I stand by what I said, and in good academic fashion, I can give you a reading list if you care, complete with economic breakdowns.
Football and basketball programs are good at generating revenue, but not money. Yeah, on the big campuses, ADs like to brag about being self-sufficient (here at Iowa we get that), but that's largely a myth.
First off, "the rest of the athletic programs" don't cost nearly as much as football and basketball.
Second, remember that the athletes aren't free. They're students, and students cost money. A scholarship normally covers something like 12k/year, and then states subsidize the tuition of all students (and if you give in-state tuition rates to athletes, the state is subsidizing them too). The real cost of a year at school to the institution is something like 35k. That's $4 million right there.
Apparel, concessions and TV rights are all a drop in the bucket. As you suggest, something like 80% of a big Div I school's take is at the gate.
Third, you've got huge expenses. Those students have their own support network. You have travel. You've got a bunch of assistants and trainers (although they're paid peanuts). And you've got expensive facilities.
Fourth, show me where those donations go to the general fund, and not to the Athletic Department. In any case, the bulk of donations to universities money wise come from a very small group of donors, who don't give it to support the football team; and when the football team does well, it has been shown that these donations are less likely to come because of fear they'll be diverted to the AD.
Fifth, most teams aren't the university of GA. Hell, when Northwestern had its run a few years back, it was after years of taking money from the general fund and pouring it directly into the football programs.
So yeah, without football, many big universities would probably have to shell out a few bucks extra for the other sports. But they could recoup the money out of ending such BS practices as "general studies" majors.
Now that said, I do enjoy a good college football game; but to say it's a money maker for the university is just not true. To say that college football was much different in the past isn't really the case either. It's gotten worse, but it's never been "good".
As for the coaches, many of the coach's colleagues (like those in the faculty of medicine) make money for their universities, pulling in comparable and even greater sums of money. They get compensated well, but not $3 Mil well, and for them it'd be unethical to use their university position to get paid $1 mil a year for a television or shoe contract. Let's face it, without their job at the university, they wouldn't be celebrities.
(okay folks, the reading for next week is chapter 4 in "The Nike Sourcebook of Political Theory". And I'm giving an F to the amazinhunk who boxed in my Benz)
