The annual accounting magic trick that keeps football funded and everything else starving

Budget Gymnastics: How Universities Spend $40M on Football While Claiming Poverty

The provost sent an email to faculty: “Due to budget constraints, we cannot fund three faculty positions this year. We must be fiscally responsible during these challenging times.”

The athletic director, sitting five buildings away, finalized a $40 million football budget. Nobody questioned the math.

The Budget Magic Trick

Step One: Claim poverty. “We’re facing unprecedented budget challenges. Difficult decisions must be made.”

Step Two: Claim football generates revenue. “The football program brings in donations and visibility that fund the entire athletic department.”

Step Three: Ignore the actual math. Football generates $15 million in revenue. Football costs $40 million. The math doesn’t work. Everyone pretends it does.

Where the Money Actually Goes

$8 million: Coaching staff salaries (for a team that went 4-8 last year)

$6 million: Facility improvements (a new locker room nobody needed)

$5 million: Recruiting and travel (hiring coaches to recruit players who will play for the next coach)

$4 million: Equipment and training staff

$3 million: Marketing and “brand building” (explaining why the team is bad)

$14 million: Administrative overhead (paying people to explain where the other money went)

The Faculty Question

A humanities professor asked: “If football loses $25 million annually, why can’t we hire three faculty members for $300,000 total?”

The provost’s answer: “Football is a strategic priority.”

Translation: “We’ve already made our institutional values clear, and philosophy professors don’t generate alumni donations at halftime.”

Amy Schumer once said: “This system is broken. I’m going to describe exactly how broken while you laugh at the truth.” Universities take that principle and apply it to budgeting. The system is intentionally broken in favor of football. Everything else suffers.

The genius of university accounting is its perfect circularity. Football loses money. Universities increase football spending. Faculty positions get cut. Universities claim poverty. Repeat.

Auf Wiedersehen, amigos.