UT (University of Tennessee) $200 million in debt

You must mean Louisville, Ga.

Because the University of Louisville plays in a stadium that just got a $60M expansion three years ago:

 

I think he meant schools that built new stadiums to replace outdated facilities.

 

You can't spell bankrupt without UT.

 

Tennessee won't be leaving Neyland Stadium. It is part of the fabric of the program and even the state. The current stadium has grown up around the field (location) of where the team has played football for a hundred years.

As for the university spending money on athletics instead of education, that doesn't happen. It is state law that academic money can not be used for athletics. All the state schools' athletic departments must be self sustained. That's probably what has led to the huge debt.

This would be a good time to tell all those student-athletes wanting to get paid "Sure, you can share in the school's fortunes. Your part of the bill is $10,392. We need that paid by Friday!"

I'm still not sure that Dave Hart isn't a plant sent to Knoxville from Alabama to financially ruin the department. Not only are there coach buyouts on the books, there are at least two sizable lawsuits on the horizon the school is likely to lose. Both are entirely his doing.

 

How about last year, and the year before, etc., etc. The annual operating budget of a school that size is well over $1 billion.

Here, I found it: http://www.tennessee.edu/budget/docs/FY13_Prop_Bud_Web_2.pdf

$480 million out of the $1.1 billion operating budget on instruction.

 

Usually the one that's first gets dibs on the name, and since the University of Tennessee was founded a century before any other school seeking to claim the name, well...too bad.

 

They can get paid without getting money from the school. ESPN is paying $470 million per year for a four-team college football playoff system. There are 444,000 NCAA athletes total in all divisions. Each athlete can get $1,000, with $26 million left over to stage the events. If you want to limit it to D-I athletes, each of them would end up with about $3K. That takes care of Title IX.

Then allow the athletes to get any endorsements they want from outside sources. Sneaker deals, car commercials, Playboy poses. That satisfies Johnny Manziel getting more than the third-string longsnapper.

Doesn't cost the schools anything.

http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/story/21083692/espn-lands-rights-to-college-playoff-for-470m-per-year-through-2025

http://www.ncaa.com/news/ncaa/article/2011-11-02/ncaa-participation-rates-going

 

It's been well-established that most athletic departments are money losers and need to be boosted by a school's general fund. One way Tennessee is making up its deficit is NOT kicking back the $7 million annually it generally gives back to the school.

 

A word-association game with the general public outside both states would go 80-20 for Texas. For the college football public, 70-30. Not unlike South Carolina trying to glom onto the initials USC.

Plus nobody has ever been educated at the University of Tennessee. But at least you had the good sense to pick up your Mizzou degree.

 

Give South Carolina a break. It's tough not to be the first association with "USC" or "Carolina."

 

There are moments I think the whole schebang is a house of cards, waiting to tumble. Coaches of non-revenue sports earning $300-400K a year; budgets being "balanced" via exhorbitant student fees; 85 scholarships for 1-A football; full scholarships for athletes in sports that essentially nobody cares about at the college level (golf, crew, tennis, track & field, swimming, to name a few); mandatory "scholarship" donations for purchasing season tickets; schools that at one time were DII or IAA tryig to play big-time football, etc. ... at some point doesn't the model become unsustainable?

And that isn't even asking if big-time athletics are central to the university's intended mission.

 

Agreed. But be careful in South Carolina. Them's fightin' words ...