Just kidding, they’re going to meet to give Duck AD Rob Mullens over $5M in raises. The millions in subsidies for the Jock Box, Knight Arena Bonds, and administrative overhead will continue.
Just kidding, they’re going to meet to give Duck AD Rob Mullens over $5M in raises. The millions in subsidies for the Jock Box, Knight Arena Bonds, and administrative overhead will continue.
I’m no Athletics apologist, but it does say, “Mullens’ employment agreement is funded entirely with Athletics revenue, including donor funds. ”
I’d be interested in a full, coherent, analysis/explanation of Athletics funding, and if they are at all funded/subsidized with UO general funds. My understanding is that auxilleries are a closed loop.
When the President says it, it must be true. Or we could ask ChatGPT. Bottom line, about $5M a year:
how much does the academic side of the university of oregon subsidize the duck athletic department?
…
🚀 Final Insight
Athletic operations are mostly self-funded.
Tuition/state money is not directly used to pay coaches or teams.
There is a meaningful $3 million net flow to the university, and another ~$3 million from students/state to athletics, along with targeted academic-side support (~$5M).
So overall, while the Athletic Department is balanced on its own, the broader campus and student body do still subsidize athletics through fees, overhead, and specific facility support.
Almost as important: every dollar that gets donated to Athletics is a dollar not supporting Academics.
Fortunately this statement is not supported by the empirical evidence. But there is evidence that when duck football does well UO donors’ *additional* donations go almost entirely to duck athletics.
This is all very interesting, but it’s relatively small beer.
The really interesting crisis is the “demographic cliff” in which the number of American college-age students, thanks to the Great Recession of 2008, is starting in 2026 to decline by about 15%. This is basically a fact, not a prediction.
Imagine UO getting hit by a 15% decline in tuition. It would make the current difficulties — which are pretty awful — seem like child’s play.
This has been known to be coming for many years. Hiring tenure-track faculty has been irresponsible — certainly in the last couple of years.
Add to that Trump’s discouragement of foreign — oops, international — high-paying students.
Or — is the plan to keep new TTF, and fire a huge chunk of the senior faculty? Something for the retained junior faculty to mull over in considering their prospects in academia? Has this already been decided and planned for? Have those pension plans ready!
Or is UO somehow going to keep its enrollment up by going after out of state domestic students? I guess 100% open enrollment might help.
Am I seeing clearly? Or am I just insane?
“Or”?