[BigJohn043]

Given my interests and preferences, I favor going independent and remaining a force in college sports, but jettisoning football.  But I appreciate how painful that would be to those who love football, and how it does feel like quitting -- taking our ball and going home in the face of adversity.

I don't follow these things as closely as most of you, but from my cursory knowledge wouldn't this be cost-prohibitive? I was under the impression that Stanford's other sports depend largely on money from football. So if we dropped football how would we finance everything else? I'm not opposed to this idea in theory, but just not sure if it's viable.

With the exception of 2-3 teams with gigantic stadiums that sell out regularly, the money from football is almost entirely in the form of TV revenues given to the leagues and then shared out to the members of the league.  In what used to be the power 5 conferences it varied from $15-30 million or so per team.  The problem is that with the departure of USC and UCLA the Pac 10 won't get even a fraction of the low end of that (per school.)  The WAC last I checked was getting $2-3 million a team (although this is admittedly dated information.)   A football team--including coaches salaries, travel, scholarships, etc. will cost nearly $15 million a year, so Stanford was probably already just breaking even on that team.  Without the Pac 12, it changes from being a money generating machine to being a money sink.

Not sure why you think it is only 2-3 teams.  By my count:
Bama
UGA
Auburn
LSU
Tennessee
Florida
Ohio State
Michigan
Penn State
Wisconsin

That is 10.  And there are probably more depending on your definition.

[BigJohn043]

Given my interests and preferences, I favor going independent and remaining a force in college sports, but jettisoning football.  But I appreciate how painful that would be to those who love football, and how it does feel like quitting -- taking our ball and going home in the face of adversity.

I don't follow these things as closely as most of you, but from my cursory knowledge wouldn't this be cost-prohibitive? I was under the impression that Stanford's other sports depend largely on money from football. So if we dropped football how would we finance everything else? I'm not opposed to this idea in theory, but just not sure if it's viable.

With the exception of 2-3 teams with gigantic stadiums that sell out regularly, the money from football is almost entirely in the form of TV revenues given to the leagues and then shared out to the members of the league.  In what used to be the power 5 conferences it varied from $15-30 million or so per team.  The problem is that with the departure of USC and UCLA the Pac 10 won't get even a fraction of the low end of that (per school.)  The WAC last I checked was getting $2-3 million a team (although this is admittedly dated information.)   A football team--including coaches salaries, travel, scholarships, etc. will cost nearly $15 million a year, so Stanford was probably already just breaking even on that team.  Without the Pac 12, it changes from being a money generating machine to being a money sink.

Not sure why you think it is only 2-3 teams.  By my count:
Bama
UGA
Auburn
LSU
Tennessee
Florida
Ohio State
Michigan
Penn State
Wisconsin

That is 10.  And there are probably more depending on your definition.