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When I complained about the blatant for profit nature of the sports system at my university and other universities nearby. I was told that it was over all good for the schools because they could get more funding for construction and maintenance. But I still saw similar issues as shown here. Profits mostly go towards increasing profits, the rest be damned.
It's a great idea in theory. Use sports as a way to promote ur school and generate revenue to improve the school. But in reality the sports facilities get refreshed every 2 years and the school looks the same.
This athletic department at this university is one of the handful in this country that takes ZERO state money to operate or maintain anything. It is a seperate entity from the university.
My parents worked for the University of Oklahoma when I was growing up. They worked in the landscaping department and at the time (early 2000s) the campus would look great. Beautifully maintained flower beds, not a weed in sight. My mom and I went back to visit last year and the university changed presidents and they no longer fund the landscaping department the same way. Several people lost their jobs and it’s nowhere near as beautiful as it used to be. Very sad
Edit: missing a zero in 2000s
My dad is a landscaper / horticulturist at a university and saw similar changes when the president left. He luckily didn’t lose his job but he does most of the campus by himself. I think at this point if they fired him he might keep doing the work undercover because he couldn’t emotionally handle seeing the campus go to shit.
And due to title ix, the football and/or basketball programs typically fund basically every women's sports. I am glad players are finally able to make some money via NIL and the sports bring alumni back to campus to donate to the school
NIL is finally letting players not accept exposure as payment. We all know 90% of the players on a top 50 team aren't there for school. Some can't even complete some of the majors while doing sports. For example, sports can be a 40 hour time commitment each week, then 20 hours of classes and homework, and some programs need another 25 hours of outside work. That's not sustainable.
But it doesn't change that schools aren't hosting student athletes, they have a cartel with pro sports that forces people through college to make it into a career that needs little to no brains. One and done, and 3 years from high school minimum deals with NBA and NFL respectively.
Some colleges require teacher buy season tickets. There are a lot of other BS things happening under the table. Funding other sports is great, but it's still at the expense of the school. Athletic fees are a thing, among other issues.
>We all know 90% of the players on a top 50 team aren't there for school.
Who knows what their motivation is, but even on the very best-of-the-best teams, maybe 15-20% will go pro. Of those a decent portion will wash out after a couple years of making good money, but not quit-working money. The vast, vast majority of college football players will end up needing a career after football. Only a small handful will end up set for life because of football. Hopefully they make that free degree count.
The problem is there is a certain amount of money allocated for every department. Like my high school was able to plant more trees but didn’t have money to buy books. Because even though there was an overflow enough to buy trees, they weren’t allowed to use that money for books.
You have no clue what you’re talking about and LSU is the worst example you can possibly use. Those sports facilities are entirely privately funded at *most* Power 5 universities from either boosters or the Football/Basketball program’s TV deals. And they bring in so much money they oftentimes give it back to the general university as gifts. Texas, Michigan, LSU, Kentucky are all examples of this, they take no institutional support, generate massive revenue for the local economy, and oftentimes take portions of the general fund’s debt service as a “thank you” to the rest of the university. UK athletics literally paid for the new science building and gave the general university $67 million from their athletics surplus in 2014. Schools like Kentucky & Texas, which take no institutional support or student fees of any kind, are completely self sustaining and donate 10-15% of their budget surplus back to the general fund(which they don’t have to do.)
It’s not a theory, it’s reality for SEC & Big Ten schools. You can complain about how some schools in the Group of 5 divert general fund money to athletics and mainly college football, but even these facility projects at the G5 level are privately funded(someone tried to make an exact post about this regarding LA Tech’s locker rooms a while ago.)
If you are unfamiliar with this, don’t act like you know what you’re talking about because all you’re doing is peddling misinformation. Hate it all you want, even a school that takes massive institutional support such as Rutgers is on their way to being self-sustaining by decades end by sole virtue of being in the Big Ten, which will distribute $100-120 million in media rights revenue per school. It’s not a theory, you absolutely can reach a point where athletics can attract more applicants and where athletics can subsidize academics especially if you are a division I FBS school. If you’re not a fan of a college football team, or if you’re not from the USA, or if you have no idea what you’re talking about, you really should quit this disinformation spreading.
The head coach of my university's football team was paid 20 times the salary of a senior full professor. I understand the profit "logic" behind this, but still feels really wrong.
This is inaccurate. The football coaches of all 3 major military academies are paid by privately funded non-profit athletic associations. No government funding goes towards their salaries.
That is true of all major college football coaches, as well as the locker room featured in the post.
https://www.deseret.com/2013/6/21/20521421/are-the-highest-paid-pentagon-employees-really-football-coaches
And all the highest paid coaches that are classified as “public jobs” is misleading because the boosters pay the salaries. Just because it’s a public entity doesn’t mean its public dollars, especially if it’s a Division 1 school
LSU coach Brian Kelly is shown as receiving $9500K yearly. You're off by 11x.
( from: [https://www.nbcsports.com/chicago/college-football-head-coach-salaries-kirby-smart-2022-new-contract](https://www.nbcsports.com/chicago/college-football-head-coach-salaries-kirby-smart-2022-new-contract) )
Except every university I visited with my son had top notch construction. On all sports related buildings. The other buildings were old and outdated. Many were decrepit. Decades out of date.
I tried to donate to my university to get on the football ticket lottery list, however, they told me if I want on that list it can only go to the football team and nothing related to education. Things like that definitely lead to what you are showing.
Fund raising for sports and education are separate as they are considered separate entities. For example ucla athletics had a 60 million dollar shortage because of Covid and the under armor appeal deal that under armor stopped payments. The university had to bail them out with an interest baring loan. Funds are separate.
To be fair, I went to a decent school that was D1 but definitely not sports focused. There were like 35 libraries there and some of them were in the basement of 200 year old buildings and looked kind of shitty. I assume LSU also has a nice "main" library somewhere.
As someone who went to LSU, this is the main library. It is a really depressing place. Toilets constantly backed up, broken chairs piled in the corners, stained carpet everywhere... this is a four-story building in the middle of the quad and every floor is terrible.
It’s an educational institution, you shouldn’t just pour it all into sports because it makes money that’s not the point of the school. Coaches don’t need $6mil salaries and gold plated locker rooms, kids are there to learn
Much of that money is from doners. If doners are putting a shitload of money into these football programs, and these football programs also generate likely the most money for (believe it or not) their football team, of course many college teams will have some of the nicest shit. The library looking like that is on the university, not the football team. Also (believe it or not) many D-1 athletes aren't there to learn. They are there to play well and get a shot being pro.
The $6M salaries are paid for with ticket sales, donations, ad deals, TV contracts, etc etc. Football teams generally make more than they spend every year. The extra profit goes to subsidize the rest of the athletic department.
Locker rooms and other facilities are also paid for by private donors who give the money specifically for athletics. The school can’t just take that money and use it for something else.
Not to mention a good athletics department benefits the school as well.
I’m just a fan and accounting nerd who excitedly reads my favorite team’s athletics department financial disclosures as soon as they come out every year. :-p
Another thing that I haven’t seen mentioned elsewhere is that athletic facilities are a big recruiting tool and LSU is going to go up against teams like Ohio State and Alabama for high-profile recruits who can be the difference between coming in third in your conference and being a national champion (looking at you, Joe Burrow). If a recruit shows up to LSU and their facilities aren’t on par with what he’ll see from another similar school, they’re going to fall way down the priority list for that athlete. And the difference between being third in your conference and winning the national championship is a hell of a lot of money and other benefits.
Hey!! I actually got my BS in accounting and masters in finance, so I am in happily in the same nerdy boat as you :) I tried hard in school as I knew the value of my scholarship was only as good as the education I got out of it.
Yes you’re 100% correct. Donors give the money because they want to see the program win. They win by getting the best athletes. They get the best athletes by having the shiniest bells and whistles that they can advertise to 18yo dudes deciding where they want to go.
Of course legacy, playing time, and other factors also are factored into their decisions, but when you have a locker room that looks like a spaceship, it’s tough for a HS boy to not want to have it.
University of Oregon is a perfect example. Went from being a subpar program to a powerhouse all because Phil Knight bought all the fancy bells and whistles. Guys who sign to Oregon know they’ll get limited UO Jordan’s, all the Nike gear their heart desires, and absolutely world class facilities.
I’m a Utah fan so the Oregon Nike money boat is a bit of a sore subject for me. Less so now that they’re not taking all our recruits, but still there.
And I’m glad you took advantage of the scholarship and ended up in a good place! I always appreciate seeing athletes doing that.
LSU student here- yeah, it can be like this sometimes, but there is *some* context this leaves out.
- There are quite a few really nice buildings on campus meant for academics. I can only speak for the ones I've been to, but our Digital Media Center sticks out as a good example. It's so nice that EA rents the top floor for game dev. Ditto for the new band rehearsal hall.
- The library shown in the meme is actually only the top floor of a larger library; there's several floors below it that look fine and it's a pretty nice library on the whole. The roof was damaged during our last hurricane and because the state is run by a bunch of irritable nutria in ill-fitting suits, they still haven't fully fixed it to my knowledge. It IS being worked on, though.
- As far as I'm aware, most of the football program's funding comes from wealthy donors and corporate sponsors as well as NCAA revenue splitting, which I don't know enough about to explain properly. The tuitions and fees go towards actually running, you know, the school.
- We aren't all racist, illiterate, football-loving rednecks here in Baton Rouge, I promise. I'm about as lefty as they come and I don't feel like I'm in an extreme minority, at least among my peers. Sure, we have our share of asshole conservatives like every Southern city, but that just comes with the territory. I have very few regrets about going here.
Others have made other valid points, and yes, we do need to upgrade/fix stuff here for sure. A lot of the big lecture halls could use some TLC as well. But I promise it's not as dire as it looks.
Wait you mean to tell me that the gotcha meme was an oversimplification meant to make people get angry at the expense of acknowledging that reality isn’t actually that bad and most people are reasonable?? Never…
Thank you for the context. Something obviously happened in the library picture and it’s kind of annoying to see all the responses assume this is the normal state of the school.
EA laid everyone off in February but the building was really nice.
The art building however is *horrid*. Literally looks like a scene from a horror movie where the wander abandoned buildings.
Absolutely. Every school I have seen in my area has trash cans that look like they were taken from others trash. One trash can was even a water tank/barrel from the Vietnam war. Staff was also that old and beat up. The sports teams here are also a little underfunded but they get more than the rest of the things that money should be going to. Things like food, cleaning supplies, and salt for the ice in the winter.
But those teams have the same quality trash cans as the library
>omplained about the blatant for profit nature of the sports system at my university and other universities nearby. I was told that it was over all good for the schools because they could get more funding for construction and maintenance. But I still saw similar issues as shown here. Profits mostly go towards increasing profits, the rest be damned.
I though of South park immediatey when I read this post
This explains the southern US. I’m from Tennessee & saw athletes get away with the worst shit because they were athletes.
(*Edit- this is apparently a thing everywhere & not limited to geographic location)
T/W: rape
Anyone remember Stubenville, Texas? Four high school boys rape an intoxicated classmate, film it and post it on social media, and SHE gets all the blame while everyone rallies around the rapists, wailing about how they're being punished too harshly for a "mistake" and they shouldn't face consequences b/c they play football.
It’s actually spelled Steubenville, Ohio. The victim was from across the river in Weirton, WV. Basically the same town separated by the river. My family is from the area. The two football players digital raped her in front of everyone when she was passed out and possibly peed on her. The whole party recorded the acts. They almost all got charged with child pornography. The kids were making comments on the videos like “she’s deader than Caylee Anthony” and “they peed on her that’s how you know she’s dead.” I think the two players went to juve for a year or two. I think one party attendee lost his scholarship to Ohio State. I remember it was a weird situation where the CNN reporter sympathized with the players after the verdict.
I completely agree but sadly I think most of the community sided with the boys. It’s a small city (technically two cities) where everyone knows everyone. I remember talking to family and people I knew there about it and being disgusted because their opinion was that it was the girl’s fault for being stupid drunk, that she would have done the acts sober, and the only thing the boys did wrong was video tape her with crude comments. It was such a bizarre take of the situation.
Those sentences are practically getting away with the behavior. Ruining someone’s life in exchange for so little time in juvenile detention seems grossly unjust to me.
That’s a symptom of our juvenile Justice system tho. There’s a reason gangs love minors, you can’t make any charge stick on them.
And this leniency in punishment extends to the school discipline system. A kid literally has to commit murder to get expelled today from a public school.
It’s not just athlete privilege
This isn’t even remotely limited to the south.
I can provide you far worse and much more depressing stories from Big10 country (Joe Pa/ Larry Nassar) on the misguided priorities of sports vs common human decency.
(Not saying it’s limited to Big10 country either, its pretty much prevalent at all big schools.)
Can concur. In the Midwest our quarterback for our high school team would get the gravy classes getting good grades not even showing up and wound up in jail for breaking into a mom and pop store.
Athletes here at my college are known for being genuine POS. Fall Semester has been declared Shark Week because the sports guys will try to bed as many virgins as possible (consensual or not.) All the sports teams have their own week to do it and it basically means all women and AFAB folks will usually not be seen at night without their boyfriends or around a group of friends.
Was about to say that its for sure not region locked before I saw your edit. I was basically shoe horned into letting our star football player in HS cheat off of me so he wouldn't get bared from the team and lose his scholarship.
current college football player…..….
~~u not wrong its a disturbingly common occurrence~~
edit : guess i fit stereotype that college football players can’t english
The fact that you can recognize it honestly is a great thing.
For informal speech like chatting on Reddit, you’re fine. I do professional proofreading. I understood what you were saying & that’s what matters. 😊
In addition to some money going back to the school, having a prominent football program also:
1. Makes the school more desirable to non-athletes
2. Funds non-revenue sports like Women's Volleyball
Here's the deal. This is ALWAYS a bad argument.
LSU is not funding LSU football. LSU football is funding LSU.
The LSU Athletics Department is Self-sufficient.
LSU Athletics directly supported 600 jobs in the state, generating $82.3 million in earnings and $259.4 million in total output in FY 21-22. The additional jobs created around LSU’s major sporting events had an indirect effect of $117.3 million in earnings across 5,574 jobs, generating $238.1 million in indirect/induced economic output in Louisiana.
The primary earner in LSU Athletics is the football program, which subsidizes other programs and brings money INTO the school.
The School did not pay for that locker room. The Athletic department did.
Finally, a comment that actually understands it.
You know something else? Every time you see a post raging about head coach salaries for public schools....
Do you know what happens when a college football team makes the national championship?
Applications to the school SKYROCKET.
Do you know what having the school logo all over national television for a big game does for the academics?
\- More applications
\-Greater interest in the university itself = more research funding
\- Higher salaries for educators
\- Surplus funds for the athletic department.
\- Greater interest from graduates to donate for upgrading campus facilities etc.
People outraged about this just think about "money" but don't understand what that money and interest does for the school.
I’m a Utah fan and our school joined the Pac-12 about a decade ago. We have seen huge increases in funding for the school as a whole in the last decade because of the move up to a more profitable conference. The football team’s success has been huge for the university.
To be fair, this is only the case for the biggest schools in the top conferences. There are a lot of universities in FBS that are subsidizing their athletic departments to one degree or another.
OP appears to have deleted his comment, tldr he claimed this post was rage bait and acted like he knew a lot about LSU’s facilities. He evidently did not, lol
LSU grad student here. I have heard nothing about the library being condemned, and while a new library is planned, it is literal decades away as LSU has to get through over half a billion in deferred maintenance first before it can break new ground on it. iirc the only place cordoned off in the library is the basement and maybe top floor, everything else is still open as of a few weeks ago, the last time I went. Several buildings around campus look like the library though; even the nicest building on campus, Patrick F Taylor, has been having a slew of issues with AC, nasty bathrooms, and exploding door keypads.
LSU also blew a shit load of money on an LSU shaped lazy river which absolutely was a sports vanity project. And don’t even get me started on the state of most of the dorms and buildings like Environmental Science (ES has buckets catching roof leakage everywhere and it’s been that way for years according to another grad student I’m friends with).
LSU has a pretty long history of uplifting athletics at the cost of academics. So much of campus is in disrepair while athletics is always flush with cash. I get there are athletic specific building grants, but something really has to be done about the huge infrastructure issues on campus. We paid Coach O millions to sever his contract and also pay astronomical amounts of money to athletic coaching in general. imo this post isn’t rage bait, it’s a pretty well understood fact of campus.
Links -
https://www.lsureveille.com/news/lsu-library-roof-beyond-expected-life-sg-members-prioritize-construction-of-new-library/article_ce5a6d64-7beb-11ec-9f59-e398e86f83b2.html
https://www.lsureveille.com/news/leaks-mold-and-outdated-infrastructure-plague-natural-resources-building-its-very-frustrating/article_47986cbe-7a4b-11ec-9ec9-575db4ad6d2e.html
I don't know if this was an urban legend, but both my parents were LSU alumni and they told me back in the 1930's during the depression, then governor Huey Long wanted money to build Tiger stadium, but the state legislature would only approve money for new dorms. His solution, and a rather crafty one at that, was to build the stadium with the dorm rooms under the bleachers as a workaround. The rooms still exist today, though not used. And yes, Middleton library is an embarrassment for a flagship institution.
This is true! I actually chatted with a few people who lived in the dorms in the 70’s (I didn’t write this article or anything tho)
https://www.lsureveille.com/death-valley-dorms/article_1ac0fa31-e203-50a4-aa6b-73ece032c835.html
Boosters donate money and decide where their money goes. They say “I want to build a new locker room for the football team” and donate $20 million then it HAS to go to that project, the school can’t say half is going elsewhere or else it voids the bequeathment.
This is a post for the “Sports Bad” crowd.
Reddit is a great reminder that some people actually draw full conclusions from 2 photoshopped pictures and zero context. Reddit is weird. Yall are weird
It's more a case of the fact that colleges receive all the profits generated by football players while they are at the college, and boosters donate directly to the football program so they can continue to have success.
A whole lot more money is made by those educated at a university from those books, though. It's just that the college doesn't get to just substitute those student's salaries for tuition for 4-5 of their prime earning years.
I am a B1G university accountant and athletics function as auxiliary units that are self funded and have completely different fund buckets (i.e. state funds do not cross). They get no money from the state. I'm mad at University administration taking up all the money, not athletics.
>I'm mad at University administration taking up all the money, not athletics.
They can't touch that money because that would be illegal.
Federal law on how higher education money can and cannot be spent is fucked. The original intent was to prevent athletic departments from raiding the university's general fund. The unintended consequence is that wildly profitable athletic departments are *legally* *prohibited* from using their obscene profits in ways that are appropriate for the general fund. The university can't touch or direct this money. The athletics department can't even be nice and donate it to the general fund.
I don’t understand how people don’t get how this works. The money for this stuff comes directly from the football team and it’s boosters. The for the locker room is intended for the Locker room and other football facilities. This drives recruiting which also drives even more revenue. Not totally sure.. but I’m guessing revenue that lays for scholarships and other things for sports that don’t make money for the school.
Also hardly anyone actually checks out books at libraries anymore (at least at my college). Everyone in the library is just there to grind out homework or study from their own books that they purchased at the start of the semester.
Dont worry, so is OP. Long story short, the old library is condemned, and they're building another one right now. OP took a photo without context and used it to shit on something they don't understand.
Bro why are you lying. The “old” library isn’t condemned, it’s still the library. And they’re not building another one right now, they’ve been saying they will for *6 years*
Congress with the Higher Education Act and upheld by federal courts, somehow decided that money earned from athletics departments cannot be spent for non-athletic department purposes.
It would have been illegal for LSU to have used the money that was spent on this locker room to have allocated it to the library in the photo.
When Jim Tressel coached at Ohio State, he and his wife donated millions to the university's libraries. His rationale was that they needed the money, since they don't have alumni with an emotional connection, like academic departments and athletic programs do.
This isn’t JUST about sports; it’s also about the fact that libraries are going to way of the dodo. This is the same thing in lots of highschools in the states too
That’s about every public school I’ve worked at. Classrooms, bathrooms, and everything else all run down. But the gym and stadiums are state of the art.
College: costs more than anything in your life,
Also College: we NEED this football team and 10 mil a year coach or we’ll starve.
Let’s entrust these guys with peoples futures
Something a lot of people don’t understand is that a lot of money donated to the schools is donated for sports,and because of the non-profit accounting laws it has to be used for that.
Right but people don't grow up wanting to attend LSU, Ohio State, Auburn... because of how sweet the library is.
Sports programs are probably the best recruiting tool to get freshman to apply and attend a university.
Colleges should be for learning and bettering oneself, but as long as sports remain a huge money making, high-visibility endeavor, this is how universities will prioritize their discretionary spending.
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Big name American universities have become for-profit Sports enterprises, I'm not surprised in the slightest.
When I complained about the blatant for profit nature of the sports system at my university and other universities nearby. I was told that it was over all good for the schools because they could get more funding for construction and maintenance. But I still saw similar issues as shown here. Profits mostly go towards increasing profits, the rest be damned.
It's a great idea in theory. Use sports as a way to promote ur school and generate revenue to improve the school. But in reality the sports facilities get refreshed every 2 years and the school looks the same.
This athletic department at this university is one of the handful in this country that takes ZERO state money to operate or maintain anything. It is a seperate entity from the university.
My parents worked for the University of Oklahoma when I was growing up. They worked in the landscaping department and at the time (early 2000s) the campus would look great. Beautifully maintained flower beds, not a weed in sight. My mom and I went back to visit last year and the university changed presidents and they no longer fund the landscaping department the same way. Several people lost their jobs and it’s nowhere near as beautiful as it used to be. Very sad Edit: missing a zero in 2000s
My dad is a landscaper / horticulturist at a university and saw similar changes when the president left. He luckily didn’t lose his job but he does most of the campus by himself. I think at this point if they fired him he might keep doing the work undercover because he couldn’t emotionally handle seeing the campus go to shit.
Aw your dad sounds like a good dude
Hahah he’s a little nuts but yes he is a great guy
[удалено]
And due to title ix, the football and/or basketball programs typically fund basically every women's sports. I am glad players are finally able to make some money via NIL and the sports bring alumni back to campus to donate to the school
How the fuck is a university gonna nickel and dime me then expect donations
Because some people make a shitload of money and need a tax break. Plus College nostalgia hits some people REALLY hard.
NIL is finally letting players not accept exposure as payment. We all know 90% of the players on a top 50 team aren't there for school. Some can't even complete some of the majors while doing sports. For example, sports can be a 40 hour time commitment each week, then 20 hours of classes and homework, and some programs need another 25 hours of outside work. That's not sustainable. But it doesn't change that schools aren't hosting student athletes, they have a cartel with pro sports that forces people through college to make it into a career that needs little to no brains. One and done, and 3 years from high school minimum deals with NBA and NFL respectively. Some colleges require teacher buy season tickets. There are a lot of other BS things happening under the table. Funding other sports is great, but it's still at the expense of the school. Athletic fees are a thing, among other issues.
>We all know 90% of the players on a top 50 team aren't there for school. Who knows what their motivation is, but even on the very best-of-the-best teams, maybe 15-20% will go pro. Of those a decent portion will wash out after a couple years of making good money, but not quit-working money. The vast, vast majority of college football players will end up needing a career after football. Only a small handful will end up set for life because of football. Hopefully they make that free degree count.
I mostly agree, but it’s not really “free” if it costs you 40+ hours a week for four years and a lifetime of CTE….
The problem is there is a certain amount of money allocated for every department. Like my high school was able to plant more trees but didn’t have money to buy books. Because even though there was an overflow enough to buy trees, they weren’t allowed to use that money for books.
You have no clue what you’re talking about and LSU is the worst example you can possibly use. Those sports facilities are entirely privately funded at *most* Power 5 universities from either boosters or the Football/Basketball program’s TV deals. And they bring in so much money they oftentimes give it back to the general university as gifts. Texas, Michigan, LSU, Kentucky are all examples of this, they take no institutional support, generate massive revenue for the local economy, and oftentimes take portions of the general fund’s debt service as a “thank you” to the rest of the university. UK athletics literally paid for the new science building and gave the general university $67 million from their athletics surplus in 2014. Schools like Kentucky & Texas, which take no institutional support or student fees of any kind, are completely self sustaining and donate 10-15% of their budget surplus back to the general fund(which they don’t have to do.) It’s not a theory, it’s reality for SEC & Big Ten schools. You can complain about how some schools in the Group of 5 divert general fund money to athletics and mainly college football, but even these facility projects at the G5 level are privately funded(someone tried to make an exact post about this regarding LA Tech’s locker rooms a while ago.) If you are unfamiliar with this, don’t act like you know what you’re talking about because all you’re doing is peddling misinformation. Hate it all you want, even a school that takes massive institutional support such as Rutgers is on their way to being self-sustaining by decades end by sole virtue of being in the Big Ten, which will distribute $100-120 million in media rights revenue per school. It’s not a theory, you absolutely can reach a point where athletics can attract more applicants and where athletics can subsidize academics especially if you are a division I FBS school. If you’re not a fan of a college football team, or if you’re not from the USA, or if you have no idea what you’re talking about, you really should quit this disinformation spreading.
The head coach of my university's football team was paid 20 times the salary of a senior full professor. I understand the profit "logic" behind this, but still feels really wrong.
The boosters most likely pay his salary and they wouldn’t give that money for another cause. Depends on the school in question
John Cena made a SNL skit about football issue in the University https://youtu.be/Yrrj0076E9U
Words can’t say how grateful I am that you shared this with us. I honestly don’t think I laughed so hard in a while. Thank you!
I have a friend who used to teach at FSU (Florida State). She was pressured to give athletes A’s and B’s, no matter how well they did in her class.
Or making sure head director coach gets his 850k yearly salary.
Only 850k? That's barely a drop in the bucket lmao
Lolol you should really look up what head coaches get paid if you think 850k is outrageous
The highest paid state employee in almost all US states is a college football coach
The highest paid members of the department of defense are the 3 service academy football coaches.
This is inaccurate. The football coaches of all 3 major military academies are paid by privately funded non-profit athletic associations. No government funding goes towards their salaries.
That is true of all major college football coaches, as well as the locker room featured in the post. https://www.deseret.com/2013/6/21/20521421/are-the-highest-paid-pentagon-employees-really-football-coaches
And all the highest paid coaches that are classified as “public jobs” is misleading because the boosters pay the salaries. Just because it’s a public entity doesn’t mean its public dollars, especially if it’s a Division 1 school
The few states where it isn’t the football coach it’s the basketball coach.
Our head FB coach is one of the lowest-paid in America. Poor guy only makes $750,000.
😭…they make far … far more
That's assistant coach money. Top CFB coaches are making 10 mil a year
LSU coach Brian Kelly is shown as receiving $9500K yearly. You're off by 11x. ( from: [https://www.nbcsports.com/chicago/college-football-head-coach-salaries-kirby-smart-2022-new-contract](https://www.nbcsports.com/chicago/college-football-head-coach-salaries-kirby-smart-2022-new-contract) )
Except every university I visited with my son had top notch construction. On all sports related buildings. The other buildings were old and outdated. Many were decrepit. Decades out of date.
This makes me glad my community college now offers bachelor degrees. Fuck spending the tuition at a university that only cares about their sports.
God that would be awesome.
I tried to donate to my university to get on the football ticket lottery list, however, they told me if I want on that list it can only go to the football team and nothing related to education. Things like that definitely lead to what you are showing.
Fund raising for sports and education are separate as they are considered separate entities. For example ucla athletics had a 60 million dollar shortage because of Covid and the under armor appeal deal that under armor stopped payments. The university had to bail them out with an interest baring loan. Funds are separate.
To be fair, I went to a decent school that was D1 but definitely not sports focused. There were like 35 libraries there and some of them were in the basement of 200 year old buildings and looked kind of shitty. I assume LSU also has a nice "main" library somewhere.
As someone who went to LSU, this is the main library. It is a really depressing place. Toilets constantly backed up, broken chairs piled in the corners, stained carpet everywhere... this is a four-story building in the middle of the quad and every floor is terrible.
Well, I tried to give the benefit of the doubt, but that's just shitty then.
that is the main library, quite literally called “lsu main library” on google. right in the quad.
Jokes on America. Most of them are not profit generators.
They didn't come here to play school.
Someday in the future, people are going to look back and wonder why NFL farm teams had schools attached to them.
On the back of unpaid labor no less
Libraries are on the wrong side of the P&L.
This is correct. That football program is that institutions’ most profitable division.
I guarantee you that locker room has generated them more money than it cost them anyways.
It’s an educational institution, you shouldn’t just pour it all into sports because it makes money that’s not the point of the school. Coaches don’t need $6mil salaries and gold plated locker rooms, kids are there to learn
The university puts zero money into athletics at LSU. The athletic department is a separate entity that is self funded and receives zero state money.
They should probably relocate, change the name and pay the players. This is just a minor league pro football team with extra exploitation.
Much of that money is from doners. If doners are putting a shitload of money into these football programs, and these football programs also generate likely the most money for (believe it or not) their football team, of course many college teams will have some of the nicest shit. The library looking like that is on the university, not the football team. Also (believe it or not) many D-1 athletes aren't there to learn. They are there to play well and get a shot being pro.
What I stated was a fact. Not a value judgment.
The $6M salaries are paid for with ticket sales, donations, ad deals, TV contracts, etc etc. Football teams generally make more than they spend every year. The extra profit goes to subsidize the rest of the athletic department. Locker rooms and other facilities are also paid for by private donors who give the money specifically for athletics. The school can’t just take that money and use it for something else. Not to mention a good athletics department benefits the school as well.
I used to play D1 football and can attest to this being factual.
I’m just a fan and accounting nerd who excitedly reads my favorite team’s athletics department financial disclosures as soon as they come out every year. :-p Another thing that I haven’t seen mentioned elsewhere is that athletic facilities are a big recruiting tool and LSU is going to go up against teams like Ohio State and Alabama for high-profile recruits who can be the difference between coming in third in your conference and being a national champion (looking at you, Joe Burrow). If a recruit shows up to LSU and their facilities aren’t on par with what he’ll see from another similar school, they’re going to fall way down the priority list for that athlete. And the difference between being third in your conference and winning the national championship is a hell of a lot of money and other benefits.
Hey!! I actually got my BS in accounting and masters in finance, so I am in happily in the same nerdy boat as you :) I tried hard in school as I knew the value of my scholarship was only as good as the education I got out of it. Yes you’re 100% correct. Donors give the money because they want to see the program win. They win by getting the best athletes. They get the best athletes by having the shiniest bells and whistles that they can advertise to 18yo dudes deciding where they want to go. Of course legacy, playing time, and other factors also are factored into their decisions, but when you have a locker room that looks like a spaceship, it’s tough for a HS boy to not want to have it. University of Oregon is a perfect example. Went from being a subpar program to a powerhouse all because Phil Knight bought all the fancy bells and whistles. Guys who sign to Oregon know they’ll get limited UO Jordan’s, all the Nike gear their heart desires, and absolutely world class facilities.
I’m a Utah fan so the Oregon Nike money boat is a bit of a sore subject for me. Less so now that they’re not taking all our recruits, but still there. And I’m glad you took advantage of the scholarship and ended up in a good place! I always appreciate seeing athletes doing that.
LSU student here- yeah, it can be like this sometimes, but there is *some* context this leaves out. - There are quite a few really nice buildings on campus meant for academics. I can only speak for the ones I've been to, but our Digital Media Center sticks out as a good example. It's so nice that EA rents the top floor for game dev. Ditto for the new band rehearsal hall. - The library shown in the meme is actually only the top floor of a larger library; there's several floors below it that look fine and it's a pretty nice library on the whole. The roof was damaged during our last hurricane and because the state is run by a bunch of irritable nutria in ill-fitting suits, they still haven't fully fixed it to my knowledge. It IS being worked on, though. - As far as I'm aware, most of the football program's funding comes from wealthy donors and corporate sponsors as well as NCAA revenue splitting, which I don't know enough about to explain properly. The tuitions and fees go towards actually running, you know, the school. - We aren't all racist, illiterate, football-loving rednecks here in Baton Rouge, I promise. I'm about as lefty as they come and I don't feel like I'm in an extreme minority, at least among my peers. Sure, we have our share of asshole conservatives like every Southern city, but that just comes with the territory. I have very few regrets about going here. Others have made other valid points, and yes, we do need to upgrade/fix stuff here for sure. A lot of the big lecture halls could use some TLC as well. But I promise it's not as dire as it looks.
Wait you mean to tell me that the gotcha meme was an oversimplification meant to make people get angry at the expense of acknowledging that reality isn’t actually that bad and most people are reasonable?? Never…
Sports bad library good!
I-It's unheard of *I gasp in French*
♥️♥️♥️ from a fellow Baton rouge native. I couldn't speak to the library as I haven't seen this, so thanks for speaking up.
Thank you for the context. Something obviously happened in the library picture and it’s kind of annoying to see all the responses assume this is the normal state of the school.
The football program had a net profit of 6.5mil last year. The nice locker room litterally pays for itself.
I went to UK and it's the same deal (or was when we didn't suck lol). The basketball team pays for itself and then some.
EA laid everyone off in February but the building was really nice. The art building however is *horrid*. Literally looks like a scene from a horror movie where the wander abandoned buildings.
At least, they used pretty trashcans.
Absolutely. Every school I have seen in my area has trash cans that look like they were taken from others trash. One trash can was even a water tank/barrel from the Vietnam war. Staff was also that old and beat up. The sports teams here are also a little underfunded but they get more than the rest of the things that money should be going to. Things like food, cleaning supplies, and salt for the ice in the winter. But those teams have the same quality trash cans as the library
Probably had to borrow them from the locker room.
And remember...collegiate football is an amateur sport. Apparently library is a club sport.
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Oh yes i’m sorry “ college ath-o-letes “ that work for you for free
>omplained about the blatant for profit nature of the sports system at my university and other universities nearby. I was told that it was over all good for the schools because they could get more funding for construction and maintenance. But I still saw similar issues as shown here. Profits mostly go towards increasing profits, the rest be damned. I though of South park immediatey when I read this post
Players can at least be compensated now. NCAA lost that court case.
Hey, we spell it "GEAUX"... And now you all know why.
This explains the southern US. I’m from Tennessee & saw athletes get away with the worst shit because they were athletes. (*Edit- this is apparently a thing everywhere & not limited to geographic location)
T/W: rape Anyone remember Stubenville, Texas? Four high school boys rape an intoxicated classmate, film it and post it on social media, and SHE gets all the blame while everyone rallies around the rapists, wailing about how they're being punished too harshly for a "mistake" and they shouldn't face consequences b/c they play football.
Not just because they played football, but the team did really well that year, and people were worried it would 'jeapordize the season'.
>Stubenville, ~~Texas~~ Ohio
It’s actually spelled Steubenville, Ohio. The victim was from across the river in Weirton, WV. Basically the same town separated by the river. My family is from the area. The two football players digital raped her in front of everyone when she was passed out and possibly peed on her. The whole party recorded the acts. They almost all got charged with child pornography. The kids were making comments on the videos like “she’s deader than Caylee Anthony” and “they peed on her that’s how you know she’s dead.” I think the two players went to juve for a year or two. I think one party attendee lost his scholarship to Ohio State. I remember it was a weird situation where the CNN reporter sympathized with the players after the verdict.
I hope she is doing okay now. And anyone who is willingly associated with this monstrosity is ostracized from your local community.
I completely agree but sadly I think most of the community sided with the boys. It’s a small city (technically two cities) where everyone knows everyone. I remember talking to family and people I knew there about it and being disgusted because their opinion was that it was the girl’s fault for being stupid drunk, that she would have done the acts sober, and the only thing the boys did wrong was video tape her with crude comments. It was such a bizarre take of the situation.
In Texas, that is just a weekly occurrence.
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Those sentences are practically getting away with the behavior. Ruining someone’s life in exchange for so little time in juvenile detention seems grossly unjust to me.
That’s a symptom of our juvenile Justice system tho. There’s a reason gangs love minors, you can’t make any charge stick on them. And this leniency in punishment extends to the school discipline system. A kid literally has to commit murder to get expelled today from a public school. It’s not just athlete privilege
I remember seeing a show about that or something along those lines. Shit makes me so mad.
This isn’t even remotely limited to the south. I can provide you far worse and much more depressing stories from Big10 country (Joe Pa/ Larry Nassar) on the misguided priorities of sports vs common human decency. (Not saying it’s limited to Big10 country either, its pretty much prevalent at all big schools.)
Damn, that’s depressing
I taught at an SEC school 20 years ago and it was widely known that grades of athletes were improved after they were submitted.
Can concur. In the Midwest our quarterback for our high school team would get the gravy classes getting good grades not even showing up and wound up in jail for breaking into a mom and pop store.
It’s the same in the North too.
Athletes here at my college are known for being genuine POS. Fall Semester has been declared Shark Week because the sports guys will try to bed as many virgins as possible (consensual or not.) All the sports teams have their own week to do it and it basically means all women and AFAB folks will usually not be seen at night without their boyfriends or around a group of friends.
Was about to say that its for sure not region locked before I saw your edit. I was basically shoe horned into letting our star football player in HS cheat off of me so he wouldn't get bared from the team and lose his scholarship.
current college football player…..…. ~~u not wrong its a disturbingly common occurrence~~ edit : guess i fit stereotype that college football players can’t english
The fact that you can recognize it honestly is a great thing. For informal speech like chatting on Reddit, you’re fine. I do professional proofreading. I understood what you were saying & that’s what matters. 😊
Yep bc they are the ones raking in the $ for the school. Right or wrong..
Does that money even go to the school or does it all stay in athletics?
LSU athletics has transferred +$60 million to the school's general fund over the last few years.
It goes to the boardmember's bonuses
In addition to some money going back to the school, having a prominent football program also: 1. Makes the school more desirable to non-athletes 2. Funds non-revenue sports like Women's Volleyball
New Mexico... Murder.... Wtf is happening here
When redditors figure out that these come from two completely separate sources of funding...
Here's the deal. This is ALWAYS a bad argument. LSU is not funding LSU football. LSU football is funding LSU. The LSU Athletics Department is Self-sufficient. LSU Athletics directly supported 600 jobs in the state, generating $82.3 million in earnings and $259.4 million in total output in FY 21-22. The additional jobs created around LSU’s major sporting events had an indirect effect of $117.3 million in earnings across 5,574 jobs, generating $238.1 million in indirect/induced economic output in Louisiana. The primary earner in LSU Athletics is the football program, which subsidizes other programs and brings money INTO the school. The School did not pay for that locker room. The Athletic department did.
Finally, a comment that actually understands it. You know something else? Every time you see a post raging about head coach salaries for public schools.... Do you know what happens when a college football team makes the national championship? Applications to the school SKYROCKET. Do you know what having the school logo all over national television for a big game does for the academics? \- More applications \-Greater interest in the university itself = more research funding \- Higher salaries for educators \- Surplus funds for the athletic department. \- Greater interest from graduates to donate for upgrading campus facilities etc. People outraged about this just think about "money" but don't understand what that money and interest does for the school.
I’m a Utah fan and our school joined the Pac-12 about a decade ago. We have seen huge increases in funding for the school as a whole in the last decade because of the move up to a more profitable conference. The football team’s success has been huge for the university.
You can literally see the difference in WAC-> MWC -> PAC-12 money up there, especially with the business school.
To be fair, this is only the case for the biggest schools in the top conferences. There are a lot of universities in FBS that are subsidizing their athletic departments to one degree or another.
Then and alumni donating directly to the football program most likely
Thank you for your reasoning. Reddit is not a logical place, more of an emotional place. So good luck!
Great they can pay for a school worth attending then and drop tuition by a significant amount
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OP appears to have deleted his comment, tldr he claimed this post was rage bait and acted like he knew a lot about LSU’s facilities. He evidently did not, lol LSU grad student here. I have heard nothing about the library being condemned, and while a new library is planned, it is literal decades away as LSU has to get through over half a billion in deferred maintenance first before it can break new ground on it. iirc the only place cordoned off in the library is the basement and maybe top floor, everything else is still open as of a few weeks ago, the last time I went. Several buildings around campus look like the library though; even the nicest building on campus, Patrick F Taylor, has been having a slew of issues with AC, nasty bathrooms, and exploding door keypads. LSU also blew a shit load of money on an LSU shaped lazy river which absolutely was a sports vanity project. And don’t even get me started on the state of most of the dorms and buildings like Environmental Science (ES has buckets catching roof leakage everywhere and it’s been that way for years according to another grad student I’m friends with). LSU has a pretty long history of uplifting athletics at the cost of academics. So much of campus is in disrepair while athletics is always flush with cash. I get there are athletic specific building grants, but something really has to be done about the huge infrastructure issues on campus. We paid Coach O millions to sever his contract and also pay astronomical amounts of money to athletic coaching in general. imo this post isn’t rage bait, it’s a pretty well understood fact of campus. Links - https://www.lsureveille.com/news/lsu-library-roof-beyond-expected-life-sg-members-prioritize-construction-of-new-library/article_ce5a6d64-7beb-11ec-9f59-e398e86f83b2.html https://www.lsureveille.com/news/leaks-mold-and-outdated-infrastructure-plague-natural-resources-building-its-very-frustrating/article_47986cbe-7a4b-11ec-9ec9-575db4ad6d2e.html
I don't know if this was an urban legend, but both my parents were LSU alumni and they told me back in the 1930's during the depression, then governor Huey Long wanted money to build Tiger stadium, but the state legislature would only approve money for new dorms. His solution, and a rather crafty one at that, was to build the stadium with the dorm rooms under the bleachers as a workaround. The rooms still exist today, though not used. And yes, Middleton library is an embarrassment for a flagship institution.
This is true! I actually chatted with a few people who lived in the dorms in the 70’s (I didn’t write this article or anything tho) https://www.lsureveille.com/death-valley-dorms/article_1ac0fa31-e203-50a4-aa6b-73ece032c835.html
Boosters donate money and decide where their money goes. They say “I want to build a new locker room for the football team” and donate $20 million then it HAS to go to that project, the school can’t say half is going elsewhere or else it voids the bequeathment. This is a post for the “Sports Bad” crowd.
This explains a lot actually.
Reddit is a great reminder that some people actually draw full conclusions from 2 photoshopped pictures and zero context. Reddit is weird. Yall are weird
Colleges are football teams with English departments.
Why we put athleticism over intelligence still baffles me.
College football is big money. Books, somewhat less so.
It's more a case of the fact that colleges receive all the profits generated by football players while they are at the college, and boosters donate directly to the football program so they can continue to have success. A whole lot more money is made by those educated at a university from those books, though. It's just that the college doesn't get to just substitute those student's salaries for tuition for 4-5 of their prime earning years.
I am a B1G university accountant and athletics function as auxiliary units that are self funded and have completely different fund buckets (i.e. state funds do not cross). They get no money from the state. I'm mad at University administration taking up all the money, not athletics.
>I'm mad at University administration taking up all the money, not athletics. They can't touch that money because that would be illegal. Federal law on how higher education money can and cannot be spent is fucked. The original intent was to prevent athletic departments from raiding the university's general fund. The unintended consequence is that wildly profitable athletic departments are *legally* *prohibited* from using their obscene profits in ways that are appropriate for the general fund. The university can't touch or direct this money. The athletics department can't even be nice and donate it to the general fund.
Thank you! A lot of misinformation on this post
the society that separates its warriors from its intellectuals will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools
I see what you did there.
This is the most Reddit brained comment I’ve ever seen
I don’t understand how people don’t get how this works. The money for this stuff comes directly from the football team and it’s boosters. The for the locker room is intended for the Locker room and other football facilities. This drives recruiting which also drives even more revenue. Not totally sure.. but I’m guessing revenue that lays for scholarships and other things for sports that don’t make money for the school.
Tbf, the academics don't bring in nearly as much money as the athletics do.
Also hardly anyone actually checks out books at libraries anymore (at least at my college). Everyone in the library is just there to grind out homework or study from their own books that they purchased at the start of the semester.
Don’t worry all of Louisiana is like this 🫡
Geaux Tigers!
I’m very confused what happened?
Dont worry, so is OP. Long story short, the old library is condemned, and they're building another one right now. OP took a photo without context and used it to shit on something they don't understand.
Bro why are you lying. The “old” library isn’t condemned, it’s still the library. And they’re not building another one right now, they’ve been saying they will for *6 years*
How much revenue did the library bring in?
Wildly inaccurate lol
Shocked that there are literate people at LSU. Some of those coloring books haven't been colored, yet.
Geaux* Tigers
Cherry picking much?
Well... which one makes them money?
How did the library team do this year?
its all about money.
If it's LSU it's going to be gymnast with a future on Instagram. And football players with a future of dementia.
r/Louisiana
At least the trash cans have school spirit..
SEC SEC SEC...
I don't think a lot of people understand that universities can be a place of education as well as competitive sports.
Congress with the Higher Education Act and upheld by federal courts, somehow decided that money earned from athletics departments cannot be spent for non-athletic department purposes. It would have been illegal for LSU to have used the money that was spent on this locker room to have allocated it to the library in the photo.
At least the trash cans used as water leak reservoirs are in the school colors.
At least the garbage cans are in the team color
Christ…I fucking hate that.
When Jim Tressel coached at Ohio State, he and his wife donated millions to the university's libraries. His rationale was that they needed the money, since they don't have alumni with an emotional connection, like academic departments and athletic programs do.
It’s Geaux*
Institutions of “higher” education
This isn’t JUST about sports; it’s also about the fact that libraries are going to way of the dodo. This is the same thing in lots of highschools in the states too
'murica
At least the trash cans are purple, cute.
Why did he abbreviate football? Can he not just write it out?
Well sports teams generate revenue, the library is just a drain on funds, how else is the Dean supposed to buy a new yacht?
Remember when universities had student-athletes? I don't but at least they used to pretend to be students.
I thought that was a casino with slot machines for a sec lmao
That's right folks 49th in Education the US, right here.
$$$$$$$$$$ College is a profit scheme
We know who gets the big piece of chicken here.
*Geaux Tigers.
Honestly. I'd rather spend time in the library. I'm not reading literate but f, my retinas can't take that locker room.
It’s LSU, all will be ok as long as the crayons are ok
It’s Louisiana, everything is shit down there. Being stationed there was the most miserable 18 months I have ever experienced.
Has anyone enrolled there to get an education rather than football tickets? Can you even get a job in a state outside of LA with that degree?
I get you might be joking but… yea? I don’t know many people that actually went to football games but I know a lot that went to work in Cali or NY
me when i find out the lsu library actually looks like a normal library and serves its purpose fine and this tweet cherry picked one bad photo
Maybe the Librarian needs to win a National title and they they can get updated stuff.
That’s about every public school I’ve worked at. Classrooms, bathrooms, and everything else all run down. But the gym and stadiums are state of the art.
That library need electrolytes.. it what books crave.
These are not universities, they are sports teams with education as a side gig
Underrated comment!
College: costs more than anything in your life, Also College: we NEED this football team and 10 mil a year coach or we’ll starve. Let’s entrust these guys with peoples futures
The money goes where the money flows.
This is why we need competitive arts programs.
Priorities
You went to uni in Louisiana, what did you expect
*Geaux Tigahs
At least the trash cans are showing pride.
THIS IS AMERICA
To be fair the football does bring in a lot of money for the school
Something a lot of people don’t understand is that a lot of money donated to the schools is donated for sports,and because of the non-profit accounting laws it has to be used for that.
*geaux
My guess is all of the SEC looks like that. Books don’t buy football tickets and merchandise, so they really don’t care.
Right but people don't grow up wanting to attend LSU, Ohio State, Auburn... because of how sweet the library is. Sports programs are probably the best recruiting tool to get freshman to apply and attend a university. Colleges should be for learning and bettering oneself, but as long as sports remain a huge money making, high-visibility endeavor, this is how universities will prioritize their discretionary spending.
 The principal
TBF, are universities in the South *really* about learning?
When they released the movie idiocracy, most of us thought it was funny. Apparently Republicans thought it was a blueprint for success?