DanM wrote:
Simple solution for all colleges.
Keep the sports that make a profit.
Eliminate most sports that operate at a loss, after considering Title IX implications.
The accounting to determine which sports at any given college "make a profit" is a nightmare, and I suspect that under the current model zero sports at any colleges actually make money. I'd love to see a solid accounting that proves any sport makes money. Every study I've ever seen leaves out what I would consider to be major costs associated with that sport.
A big issue I see would be how to accurately assess costs to different teams for things like the buildings/stadiums they play in, and how to allocate administrative time for the AD and other administrators that have jobs that aren't specific to one team. For example, I'm thinking of a DI MAAC school that I have some familiarity with that plays Men's Basketball home games at an off-campus arena owned by a city. The net revenue or net cost of playing there is pretty easy to track (I would think) - basically the arena/city charges the college a fee and the college earns ticket sales income. Concessions, not sure if the arena or the college gets the money from that, maybe it's additional income for the college and if so the Men's BBall team should get credit under this kind of accounting model. But, that Men' BBall teame doesn't regularly practice at that arena, they practice on their campus in a gym that many other teams practice in, and the college regularly has other events in that gym plus intramurals. That gym has an annual operating cost - how do you fairly allocate that to Men's BBall vs the other teams vs non-athletics uses of that space? That gym also had a cost to build it and there are going to be tons of other depreciable costs over time.
Like I said, the accounting seems like a nightmare if your goal is to track it 100% to determine if one sport at a college truly makes a profit or doesn't. And if you're going to drop (or add) sports based on a bottom line, are you in the red or in the black, you better get this calculation right.
Another thing that gets lost is how would you calculate the possible "additional income" connected to a student who enrolls at a college hoping to be a part of a team at that college, and then for whatever reason they don't end up playing that sport. I'm thinking of one team at the college I coach at that keeps a roster of around 25-27 each year, but they generally have at least 40 trying out for the team. That particular team also is known to have student-athletes that generally pay a higher actual tuition + room/board than the median student at our college does. No athletic scholarships for players on that team. That means that in an average year, the people who enrolled at this college with the goal of playing on this team, but not actually playing for the team, are paying well over $500K (in total for all of them). And there are likely a number of students enrolled here who came with the intention of trying out but who decided not to try out. You could easily be close to $1M in tuition/R&B revenue every year because you have that team and drew those students to the college even though they don't play.
Nightmare accounting problem!!
I've read some studies that show that certain teams, particularly Football and Men's BBall (and a couple Women's BBall teams) are in the black most years. Those studies always seem to address operating costs, I've never seen any of those studies touch on the depreciable costs of the facilities in any kind of manner that seems complete (or nearly so) to me - and on the other side I've never seen them address additional income a college receives related to that team from hard to track sources like I noted above.