<p>pardon this rant, but with multi million dollar cutbacks being imposed on UC students and their parents due to billion $ budget shortfalls in Calif, AND with UC TUITION payments going up every year, forcing many qualified but less fortunate students to forgo a UC education, WHY the #!*^&^T@#%#$% was the ENTIRE UCLA FOOTBALL TEAM staying at the very expensive Pasadena Langham Hotel before the USC / UCLA game last night???? They needed an extra special massage or something to help them focus??? Who is the idiot who OK'd this waste of $$$???</p>
<p>In my state, the two state universities are spending about $160 million for new/refurbished stadiums in the next year, while tuition has increased 50% in four years, and financial aid has been massively cut, and teachers aren’t being replaced. Yeah, I know, football boosters, yadda yadda yadda, and isn’t it great when a 6 and 6 football team can go to a bowl game?</p>
<p>Tone deaf, if you ask me.</p>
<p>The reason that they spend money on, and tolerate less than stellar academics from, NCAA Division 1 FBS football is that it is a profit center for the school.</p>
<p>Of course, whatever the UCLA football team did certainly didn’t help them in their game (50-0 loss).</p>
<p>They lost! Shame! May be too much party.</p>
<p>But it’s OK. They did not molest anyone and did not get suspended by NCAA because of illegal use of money like some USC !@*(^%&.</p>
<p>From the hotel website, it is around $200 per room per night, not exactly ‘very expensive’. And maybe they got a big discount.</p>
<p>Where would you prefer them to stay, Motel 6?</p>
<p>While the game was an away game, it is only about a half hour bus ride from UCLA to host USC. The Pasadena Langham Hotel is only slightly closer to USC, and is significantly further from UCLA, than UCLA is from USC.</p>
<p>So a reasonable person might ask, could the UCLA players have just stayed in their usual residences on or near campus friday night and met at a designated place on campus saturday to take the team bus to the (evening) game?</p>
<p>But perhaps the coaches thought that friday night on or near campus might be too distracting, if some of the players lived in fraternities or something like that.</p>
<p>pardon this rant, WHY the #!*^&^T@#%#$% was the ENTIRE USC FOOTBALL TEAM staying at the very expensive whatever hotel they stayed at before the USC / UCLA game last night??? They needed an extra special massage or something to help them focus??? Who is the idiot who OK’d this waste of $$$???</p>
<p>[repeat for almost every NCAA FBS team]</p>
<p>It may have been paid for by a big donor, it may have been heavily discounted by the hotel, it may have been very well negotiated by the travel coordinator of the university …</p>
<p>My point is that you simply don’t know what the bill was … or who paid it.</p>
<p>Most athletic department budgets run completely separate from the rest of the university in that they are self supporting through ticket sales and licensed merchandise. This is how they pay astronomical salaries to their coaches. Is it a good use of money? Perhaps not, but it is not coming out of the same pocket as your tuition dollars. I do agree that the perception is not good.</p>
<p>Blueiguana is correct. These days the athletic departments are in the main, financially independent from the rest of the university (stadium improvements and capital construction being the exception). The AD is expected raise its own money, which has fueled the current league switching and expansion madness. Sure, some schools still foot the bill from general university revenues, but the big boys…Pacific 12, Big Ten, Southeastern Conference, and ‘the other’ Big Ten, i.e. UTexas and its 9 bretheren, do things quite differently.</p>
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<p>How about their dorm rooms? </p>
<p>The game was played at the LA Memorial Coliseum, which is about 15 miles from the UCLA campus. The Pasadena Langham Hotel is also about 15 miles from the game venue. Other than being made to feel special, pampered, and better than other students, I’m not sure what purpose putting the players into a hotel served.</p>
<p>My guess is it is a way to easier enforce curfew and other rules. Theoretically, if they are removed from distractions (on campus parties, girlfriends, etc.) they will be more focused on the game. It is easier to control them when they are all in one place (again, in theory). I’m not saying I agree with it, just giving some ideas as to the ‘why’.</p>
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<p>Some schools? How about nearly all schools? Big college sports programs bring in a lot of money but they usually spend even more, creating a net drain on the schools’ finances. According to this of the more than 200 public colleges, only 22 of them have sports programs that operate in the black. </p>
<p>[Money</a> flows to college sports - USATODAY.com](<a href=“http://www.usatoday.com/NEWS/usaedition/2011-06-16-berko-copyART_ST_U.htm]Money”>http://www.usatoday.com/NEWS/usaedition/2011-06-16-berko-copyART_ST_U.htm)</p>
<p>Excerpt:</p>
<p>"Much of the rise in athletics revenue came from an escalation in money generated through multimedia rights deals, donations and ticket receipts, but schools also continued increasing their subsidies from student fees and institutional funds.</p>
<p>Altogether in 2010, about $2 billion in subsidies went to athletics at the 218 public schools that have been in the NCAA’s Division I over the past five years. Those subsidies grew by an inflation-adjusted 3% in 2010. They have grown by 28% since 2006 and account for $1 of every $3 spent on athletics.</p>
<p>Even with 2010’s more modest growth rate, these increases run counter to the national trend of declining state support for public colleges, many of which have imposed layoffs, salary freezes, cuts in courses and substantial tuition and fee hikes. While about a third of the 218 Division I schools trimmed athletics budgets last year, about a third either increased their spending faster than money came in or didn’t cut spending enough to keep up with losses."</p>
<p>The Univ. near near me puts the football players up in a hotel the night before home games. Although it is expensive, I understand why they do it–for some games, emotions run high and if I were a coach, I certainly wouldn’t want to have to worry about any of my players running around town getting into trouble. (They do that enough on other nights).</p>
<p>Oh big whoop. So the players got to stay in a hotel for one night (value: probably less than $100 per), before the biggest game of the season. At least they weren’t out doing “too much party” or “molesting” each other or wasting tax payer money like the rest of the student body who were not studying 24/7 on a Saturday night.</p>
<p>Interesting article, coureur. My alma mater receives no money from the school and still generates a very hefty profit. I guess if I hear they are staying at a nice hotel the night before an away game, I will have to stifle the urge to criticize. But I can still complain about their sorry record this year.</p>
<p>OP:</p>
<p>D1 football at UCLA pays for itself. Heck, men’s football and basketball essentially pay for all the other sports combined, including women’s. The UCLA athletic department only receives a few million $$ directly from student fees, but that’s about it. (Sure plenty of government accounting gimmicks, but the point remains the same.)</p>
<p>And no doubt that the hotel gave them a group rate. ALL hotels provide group rates for large parties. Staying overnight means that they can have team meetings, a team meal, work on game plans, not be distracted from friends and family, everyone is on time for the team bus to the game…all kinds of reasons. It WAS an away-game.</p>
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<p>Curfews, meetings, team unity. The night before a football game, those teams do A LOT of work. Very scripted activities on the Friday before a game and the day of a game. And the requirements of a college football team are much too great for many motels. You’re talking about 50+ rooms, plus anywhere from 3-5 meeting rooms, a banquet room for team meals, a small(er) room for an athletic training room. </p>
<p>And oftentimes these teams have discount programs with these locations that offsets the costs tremendously. </p>
<p>But that wasn’t the answer you wanted-- you just wanted to cuss…</p>
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<p>I would think that this is probably the norm across the board for many if not most football programs. Many years ago I dated an NFL player and they stayed in a hotel the night before every game, whether it was home or away. The part I found funny was that they had “hall monitors” for lack of a better term to make sure no players went out and no wives or girlfriends went in, not that we all didn’t try. ;)</p>
<p>As motherbear322 said, some large football universities have their team stay together in a local hotel the night before every HOME game. I guess that way the coaches know what the kids have been up to the night before, and they are sure they all get to the stadium well fed and on time the next day. And I am sure it is a bonding thing. Football is a big revenue generator for those schools. A winning team generates more revenue than a losing team… so if this helps keep the team focused and contributes to a winning season, the cost is probably more than offset with additional donations they get when the team is winning.</p>