Quote:
Originally Posted by dawgfan
I guess it depends on the state of your football program, but I would bet that for most FBS athletic departments, football turns a profit and subsidizes the sports other than men's basketball (not enough in most cases for the entire department to break even or turn a profit though).
As well, I would guess these schools look at FBS football as another way of marketing their school and building up the prestige of the entire athletic department.
|
Yeah, in the case of UMass, I think it came down to timing and realizing that the gains of spending the requisite amount of cash as a flagship outweighed playing at the lower level. UConn's football ascent probably hasn't hurt in terms of a roadmap for a fellow New England flagship sans the wildly successful basketball part.
I think Montana would've made the move if they weren't tethered with Montana State and for those programs in football-mad locales (Texas schools), it's probably worth it in the long run because you get to differentiate yourself from the regional schools in the area that can't or won't make the move up, even if it costs you.
The increased donations probably offset the move up in the longrun for a lot of these institutions too.
What was the last school to kill D-1A/FBS football? Unless there was one after this, Pacific was the last one in 1995.