… the running of the university athletic program numbers is an annual display at once shocking and idiotic.
Cleveland State University’s numbers are typical: Almost no students attend the school’s games, but “[a]n estimated 89 percent ($9,361,508) of the athletics budget is paid for by CSU’s students.”
Men’s basketball, without a doubt the most popular CSU sports team, averaged an attendance of just 1,996 people at their home games in the 2014-15 season.
The Wolstein Center, their home arena, has a capacity of more than 13,000. The 2015 budget projected that the Wolstein Center would operate at a $917,000 deficit this year.
You and I know what the next step is at CSU. We’ve been following university sports for a long time, yes?
CSU will announce that they’ll spend 60 million dollars to expand the arena and add 30,000 seats.
April 29th, 2015 at 9:08AM
And yet CSU plans to add another sport, men’s lacrosse, which has little to no high-school support in the state of Ohio and presumably will draw few students to attend games. Ah, but the players are from those coveted “outer-ring” (read affluent) suburbs and other states, so it’s all good!