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Message: [QUOTE="0.2 YNdeeR, post: 4111264, member: 8125"] WIth respect (nothing personal) I don't agree. To frame the discussion properly, we should recognize two separate issues: 1) public financing of athletic budgets at factory schools and its impact on other services (a complex set of fiscal controversies well beyond a fan site); and 2) wide disparities in CFB athletic budgets and staffing. Obviously, my post was directed at the latter regardless of the debate over taxpayer contributions. As to your reply, I never said there isn't private money in the mix, or that accounting tricks aren't used. As you can see from the links below, Auburn's budget is $150+M of which $63M represents an aggregate of private donations and tickets sales. If that is a 50/50 split, even with SEC TV revenue it is clear that tons of public money is still being pumped into athletic expenses and/or debt at Auburn, as it is according to reports at 'Bama, UG, Clemson and the like (Texas A&M is well over #200M). We could pour over EADA disclosures, but these are publicly funded (mostly land-grant) universities. If as you claim there are "laws" preventing tax money from going to football, I'd love to see the links (or you could DM me). There's no reporting that I've seen about fiscal constraints, and if there are any in place there's little evidence they're doing any good. No one is denying that donors are active (they bought Sabin's $3M house) in the SEC, B1G (UM, PSt. OSU, etc) and elsewhere. It's their right. But there's a wide body of reporting that athletic spending at a few factory schools in southern states and a few B1G schools is out of control - which is why Clemson had 40-50 assistants in the Dome last October and the factories continue to deploy legions of 'assistants', analysts and other personnel to get around porous NCAA rules. As a direct result of these staffing and funding disparities, D-1 football is becoming an oligarchy that is destroying parity and alienating many fans - exactly the point of the OP. Regarding the broader issue of public financing of athletics in the South, there is too much ground to cover here. Briefly, I believe the 1996 law you mentioned (in Alabama) only limits Sabin's pension not the Bama athletic budget (considerably larger than FSU's, the top-spending ACC school). There may be other laws I'm not aware of, and I'll take your word that there's a line-item/donor contribution to fund Sabin's salary. Nonetheless, plus or minus booster money, TV revenue and ticket sales, etc., 'Bama's annual athletic budget is in the range of [B]$164 million, [/B]on top of $225M in financing bonds, payroll for all the personnel, payments to the state retirement system, the costs of computers, maintenance, transportation, utilities and other infrastructure all of which is likely publicly guaranteed, publicly funded or both[B]. [/B]And (as an aside) this is a state where the pension system is $16B in the red and public education ranks at or near the bottom in the US. To be fair, many projects are funded by private donations. Also the SEC's TV contract (as one example) is huge. And there are Universities (G-Tech is one, UVA is likely another) that don't engage in profligate spending or try to charge their own students (Clemson). But those exceptions don't change the reality that in Alabama, South Carolina, Georgia and other southern states, there are legacy issues with public funding of education and other government services while factory schools engage in lavish athletic spending in order to dominate CFB. Even apart from the regrettable impact on other public services, these disparities are a major factor in the loss of party in FBS, which is a legitimate point of criticism. [URL unfurl="true"]https://www.dawgnation.com/football/uga-record-143-million-dollar-athletics-budget-fy-2019-coaches-salaries/[/URL] [NYU study]: [I]Although Alabama makes an effort to dedicate a high proportion of its fiscal capacity to its education system, as a state it still provides a below‑average amount of funding to its public education system.67 [B]Compared to the rest of the nation, southeastern states have a history of providing less funding to K–12 public education.68 Even among the southeastern states, K–12 public education in Alabama has historically been among the worst funded[/B].69 This stems in large part from intentional acts to ensure disenfranchisement of Alabama’s black and poor citizens. [/I] [URL unfurl="true"]https://socialchangenyu.com/harbinger/education-in-alabama-a-privilege-or-right-what-alabamas-tax-decisions-reveal-about-historical-and-intentional-k%E2%80%9112-education-disenfranchisement-and-the-unlikelihood-of-poor-alabami/#II[/URL] [URL unfurl="true"]https://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/story/sports/2020/01/30/alabama-athletic-department-records-21-million-deficit-2019-fiscal-year/2859131001/#:~:text=The%20Crimson%20Tide%20athletic%20department,a%20records%20request%20this%20week.[/URL] [URL unfurl="true"]https://www.alreporter.com/2020/08/03/donations-ticket-sales-accounts-for-63-million-of-auburn-athletics-budget/[/URL] [URL unfurl="true"]https://www.yahoo.com/now/college-football-apos-highest-paid-231859021.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAA9K7h54Icc_tlU2JcojxeAxzgATGnXB2f8XP37b4NrJUnyZie0bsIuV2vbRT5GZM8U6kDUGWjOzzeriTM3Ots6pbUD0Ee8NRQ9JFlsQ7AycEMxHvZ_ef8OyWBBI6oGFuhVVnSK59bPXiMZD-gIlCsP_t8w8C29dUBFvD5EeAyqR[/URL] [URL unfurl="true"]https://www.heartland.org/news-opinion/news/south-carolina-taxpayers-lose-on-clemson-tigers-salaries-for-coaches[/URL] [URL unfurl="true"]https://www.statehousereport.com/2018/03/30/news-new-budget-keeps-underfunding-education-by-hundreds-of-millions/[/URL] [URL unfurl="true"]https://reason.com/2018/12/29/nick-saban-is-eligible-for-24-million-an/[/URL] [URL unfurl="true"]https://www.bestcolleges.com/news/analysis/2020/11/20/do-college-sports-make-money/[/URL] [URL unfurl="true"]https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/2017/12/20/size-of-support-staffs-gives-power-five-teams-big-edge/108771796/[/URL] [/QUOTE]

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