Told you all a year or so ago. This was coming

[Coach Nowlin]

 

 

 

[Muda69]

So there is really now no difference between the athletic departments that have done this and your for-profit professional sports clubs (Bears, Yankees,  Giants, Celtics, etc.)

Why should I as an alumni of one of these schools continue to donate money to the now for-profit athletic departments? 

 

 

[Coach Nowlin]

1 hour ago, Muda69 said:

So there is really now no difference between the athletic departments that have done this and your for-profit professional sports clubs (Bears, Yankees,  Giants, Celtics, etc.)

Why should I as an alumni of one of these schools continue to donate money to the now for-profit athletic departments? 

 

 

Well like in anything when it comes to choosing to be philosophic.   . That's up to the individual in their choice 

I believe this is a easy way for universities to save all the other sports because they could use some of that equity cash flow and all that into supporting Utah tennis in cross country and all those other things etc etc

[Coach Nowlin]

 

 

 

[RingLeader]

At the end of FY2024, University of Utah had a 1.65 billion dollar endowment. 

[PDB26]

6 minutes ago, RingLeader said:

At the end of FY2024, University of Utah had a 1.65 billion dollar endowment. 

Though not a blank check.

[Muda69]

A libertarian perspective:  https://reason.com/2025/12/16/funding-college-sports-with-private-equity-is-way-better-than-hitting-students-with-higher-fees/

Quote

...

When the University of Utah announced that it would spin off assets from its athletic department into a new for-profit entity, with a private equity firm owning a minority, the reactions were predictable.

Eye-roll-inducing jokes were aplenty. One person said: "Pretty soon Utah football will be eating Costco hotdogs and flying Spirit. Players will get one helmet but must purchase rest of pads on their own." Another joked that the head coaching job was being outsourced "to a remote dude in India." Maybe the football stadium will even be sold off:

 

What all the reactions seemed to miss was that the deal might be great for a certain group of people: Utah students (or the parents who pay for their tuition and fees, anyway).

A full-time undergraduate student at Utah must currently spend $83 a semester in fees to support the athletic department. That's not so bad, considering a year at the school can reach up to $40,000 including direct and indirect costs. Most schools, from the Power Four conferences to mid-majors, do the same. The fees are seemingly higher at less athletically successful schools, though, and sometimes nonexistent at frequent winners like Alabama. A full-time student at the University of Maryland is paying a $199.50 athletics fee per semester because a "healthy and sustainable Department of Intercollegiate Athletics (ICA) is an essential part of the University community."

Meanwhile, at James Madison University (who I root for vicariously through my alumna wife), students pay a whopping $1,518 fee per semester for athletics, providing nearly three-quarters of the athletic department's revenues. That may have helped JMU go from the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) to the College Football Playoff in just four seasons, but that fee is higher than every other student athletics fee in the playoff combined—even when you multiply the rest by four.

"JMU is essentially taxing its students to help fund its big-time college athletic ambitions — and that clearly seems to be paying off, at least in terms of this year's playoff," as Dwayne Yancey wrote while reporting on the fees. "Why, though, must students be forced to pay for that? If deep-pocketed boosters (the adjective knocks me out) or the free market don't supply the funds for JMU to play at that level, why must my alma mater shake down teenagers (or their parents) to make up the difference?"

 

Even students at some FCS schools are paying through the nose. At William & Mary, students pay $1,170.50 per semester for intercollegiate athletics, plus $180.50 per semester for their arena's operations and $16.50 per semester for their tennis center. Thankfully, that's down from the $1,992 per semester they were paying for intercollegiate athletics in the 2018–19 school year.

College sports basically serve as marketing tools to woo more applicants, who pay more tuition and fees, whose fees partially go toward athletics, and so on and so forth (I touched on this more here). A longrunning funding race has schools looking for more and more ways to bankroll the best players, coaches, and facilities that money can buy. If school administrators are going to be in that race, it's far better for the money to come from private equity than milking it out of poor students year after year.

...

 

[PHJIrish]

More bidness!

[Impartial_Observer]

On 12/10/2025 at 11:09 AM, Coach Nowlin said:

 

 

 

The irony of this post is not lost on me.