[Leftcoast]

I don't get the argument that participating in a non-revenue sport, say Women's Water Polo, inherently reduces competitiveness in Men's football or Basketball.  The reasoning in the accompanying article was very muddy but the most cogent argument was that supporting other sports reduced the amount of money Athletic Departments gave to football with one example being Assistant Coaches salaries.

If we are looking for causes for the SECs recent dominance in the BCS standings versus the Pac 10 and the Big 10 you need to look much deeper than pure money.  Most schools in these leagues have plenty of dollars to spend and I don't think Ohio State lost to the SEC three times in BCS games because they were out spent.

I'd look at coaching, culture and talent pools long before I'd make the argument that money should be diverted from non-revenue sports. 

Do the richest schools that could do things right and support multiple programs really think that they need to spend all that obscene amount of moolah on football uber alles?  Maybe Brand was right - Maybe the NCAA NEEDS Stanford to succeed to counter this kind of warped thinking.

[Leftcoast]

I don't get the argument that participating in a non-revenue sport, say Women's Water Polo, inherently reduces competitiveness in Men's football or Basketball.  The reasoning in the accompanying article was very muddy but the most cogent argument was that supporting other sports reduced the amount of money Athletic Departments gave to football with one example being Assistant Coaches salaries.

If we are looking for causes for the SECs recent dominance in the BCS standings versus the Pac 10 and the Big 10 you need to look much deeper than pure money.  Most schools in these leagues have plenty of dollars to spend and I don't think Ohio State lost to the SEC three times in BCS games because they were out spent.

I'd look at coaching, culture and talent pools long before I'd make the argument that money should be diverted from non-revenue sports. 

Do the richest schools that could do things right and support multiple programs really think that they need to spend all that obscene amount of moolah on football uber alles?  Maybe Brand was right - Maybe the NCAA NEEDS Stanford to succeed to counter this kind of warped thinking.