01-09-2026, 07:49 PM
You realize that the University laid of 360 employees and announced a $140 million budget cut less than 6 months ago. Even before the PAC-12 fell apart, the athletics department was already running a deficit, and that was before the University agreed to bail it out so that it could move to a conference literally named after the other coast, and take a paltry fraction of the revenue for that pleasure.
It would have been the height of tone deafness, then, for the University to make a splashy coaching hire and pay out the equivalent of 20 of the laid off employees salaries just to satisfy the ego of the handful of sportsball fans whose self-image is tied to whether a bunch of 20 year olds can move an oblong ball 100 yards down the field. While the $50 million donation is nice, it basically will put out about $2.5 million a year, which is about 1/8th of what the University could be paying athletes as part of the House settlement.
The solution, then, is simple, and is what the successful teams in the portal have been doing. Donate enough money that the football team can pay out $5+ million for a name coach and have $20+ million to play around with for House settlement funds (plus probably an equal amount in NIL money), which basically means either having a $50 million donation every year or finding about $1B that can be used to generate enough capital to essentially endow a successful football team. If you have that money lying around, I would be willing to bet the Athletics Dept. will take your check and might even name something in your honor.
Otherwise, while it is really easy to ask the University to spend other people’s money, as much as I too enjoy sportsball, I would rather be underwhelmed with the investment in the athletics program than have to see another 50 or so university employees laid off and curtail a bunch of groundbreaking research and important teaching activities that are actually core to the University’s mission.
BC
It would have been the height of tone deafness, then, for the University to make a splashy coaching hire and pay out the equivalent of 20 of the laid off employees salaries just to satisfy the ego of the handful of sportsball fans whose self-image is tied to whether a bunch of 20 year olds can move an oblong ball 100 yards down the field. While the $50 million donation is nice, it basically will put out about $2.5 million a year, which is about 1/8th of what the University could be paying athletes as part of the House settlement.
The solution, then, is simple, and is what the successful teams in the portal have been doing. Donate enough money that the football team can pay out $5+ million for a name coach and have $20+ million to play around with for House settlement funds (plus probably an equal amount in NIL money), which basically means either having a $50 million donation every year or finding about $1B that can be used to generate enough capital to essentially endow a successful football team. If you have that money lying around, I would be willing to bet the Athletics Dept. will take your check and might even name something in your honor.
Otherwise, while it is really easy to ask the University to spend other people’s money, as much as I too enjoy sportsball, I would rather be underwhelmed with the investment in the athletics program than have to see another 50 or so university employees laid off and curtail a bunch of groundbreaking research and important teaching activities that are actually core to the University’s mission.
BC