the tindog coffeehouse

Texas Monthly has an outstanding cover story in their November issue on the big business of The University of Texas athletics.

It’s no surprise that there’s a lot of money being made in college athletics these days, particularly football. But as they say, everything is bigger in Texas, from UT’s massive $8 million scoreboard (the Godzillatron), to it’s recently expanded north end zone (NEZ) of Royal-Memorial Stadium (at $176.5 million).

With its massive laid-brick turrets and cantilevered deck, the NEZ has transformed Royal-Memorial from what was merely a first-class arena into arguably the finest football facility in the country. It also represents the crown jewel of a decade-long construction spree that has cost $348 million and rebuilt or refurbished most of the university’s sports venues. If that seems like a lot of money, then consider this: When Brown was hired, in 1997, the budget for UT’s sports program was $21.4 million. This year the figure is expected to hit $126.8 million, the largest of any university in the nation. …

If you divide UT’s total sports budget by the number of athletes, the per-athlete figure is $170,000. No other college in America comes close to that amount. …

Including the new suites, club seating, and additional seats at all three venues, UT will make a total of $23 million this year, of which roughly $14.5 million is consumed by debt payments from construction costs, leaving $8.5 million in profit. When the debt is eventually paid off, of course, the profit will be 100 percent. UT believes that the NEZ project will generate $318 million in the next thirty years.

I’m as big a fan of the Longhorns as anyone, but I would agree that college football has become too commercialized. Just look at the BCS. The bowl system isn’t really designed to determine the best football team in the country; it’s designed to make money. Corporations spend hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising and corporate sponsorships every year to plaster their brands on stadiums, bowl games, and even the yellow first-down line. (I found one source from 2006 which listed the cost of a 30-second ad during the Rose Bowl as $800,000.)

So why not funnel more of those profits to other areas of the university? Tuition is rising about 5% a year at UT Austin, and higher at other UT campuses. Seems kind of hard to justify that while the Athletics Department is spending $15,000 a night for the football team to stay at a hotel before each home game. (That $15,000 would pay for roughly two years of undergraduate tuition for a UT student.)

Still, when was the economics of higher education ever logical? I mean, you could spend about $8,500 a year in tuition at UT Austin or $43,950 a year to go to Bates College in Lewiston, Maine.

And Bates College doesn’t even have a football team!