The Victors

There would have been screaming to the rafters if DB rolled this out. Perhaps not bad timing seeing that Manuel is essentially a lame duck on his way out the door.

But given the current economics of college sports, I don't think any of this is surprising. A college football team is going to cost $40M to $50M nowadays and a men's basketball team is maybe $10M to $20M. We're eventually going to get to a point where Michigan's athletes are employees with contracts, etc. That's going to cost money and we all know that's in-stadium advertising and, like Notre Dame and Ohio State, corporate patches on the uniforms.

Thus is certainly going to be an interesting budget drill for the new athletic director. While I don't foresee any sports being dropped in Ann Arbor in the near future, I also imagine some non-revenue sports (ex. Baseball) simply won't have enough resources to be competitive outside conference play. I also imagine they'll be looking at AD expenses, facility renovation/expansion plans, etc.

I recently read about how Northwestern's athletics received a $35M private contribution. After you get over the wow moment, you immediately realize that's maybe one year's worth of cash to pay for NW's FB and MBB teams. Then what?