Monday, March 14, 2011

Are Big Time Collegiate Programs Justified in Spending So Much Money?

Big-time college sports programs are increasingly spending more and more money each year. It has increased four times faster than academic budgets at those universities.  It also has no effect on the academic quality of the student-athletes.  Many of these schools spend to keep up with other universities.  They spend a lot of money on paying coaches (some coaches make more than the actual President of that university) and a huge amount of money is spent on building and maintaining state of the art facilities.  They spend money on those things because if they want to be competitive in their sport, they have to get great recruits, and having a good coach and good facilities greatly helps with recruiting. 

In our American Sport in the 21st Century class, we discussed reasons why all of this big spending by major college sport programs is justified.

Justification of Big Spending
-college sport is part of the college experience
-athletics are a valuable part to any university
-many people would disagree with cutting sports programs

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/2010-01-13-ncaa-athletics-subsidies_N.htm
In this article in the USA Today, it discusses if big-time athletics are worth the cost of maintaining those programs.  About 82% of major programs operate at a loss.  Is losing money worth winning? Many people say yes but there are solid arguments against it also.

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