This will be my final attempt at educating the editorial board of the Uptown paper of record on the economics of UNCC UNC Charlotte athletics. Thus far my efforts these past few years have been pointless. To the windmill.
If you write an editorial with the headline Students shouldn’t pay for 49ers to play you need to explain why it does not bother you that students are already paying for the 49ers to play. Without massive subsidies from student fees UNCC UNC Charlotte could not afford its current football-less athletic program.
Further, because AD Judy Rose made the horrible decision to stick the Niners’ marquee hoops program in the A10, with no natural rivals and simply hope that NCAA tourney money shares made up the difference in revenue, there is ample reason to believe student fees will have to be hiked to support the current football-less athletics effort. This is why UNCC — screw it — is right now looking seriously at football as a possible path out of the current fix.
The football-less alternative is something like Virginia Commonwealth, where student fees are already about one-third higher than UNCC. Again, this is what UNCC is facing without football. Now, that might be the proper course. Or it might be that a prudently operated football program could turn a profit for UNCC. But either one of those outcomes will come on the backs of students and their parents who will have to pay more. Regardless.
Of course, it is likely that football will mean a greater increase in fees than the increase that is coming without football. In that context, it is fair to discuss whether football is worth it to UNCC. But it is simply sophistry to repeatedly assert that UNCC faces some choice between academics and athletics as manifested by football.
UNCC long ago opted to use athletics to puff itself up behind what the alumni and fan base could support. Football might be a natural extension of that approach — or a complete and utter disaster. And so could be the UNCC athletic status quo.
