We know and have discussed at length how Pollard ran up big debts and was a social media troll all these years. (Borrowed $60M for $80M in stadium upgrades, compared to only $30M Iowa borrowed for almost $165M in facility upgrades, and Iowa is in the top five in the B10 for revenues, and 14th in the nation, as per the WSJ).
That flimflam only lasts so long. Sooner or later, reality hits hard, and it did nine days ago when the hype met the Hawkeyes, and a huge national audience saw Iowa State for what they were, aspirational flashes in the pan.
Time to look at the schools joining the B12. It's so much worse than I knew. I thought the debate was over, but the issue is deeper than I thought because these programs are funding up to half of their athletic budgets from mandatory student fees. That practice must stop.
Current students shouldn't be forced to pay (or take out loans to pay) for the scholarships of athletes in unsustainable programs like UCF, Cinci, Houston, BYU, and worse, for six figure salaries of AD administrators and seven figure salaries for coaches. It’s a major scandal that it happens at all.
Cincinnati will come crashing down too once they lose their coach and once they will be forced to cut budgets to repay their over $300,000,000 in athletic department debt. But this is now known on these boards, though probably not on Cyclone Fanatic. Soon the national media will begin to dig a bit and see beneath the hype and into the dollars and sense reality, and I meant that literally. The honest AD's like Goff at Kansas do see reality: this new b12 is a "poor" conference with zero chance of living large off of the big budget schools who have left, or living on borrowed time and $60M in debt (ISU), or $300M in debt (cinci).
According to articles published in the Cincinnati Enquirer and the Cleveland Plain Dealer,
current UC students are subsidizing the athletic department over $4,000 per year. While athletic department spending was increased over the last 13 years, needed facility upgrades for academic buildings was slashed, funding on instruction was cut by almost 7%, and spending on research was cut by 26%, while athletic department spending went through the roof. Kinda puts into perspective the price students are being made to pay for their current ranking in FB, and the cost in unbearable debt for all future faculty, students, staff, and families. UC is a time bomb of debt waiting to implode.
UCF
UCF's "growth" has come at the expense of tuition and fees. Athletic departments that live parasitically off of current students, as well as run up debts, which is what small D-1 schools do, and which UCF does, are not sustainable. UCF charges almost $200 in fees for full-time students - $15 per credit hour - in MANDATORY fees to students who are already swimming in student loans anyway.
It's a scandal on campus, and this is what Pollard and Clone fanatics tell us is a "big" program that can bring "big" growth in the future, when they've done it by feeding vampirically off of current students and their futures by running up their debts? UCF ran up a $12M deficit last year, 40% of their annual budget, and had to borrow $4M in emergency loans from its UCF foundation to cover expenses. a
program which only generates $29M annually, much of which is from mandatory student fees.
Almost THIRTEEN MILLION DOLLARS from UCF's "athletic department revenues" are generated from mandatory student fees charged to the 65,000 students. That's almost half their budget. Pathetic and vampiric.
Houston is the same.
Here is an article from before Covid - which made things MUCH worse for them - that describes how UH has fed off of existing students to support their AD budget, forcing students to pay mandatory fees on top of tuition, room and board. Despicable.
"As of 2017, Houston had over $117,000,000 in debt for its athletic department"
"UH relies on student fees to support its athletic department, and as of 2017, received $25.7 million in student fees for its budget"
(By the way
, Iowa charges students zero dollars in student fees for the athletics department because Iowa's revenues are more than enough to cover nationally-ranked programs like Women's Basketball, Wrestling, Field Hockey (ranked #1), Rowing (consistently top 20), and a football program that's doing pretty well right now.
The new B12 is not just little, it's parasitic on current students, and it's built on debt.
BYU is its own animal, a small program in the middle of nowhere that doesn't fit with any conference.
BYU charges radically different fees for Mormon students as non-Mormons, who pay twice as much. Imagine the scandal if Notre Dame or Georgetown or Loyola or Boston College or Villanova charged non-Catholics twice as much? Schools like ND, in reality, rely on their huge endowment. ND's endowment is over $12 Billion.
ND meets "100% of demonstrated student need" and is provided regardless of religion, race, gender, or identity. Seems like BYU actively discriminates. Ridiculous. I had no idea. Plus
BYU ran up over $20M in debt last year and was seeking donations, but there is no information about whether they are even close to being in the black. Maybe they hope joining a "poor" conference like the new B12 will help?
So let's do some math on a few relevant schools
DEBT
ISU - $60M
UC - $300M
BYU - $20M
Houston - $120M
UCF - $12M
Over half a billion in debt just from these schools, most of which are feeding off of current students to keep the lights on and pay interest on their ballooning debt.
And we are supposed to be impressed?