Having bad sports teams does not help any university. Eventually a school like Hawaii, Temple, Tulsa, New Mexico State, San Jose State will realize that losing million on its sports teams does nothing good for the university and will just get out of the game. The first university that makes that move gets a national reputation and the schools who stay on trying to compete with the schools that have Wal-Mart alumni will just look like losers.
Uhm…I suspect the data are grossly screwed if Prof Clotfelter starting point is 1920. I doubt he would have the same findings if his starting point was 1980, which is a better starting point for contemporary schools.
And I was at Drake when the school moved from Division 1 Football to Division 3….because it was going broke (1986-1987). The school recovered quite nicely.
September 3rd, 2011 at 10:00AM
For more on the economics of big time college sports see Expensive Icing at http://ptable.blogspot.com/2011/08/twin-city-federal-stadium-university-of.html#links.
September 3rd, 2011 at 2:50PM
Having bad sports teams does not help any university. Eventually a school like Hawaii, Temple, Tulsa, New Mexico State, San Jose State will realize that losing million on its sports teams does nothing good for the university and will just get out of the game. The first university that makes that move gets a national reputation and the schools who stay on trying to compete with the schools that have Wal-Mart alumni will just look like losers.
September 3rd, 2011 at 7:20PM
Uhm…I suspect the data are grossly screwed if Prof Clotfelter starting point is 1920. I doubt he would have the same findings if his starting point was 1980, which is a better starting point for contemporary schools.
And I was at Drake when the school moved from Division 1 Football to Division 3….because it was going broke (1986-1987). The school recovered quite nicely.