What's In Your Wallet? - The New Math In College Football
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January 9, 2007 by
On Thursday, Miami Dolphin coach Nick Saban resigned to return to college football at Alabama for a king's ransom of $32 million. It was just the latest in a series of startling financial escalations in college football in recent years. Other notables include T. Boone Pickens $235 million in gifts to Oklahoma State and the Cowboys "premium pricing" of high interest single game tickets (the cheapest ticket for the game versus Oklahoma was $100). Add it up and it's clear that the cost of doing business in college football is going up rapidly. Itn's not hard to see college football becoming like professional baseball - a league of haves and have-nots.
That could be good and bad news for Nebraska. The good news is that Nebraska brings in more revenue than any other Big XII North program. If that continues, then the Huskers could become perennial participants in the Big XII championship game. The bad news is that schools like Texas bring in substantially more revenue than Nebraska. So that could mean the Huskers could become perennial runners-up in the Big XII championship game.
It's not clear whether revenues will accelerate more quickly if Saban succeeds or fails. Success tells athletic directors that they have to pay up for coaching talent. Failure would lead to all the coaches that outperform Saban to demand more money.
In any case, these trends should be concerning for all college football fans because the true cost of excalating revenues will be borne by the fans in the form of more expensive tickets, cable, pay-per-view, trademarked merchandise, etc. And that's a shame no matter how big your wallet is.
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Mark Jan 09 07
How far this will go is anyone's guess, but I think we'll eventually see some sort of spending limitations imposed, similar to salary caps maybe.
It's kind of sad, but I fear the glory days of college football are behind us. The NCAA is starting to turn into the "farm teams" for the NFL. It's becoming more about the money and less about the sport.