They try but very few of the big-time university football\basketball programs make money. I don’t have the articles or links on this computer but even I was surprised by the programs that in the red.
Ok, I found an article that pretty much repeats what the other articles on my other computer say.
From the article below ...
“....
For the NCAA, they define self-sufficiency (aka profit) as revenues (not counting university subsidies, student fees, or government support) exceeding expenses.
So using this pretty reasonable definition of revenues vs. expenses, do college athletic departments make a profit?
No.
Not even close.
This week, USA Today released their annual analysis of athletic department revenues and expenses (they do yeoman’s work every year putting this together). According to their analysis, just 24 of 230 public Division I universities made a profit.
That’s 10.4%.
Perhaps even more striking is that all 24 schools came from four athletic conferences: Big 10, Big 12, SEC, and the Pac-12. Even as a so-called power, the ACC did not have a school that made a profit although N.C. State came close losing only $165,000.
.....”
https://higheredprofessor.com/2015/05/28/do-college-athletic-departments-make-a-profit/
So, the state taxpayer and students pick up the difference!
Wait until they have to start paying players!
The financial pressure these programs will skyrocket.
Soon ‘creative lawyering’ will force the colleges\universities to pay all participate in all varsity sports!
It won’t stop there; graduate students will demand nonfeudal academic serf wages. More ‘creative lawyering will see that the get it!
The sky’s the limit of financial pressure for public colleges\universities! Don’t you know taxpayers have infinite resources.
Truth in advertising I love sports! Played two ‘club sports’ in college rugby & martial arts.
The excerpts from the article you posted are either inaccurate or misleading it mentioned 24 teams, there’s 14 soon to be 16 teams in the SEC alone, where the schools make money is from private booster organizations that raise money to pay for the athletic program. At most big time schools you have to make a booster contribution for the privilege of purchasing season tickets at UF up until recently the minimum contribution was $100 person times 50,000 season tickets sold.
The other major source of revenue is TV, the SEC has its own TV network, a couple of years ago each team in the SEC regardless of record received 25-30 million just from the SEC network
The point is, yes some schools require financial support from the school but the major do not
I think the big schools secretly subsidize the poorer schools so they can have schools to beat up on....