 50 years. The benefits are -- and are supposed to be -- to the athletes, not the fans. Title 9 of the Education Act was passed in 1972 and signed by Pres. Nixon. It provided for equal access by both sexes to any school program or activity. Implementing regs were signed by Pres. Ford a few years later. The act was attacked by pro-revenue sports advocates and the NCAA. The bills all failed, and the NCAA and others failed in court.

As a result, women's participation in college level (and HS-level) sports has soared. The results are clear if one looks at Olympic medals and US world champions in soccer and other sports. More to the point, I have read that many of the women CEOs and executives were college athletes. One among hundreds of examples is Sue Gordon, Principal Dep. Director of National Intelligence and a 25-year CIA veteran -- she played basketball at Duke. (FWIW, the majority of the CEOs from my era at Duke were football players -- John Mack, Roy Bostock, etc. Hard to believe, I admit, but true.)

Sports are important. And the equal treatment of women and men in HS and college sports is a fantastically good development over the past 50 years.

Phredd3
12-14-2018, 10:03 AM
In fact, in gymnastics all the time, and much of the time in tennis, the women's game attracts more spectators and participants...but it's the other way around in just about every other sport. The mens sports are paying for the women's sports for the most part. This is a fact in college and in the NBA. And that's fine. I have no problem with that...but I have no doubt about it's factuality and I have no problem admitting it. It is what it is.

Although the Minnesota Lynx filled up the arena when I was there this summer, the league is still subsidized by the NBA. But as the arenas get full and the TV contracts come in for women's sports, too, perhaps some of those percentages will equalize.
It's not clear to me what I got wrong there.


My wife and two daughters are not upset about this reality.
Forgive me if I do not find it surprising that your relatives feel the same way you do. But for folks who do have an interest - and I find interest in women's sports to be MUCH higher in younger demographics (among folks who were actually raised with Title IX already in place and effectively implemented) - doesn't it make sense to give them the opportunity? Also, I just wonder about the general social strategy of "that's just the way it is" when it comes to human activity. Not to say that the circumstances are truly analogous, but there was a time when sufferage was a men's-only thing, too. And at that time, there were plenty of women who didn't particularly care if they had the vote or not. Was that a circle that shouldn't have been squared? I'm not trying to be combative, I'm honestly trying to figure out why you think this way about this issue.


And your explanation for the percentage situation is about 40 years out of phase. Heck, there were equal opportunities in HS when I was there....and that is 40 years ago. Nice try.You must have lived in different places than I did. I'm 35 years out of high school myself, and the opportunities were most definitely not equal at my school, and there was still plenty of resistance to the terms of Title IX at the local level where I grew up on the very liberal West Coast. There was certainly nothing like numerical parity.

But my high school is still open and there is parity of opportunity now. I consider that a positive development for those young ladies.

Jeffrey
12-14-2018, 11:00 AM
Good luck calculating a true ROI on any athletic program! The multitude of required assumptions, in any modeling system, will result in GIGO.

I will confidently say, the Duke basketball program is profitable!

wncgrad
12-14-2018, 04:28 PM
The conventional argument is that athletics is the "front porch" of a university, an avenue for promotion first and foremost. And an inducement for happy alums to pull out their checkbooks.


Somehow, MIT, Cal Tech, the University of Chicago and others seem to have survived without bigtime athletic programs.

But, as Hyman Roth so eloquently put it, this is the business we've chosen.

As far as canceling the volleyball program, Title IX makes it very problematic to cut a women's program without also cutting a comparable men's program.


"Large issues" in college sports come up from time to time but I have never seen any references to our resident campus expert, Charles T. Clotfelter. Professor in Policy Studies in the Sanford School. He is a Duke undergrad '69 and a Harvard Ph.D. If not too academic the following may be of interest: Big-Time Sports in American Universities (2011), Is Sports in Your Mission Statement (2010), 80 Years of Trade-Offs in College Sports (2009), What the Future May Hold for College Athletics in the ESPN Era (DVD 2015), Sport in Contemporary Society: An Anthology. Titles are from library catalogue and campus bio. How you can find them is up to you.

budwom
12-14-2018, 05:10 PM
I enjoy Duke sports immensely (particularly hoops, football and lacrosse) but readily concede that the importance of sports like football and basketball at U.S. universities is beyond absurd. (For many reasons...the amount of money spent, the salaries of the coaches generally being far far greater than those of the most celebrated professors, on and on.) Nonetheless I like following them. Can't help myself.

I'm not aware of any other country doing anything quite like this...does the Sorbonne pour millions into its soccer (futbol) program? Does it even have one?
Cambridge and Oxford like to row skinny boats against each other, not sure they do much else.