(01-30-2018 12:28 PM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  

(01-30-2018 12:13 PM)thespiritof1976 Wrote:  If these numbers are accurate then how can a program survive ? It is not sustainable if you lose 20+ million every year. There has to be something else here we are not seeing.

That's exactly what you're seeing. Basically every athletic program that competes in the G5 is well on track to lose 200,000,000 of taxpayer and tuition provided dollars on athletics in the next 10 years. That's who is making up the difference.

I was aware of that. Where I found this interesting was how the money is lost. So much on coaching salaries. So much on women's sports (which of course is driven by the need for equity after adding football).

If you'd like to see the filing for UCF (or any other public institution), all you'd have to do is write the Athletic Department and file a FOIA request for the NCAA filing. All schools have to report to the NCAA, but private schools can make their filings private. And they do.

Here's the numbers from USA today for most public schools in FBS. http://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/finances/ You can click on the schools name to get a breakdown of the losses and the numbers for the last couple of years.

What it details Tom is what will occur if men's football, basketball, and baseball (South)/hockey (North) ever become taxable. Once these programs are taxable then Title IX requirements disappear. Bye bye women's sports, except Softball which in the Southwest and Southeast and on the Pacific Coast can make money.

The Trump tax plan which passed already cuts out the tax deductions for donations made to buy ticket priorities. I consider that to be the first of several steps that will occur before the programs become taxable and stipends turn into pay which also will be taxable.

And think about that before saying it will never happen. The government would love a new revenue source from taxation. Scholarships for non profits will probably stay deductible. But the schools will at some point want to trim red ink. Accountants can zero out most tax liability, but having these programs taxed frees the Athletic Departments of these schools from having to comply with Title IX. That's a lot of red ink at the overwhelming majority of schools (were talking 10's of millions annually). Taxing the profitable programs frees them all to grow the number of players they engage to play. Governing forces will become the conference or a confederation of conferences which will have to set player limits the way the NCAA sets scholarship limits today. But other than that the NCAA won't even be needed. That's 70 million collectively in overhead the schools involved will save and that 70 million is disproportionately paid by the P5.

I could see the IOC providing some support for Olympic sports but the country club sports would be dead on the college campus. Tennis & Golf would be reduced to club level and the burden of competing would be on the players, if any wanted to assume it.

I would strongly urge you to take a look at the WSJ's economic impact list of college sports upon their respective regions. Even there the contrast is stark.

By the way the numbers you listed from USA Today are for 2016. Those numbers will updated for 2017 in April. Virtually all of the attendance, revenue, and value estimations come out from late March through early May every year and are for the previous calendar year.

But that said taxpayers everywhere need to look at these numbers. Segregation by income for the schools has been in preparation for the coming downsizing in all aspects of higher education. This includes the dropping of undergraduate enrollment standards by large state schools at the same time they tighten entrance requirements for post graduate work. They are positioning themselves for survival and that has included college sports realignment.

It would be wise for the strongest athletic programs in the G5 to align themselves similarly. If they do so they will survive.