A fight ensues on the New Jersey campus over money spent on big-time athletics instead of academics.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/12/opinion/joe-nocera-at-rutgers-its-books-vs-ballgames.html
Killingsworth hits the nail on the head:
Rutgers urgently needs to stop this ridiculous quest for football glory a la Penn State and focus on concentrating its (increasingly) limited resources on its academic programs and facilities. One of the things I always liked about Rutgers, historically, was its relative immunity to the special variety of academic corruption that big-time college sport promotes. That immunity has been compromised and it’s really sad. Rutgers needs to shore up its academic programs and remain a solid financial bargain for instate residents, many of whom don’t give a rip about college football. There is no preexisting culture for it. It’s not a cultural focal point the way it is in big agricultural states. The football-mad can go to Penn State or The Ohio State University.
As usually, don’t look for context in a NY Times opinion piece…
As a rule, Athletic departments do not make a profit.
Based on a recent NCAA report on the 123 FBS schools (These are colleges and universities that are eligible to compete in bowl games and have average attendance of at least 15,000 at their home games):
Only 20 schools made money, the median profit was $8.4 million;
Of the 103 schools that lost money, the median deficit was $14.9 million;
According to the report, all athletic departments outside of the FBS operate in the red. In other words, only 20 of the 1,083 college sports programs in the nation are profitable.
http://www.ncaapublications.com/productdownloads/D1REVEXP2013.pdf
It’s not a question of athletics making money, but a question of how much should be spent to support these programs.
Why does Rutgers think it’s worth the investment and cost?
Another benefit, is that Rutgers now can call the BIG 10 schools peers, almost all of which have excellent academic reputations.
The University of North Florida recently decided not to start a football program, based on cost (and impact to student fees). but they can expect a spike in (local) enrollment this year, since the Ospreys basketball team finally got back into the NCAA tournament.
Athletics, in general is a positive, but you have to manage cost and have reasonable expectations.
First most ADs are not even designed to make a “profit”. They want to break-even and invest any surplus back into the programs and facilities. Some also pay into the school’s general fund which also shows up as an expense.
Secondly RU will become a full payout BIG member in a few more years. The TV payout is expected to be around $45 Million per year. By then football should be at least breaking even on its own as the BIG also splits gate receipts so they will get nice checks from OSU, PSU and UM etc. MUCH more than they ever saw before.Home revenue should also increase significantly.
It’s sad to see another school falling into this trap and take the easy way out. Rutgers could’ve improved the reputation of the school by using the money to hire better profs, offer full ride scholarships to top kids in state to improve the student body, increase funding for first rate research. Instead, they choose academic mediocrity by blowing their limited funds on a sport that bashes up kids’ brains.
Rutgers already does offer a Presidential scholarship whose amount approximates an in-state full ride (or out-of-state full tuition): http://admissions.rutgers.edu/costs/scholarships/firstyearscholarships.aspx
But it still seems to have a stigma for NJ residents, many of whom appear to want to go anywhere other than Rutgers or any other state university in NJ.
Football wasn’t a cultural focal point before Rip Engel at PSU either.
Football arguably raised PSU’s academic reputation and got it in to the AAU.
Too late @cmsjmt–RU already getting much more competitive after just one year in BIG
Rutgers already has quite a few world-class professors. However, the location does not lend itself to being a “big time college football program”. The traffic near the stadium is some of the worst in NJ, game or no game, and that is saying something.
Many of the BIG stadiums are located far from freeways and accessed by local streets. They manage.