Football attendance is more or less static….basketball too….especially for the big “U of “ schools. The fluctuation is very little. The revenues fluctuate very little. The TV contracts are drawn up before the players who are impacted are even enrolled.
The current crop of athletes in college has almost nothing to do with the revenues produced while they are there. And you fell into my Manziel trap…he’s an outlier, and anyone with a brain knows you don’t make policy on outliers...
It’s not static. And more importantly it’s not the sole source of revenue, competitive teams get better TV ratings which spawns better TV contracts. Also there’s memorabilia, living in a town with a team in the Sweet 16 I am once again being reminded just how much more memorabilia money a little success can bring. There isn’t a store in Tucson that can find an excuse to sell UA t-shirts that isn’t selling them right now, and if they win two more and make the Final Four it’ll be even more so. And the ones in stores are licensed and the U gets money for them, money they don’t get on years the team isn’t this successful. The revenues fluctuate a lot depending on the level of success. Football teams get millions just for going to bowl games, being in the half of Div 1 that doesn’t get a bowl bid mean losing those millions.
Sorry but the current crop has a lot to do with the revenues produced. The only outlying part of Manziel is that he had the ability to fight back. Only you and the NCAA got trapped by him. Mike Adams, Dan Herron, DeVier Posey, Solomon Thomas, and Terrelle Pryor (and Ohio State) got a dramatically higher punishment for a much lower “crime”.