Quote:
Originally Posted by Musicman408
Read an article in the USA Today and it got me thinking. I think, deep down that it is ridiculous, although very successful sports programs bring the university money, so that is about the only justification that I can make.
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Bingo. You can't even begin to calculate the importance of the sports teams to the overall health/wealth of most any major university. You don't even need to be a very successful program to make tons of money (cough Notre Dame cough)- just one that has a solid relationship with its community/alumni.
Everyone loves to joke about Sen. Orrin Hatch making such a big deal about BCS being fundamentally corrupt & attempting to get the government involved, but we're talking about an OBSCENE amount of money here- from the obvious, direct revenue streams (TV, ticket sales, corporate boosters), but also boosting the prestige of a university over time (a large segment of the population, when choosing where to attend college, the school's teams' & success/lack thereof play a huge part in evaluating the atmosphere) contributing to increased alumni support.