Here’s a rough estimate, ticket sales, tv contracts, corporate sponsors and donations cover more than half of the budget. Student fees cover about 1/4 and the university pays the other 1/4. So were talking 7 million would be a loss. The students get free or low cost admission for that fee, some may never go to anything, but then again, I never got my money’s worth from the library so were even.
Keep in mind I’m rounding all these numbers.
The new football tv contract is 5x more than the old one by moving to the big east, that will bring in another 4-5 million and some guy donated 5 million all by himself (because he likes the sports, not the library). Basketball and football are the only sports that bring in ticket revenue, it’s all the other sports that technically lose money. But seriously, are women’s lacrosse scholarships really ending the world? Because that’s where the losses are, women’s sports and sports that rarely get on t.v. It’s the reason some kids go to a division 1 school, it’s the reason alumni give money, we could argue for hours, but my real point is that the athletic department didn’t lose 30 million, not even close.
One side note, when the american women win gold in soccer or men win in hockey or any other sport where watching our kids do really well, the losses and the scholarships become suddenly worth it for me. Nobody is taking away a poor kids scholarship or an academic scholarship, why would you want to take away from the athletes, especially the ones that don’t sell tickets. I like watching golf, sdsu has a great college team. On Sundays, the last day of every tournament, Tiger wears red (stanford), Fowler wears orange (oklahoma), the euros wear whatever. Why? because wearing your college colors on the last day of the tournament matters, the announcers mention it every time and that is a source of pride (and donations) from dorks like me. Some people complain, but I don’t mind paying so that one day, the winner at augusta is rockin the red and black on Sunday.
