Inside College Sports' Biggest Money Machine

Bumped from the diaries. GO BRUINS. -N

While reading the journal this morning, I caught an article about Ohio State Athletics. While this normally doesn't have too much to do with UCLA, I felt that there were a few points in this article that hit very close to home, particular in regards to our "situation" with our head football coach. Guys, I know WSJ usually is a per-pay site, but I believe for a week all articles are free to the public, so I'm blockquoting a few points from the article from now. Obviously, feel free to delete if this causes any issues

At $109,382,222 for the current year, Ohio State's athletic budget is the largest in the nation and the biggest in the history of college sports. It allows the school to field 36 varsity teams in everything from baseball and soccer to riflery and synchronized swimming. The school spends about $110,000 on each of its 980 athletes, which is triple the amount the university spends per undergraduate on education.

The budget for this academic year allots $65,000 in private jet time, or roughly 11 hours, to men's basketball coach Thad Matta for recruiting trips over 200 miles -- and a further 15 hours of jet time for the coach's personal travel. A just-completed $19.5 million renovation of the football team's practice facility, funded with a large donation from Limited Brands Chief Executive Leslie Wexner, added a players-only entrance, a lounge that has six flat-panel TVs, three videogame systems and a juice bar. "There's always a race to get up there after practice," says Jake Ballard, a sophomore tight end for the football team that enters this weekend ranked No. 1 in the country.

The men's and women's ice-hockey teams train on a $75,000 hockey treadmill that features a lubricated, ice-like surface that tilts at sharp angles and goes as fast as 16 miles per hour. Men's hockey coach John Markell solicited a donor to buy the equipment, which he says has become a key part of players' workouts. It's a machine most college teams -- and even many National Hockey League clubs -- haven't purchased. "We don't have the space or resources for that," says a spokesman for the Anaheim Ducks, last season's Stanley Cup champions.

Ridiculous. And it's funny to hear commentary about THE Ohio State and education in the same sentence. But I felt this was very interesting:

Ohio State was one of just 19 schools to turn a profit on athletics in 2006, according to data collected by the NCAA. OSU says its athletic department is self-sufficient -- it uses sports revenues to pay for its teams and operations. It doesn't draw from the same budget that's used to fund academic departments. How much the athletic department spends is determined by how much it brings in, not by how much the university decides to give it. A 2005 economic-impact study, commissioned by OSU, estimated that the school's sports program pumps over $100 million a year into the local economy, with more than a third coming from Buckeyes fans' spending on hotels, food, parking and shopping.

$100 million into the local economy and completely self sufficient? I'm sure it helps that they can bring in thugs like Mo Clarett, but that's still a ridiculous amount of money.

The football and men's basketball programs at OSU are the only sports there that turn a profit -- and their revenues support teams other universities have eliminated for lack of funding. "We never want to get into the business of taking opportunities away from students," says Gene Smith, OSU's athletic director.

....

Last season, Ohio State's football program generated about $57 million in revenue. The sum included a $4.75 million payment from the NCAA for advancing to the national championship game and $31.65 million in ticket sales from home games at Ohio State's 105,000-seat stadium. Team expenses, which include nearly $2 million for meals and travel, as well as debt payments to cover stadium renovations, subtracted about $21 million. Still, football supplied nearly $36 million in profit to the athletic department's coffers. The University of Florida, which beat OSU for the national championship in January, made about $34 million on football last year.)

57 million! I'm not sure how the numbers out for our Bruins, but considering that we're not even selling out the most beautiful stadium in college football for a game against Notre Dame (whose fans showed up in droves, by the way), it appears that there's definitely room for growth. And it appears that there's only one man in our way to achieve that growth. And here's another interesting chunk:

A significant chunk of the athletic department's budget is spent in ways that benefit the school's general fund. This year, the athletic department will spend $12 million on scholarships or "Grant-in-Aid" to pay for athletes' tuitions. A few years ago, the department contributed $5 million to help fund renovations to the campus's main library. OSU's sports program is also among the few that pays for all maintenance, security and operating costs at its facilities. (The utilities bill at the football stadium last year: $731,309.) In addition, the athletic department transfers about $1.7 million to the school's academic-support center to pay for tutors and "life skills" workshops for athletes. "I think we're paying somebody $25 an hour to tutor physics," says Mr. Smith.

So that money spent on football to get a great coach and develop a great program is not only self-sufficient, but it also donates money for use in academics?

Now, I'm not saying that we should completely mimic the program that they have going at Ohio State. Obviously, they accept anyone with a pulse that throw or catch or tackle or block and could care less about academic standards. But if I was DG and chancellor Block, I would pay a lot of attention at the money earned through other schools football programs and look at how much money beyond pure salary that we're just wasting on this buffoon masquerading around as our head football coach.

GO BRUINS!