Spend like a champion today

The Austin-American Stateman crunches the big numbers spent on UT Athletics. A must-read article, but here are a few highlights.

• The University of Texas athletics department spends more than $100 million annually.
• "Fewer than 10 out of more than 1,000 college athletic programs nationally make money or break even, according to [NCAA president Myles] Brand."
• "At Big 12 rival Texas Tech University, four in every 10 dollars of the school's annual debt service goes to repay loans taken out to build or rehab sports facilities."
• "The athletic department this year will pay $1.79 million--$450,000 for the football team alone--to tutor and assist Longhorn athletes with their classwork. That's up more than a quarter from two years ago and works out to $3,500 per student-athlete, in addition to the regular $8,000 annual cost of tuition."
• "University of Texas spends about $1 million a year recruiting and flying star prospects to Austin."
• "Each year, it gives various rewards to players and personnel — letter jackets and blankets, but also rings, watches, iPods and other swag earned for conference victories and championships. The gifts totalled $537,000 last year."

Comments

[andy fine]

could be the topic of another book--how a significant percentage of public funds, and private donations--intended for enhancing academic achievement--end up being used as frivilous, over the top athletic department perks. If the public knew the details, surely the pipeline would dry up a little. If Congress removed the tax exempt status of Universities, and required the separation of athletic department budgets from general operating/academic funds, these shennanagans would become more transparent.

[Justin Taucher]

I looked at a lot of the numbers in this article and saw how much money that the University of Texas spends on there athletes and the sports organazation. Some of the numbers are outragous to me, especially the one that says the University spends 100 milliion dollars annually on there athletic department. The number that puzzled me the most was the one that said they give there players gift for certain achievements, like conference victories and championships. I always thought it was illegal to give your players any type of reward or any kind of gift, but in the article it says that they gave there players things like rings, watches, and even ipods.