From the student newspaper, University of Maine:
… [T]he athletic department is losing millions of dollars annually. Other financial documents indicate the university is spending less of its budget on educational instruction now than it was in previous decades.
In the current fiscal year — which runs July 1, 2009 to June 30, 2010 — athletics is projected to cost the university $7.3 million more than the revenue it brings in.
Athletic Director Blake James said the athletic department is subsidized by the university, but that the projected loss of $7 million sounded high. James said he thought the actual loss would be closer to $5 million.
… The budget for fiscal 2010 projected the athletics department would generate about $4.5 million in revenue, falling far short of its expected $12.2 million in expenditures. This discrepancy would be covered by revenue in the general university budget, the vast majority of which comes from tuition and state appropriations.
… The bulk of sports teams’ operating costs comes from coaches’ salaries and benefits.
… There appears to be a historical trend in the financial documents from decennial accreditation reports indicating student education has been slipping on the university’s priority list…
Well, where would you put student education on a university’s priority list? Tenth? Twelfth?
March 29th, 2010 at 11:15AM
Funny…I read your post title a little too quickly and thought it was “Manly Athletics”. Somehow that felt appropriate, too.
That said, the content of the piece was not surprising. Education at universities is apparently overrated.
March 29th, 2010 at 11:26AM
My university places student education well behind administrative salaries and benefits on its priority list, but that’s a commonplace. Some of the faculty prioritize getting a piece of that action, to the detriment of our students. That’s a commonplace, too.
March 29th, 2010 at 1:20PM
We are getting ready to spend $36 mil on a new practice facility for our basketball team. This while people are to be laid off and a less than fair salary reduction imposed by our CEO. This after we built a new football stadium with the biggest men’s locker room – wood paneled – on the planet.
March 29th, 2010 at 5:03PM
Here we do not call the athletic deficit a deficit. It is called an investment by our administrators.
March 30th, 2010 at 10:50AM
Maine has a very moderate athletic program, “big time” only in hockey; it does have football, like every state flagship campus except Vermont. The athletic facilities, I believe, were financed largely through donations. It’s more or less in the middle of nowhere, which means that games have some value as a social amenity; still, there’s no chance of selling a lot of tickets.
In other words, the issue here is not excess, but simply whether or not intercollegiate athletics are or should be integral to American higher education.