What does football pay for at Michigan?

Todd Flanders: "Daddy, what do taxes pay for?"
Ned Flanders: "Oh, why, everything! Policemen, trees, sunshine! And let's not forget the folks who just don't feel like working, God bless 'em!"

Was it exclusive for building the new facilities? I've heard Sam and Ira say that most of the new facilities and upgrades are done with donations.

That's what he said and he's right. Football pays for something fun for students to do: sports. His point is that the priority and mission of the school is academics and intellectual preparation rather than giving alumni something fun to do on Saturdays in the fall. Michigan could cancel football and its mission would be unaffected by it, which is all he's saying. He wants an Athletic Director who understands that, which is good because we hired Schlissel to continue our tradition of being one of the best universities in the world, not be Gordon Gee. The shit show at UNC has shaken a significant portion of the academy and he wants to make sure that something like that never happens at Michigan. He's right completely right to do so. He's goig to hire an AD that understands that there should be a strong academic component to our sports culture. Schlissel also strikes me as a guy who's not screwing around and is competitive. If anything, Harbaugh is a perfect choice for what he hopes to accomplish: a former coach of Stanford who criticized Michigan for not being rigorous enough who won games.

My understanding is "pretty much all of them", though I do believe basketball and (maybe) hockey break even most years.

President Schlissel knows ( I think) that the de-emphasizing athletics ship has sailed. Maybe that is something he could do at Brown where they don't have a fraction of the athletic infrastructure that Michigan has - and will have.

It will be interesting to see if you can focus on academics, limit time dedicated weekly to the sport and still compete on a national level. I think a successful Michigan team, both financially and athletically, will have a mix pf players where some love football, are good at it and want an education at a great institution and others who have an eye on the facilities and coaching that will give them a shot at the NFL. Afterall, isn't that why many of us chose Michigan, to give us a better chance at succeeding after college?

I don't want this to be taken the wrong way. I support equal sports funding for men and women however the numbers don't lie. Women's sports make less then half the money it costs to run them. There is no women sport that can sustain the rest of the womens side of the athletic department. Even without football men's sports still makes far more money and comes much closer to covering there expenses. Basketball, soccer, baseball, lacrosse all make more money from the men's side than the women's but the cost needed to run them is exactly the same

Marching Band also turns a high profit, if you're measuring it in AWESOME DOLLARS

which breaks down the sources of revenue and the major areas of expenditure.

http://www.regents.umich.edu/meetings/06-14/2014-06-X-14.pdf

But if the AD wants to pay for Jim Harbaugh and a G6 for Kate Upton to fly in as our new recruiting coordinator, and does it with its own budget, why does he care?

He'll sound silly saying "don't spend that BTN money on what it's for (a team worth showing on the air) do nothing with it or set it on fire"

About ticket prices and PSDs that don't realize football is the reason most other campus teams exist. Shocking. Yes prices are high. However, are they then saying end non revenue sports. I would hope most understand the facts and ramifications. Apparently not.

Two points I've tried to make in recent threads about Schlissel and the AD, to which I haven't seen anything but knee jerk responses. One, many here, including Brian, seem to take it as given that at a place like Michigan there is some sort of direct correlation between the success of the football team and the financial status of the AD. There is no evidence at all of such a relationship, in fact there is evidence that there is no direct relationship at all. The only times the AD has been in the red or on the verge in recent years coincided with relative success on the football field. And the recent period of football pain has coincided with fabulous financial health of the AD. The burden of proof is on those who suggest that Schlissel deemphasizing success would impact the bottom line. And alumni? the dough keeps rolling in.

Second, the AD budget is a fraction, less than 3%, of the university operating budget. Which doesn't include investments and certain joint ventures and unusual large donations. Tell me Schlissel should wake up in the morning worrying about whether football is going to pay for something. He's exactly right to say the undue attention it receives is a "time sink". Changes in, for example, Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements will have enormous impact on the fiscal status of the university. Football? Come on.

I think he's doing exactly what he should be doing, delegating to a competent, connected, man who will fix this mess under his guidance. Balance? Great, last time we had a president who talked about such balance we won multiple B1G championships. Not like Schlissel is messing with a recent tradition of winning, is he?

If football is so important to the health of most other sports how do the Ivies do it since their football is not conducive to huge budgets I'd expect. It will be interesting who the new choice is for AD. There needs to be balance but I imagine we all want to be competitive in our athletics. The nice thing about Michigan is it is not quite an Ivie but a very good school and yet usually has some very good sports options. Maybe deemphasizing winning has an impact on the types of students interested in attending the University and I know we are reaching a tipping point with higher education where the institutions need every advantage they can get to draw great students. Also, I remember the Career Counseling Services attending a lecture and how they remarked that one of the reasons Michigan gets so many donations from alumni is because of the shared experiences in sporting events. Apparently we remember experiences where we're crowded and cheering together for a common good and that has us look fondly on our University experience. Just don't think it will be easy to deemphasize sports at Michigan but some of the statements are concerning me.

At most schools, the athletic department takes money from the academic side, usually in the form of mandatory fees. Michigan is one of a tiny number of universities that isn't diverting money from its core mission, education and research, to fund entertainment. (It always surprises students at Iowa when I show them the budgets when the AD doesn't break even and they realize their tuition subsidizes Ferentz's salary.)

The AD gives nothing to the university directly, unless you count the scholarhip tuition payments, which may or may not cover the cost of instruction.

The research is mixed on the topic, but a world-class nationally prominent educational institution like Michigan will usually have no trouble raising funds from, for example, business, law and medical school alums. AD donors, in general, with spectacular exceptions, don't give to the general fund--they may sign on for a capital initiative, but usually their money stays in the AD. (Think for a moment: what universities have the largest endowments?)

In terms of recruiting high-end academic students, especially grad students, or world class faculty, the football team means nothing at all. (An anecdote: I was recruited to play football by the Ivy League and Indiana. I decided to go to UM for academic reasons. The first time I saw the Michigan helmet was the 1970 OSU game on television. That's when I realized UM was good at football.)

Schlissel has no control over how much or how little the AD emphasizes football. All he can control is whether or not the academic side cuts corners on athletes. I don't think UM is UNC, and I don't believe that UM is worse than Stanford in this regard, Harbaugh notwithstanding.

The only thing that he can do to piss people who are fans of Michigan sports, but not the school as a whole, is take his time with the AD hire. I love Michigan football because I love the university as a whole, not the other way around.

I say let him do his job.

I've said this downthread, but I think it deserves a main-level comment.

Contrary to what has been claimed, Athletics pays $$ to the University's academic enterprise.

Athletes with full scholarships get what we call a "free ride" but it's not that the University is just waiving the tution fees.  The University still charges them--it's just that Athletics picks up the tab.   Just like if a rich uncle did.  

Now, I have seen arguments that this is not meaningul because it happens "in the system" (as opposed to athletics carrying bags of cash over Fleming, presumably) or because tuition is some arbitrary figure that may or may not cover the cost of instruction or whatever, or because athletes are just a small sliver of the student body.  That's beside the point.    The point is, the money flows from athletics to academics, not the other way around.  Tuition payments are made on the same basis as they would be for any other enrolled students at the U (that is, athletes don't get some special rate or some agreed-upon deal between the U and the AD).