"Football brings the money"

People like to talk about how big football is important to universities (like UNC) because they bring in so much money to support other things, like non-revenue sports. If that were in fact the case, you'd expect SEC schools to be wealthier than Ivy League schools.

In fact, the opposite is true. In the SEC the only schools that have endowments bigger than $3 billion are Texas and Texas A & M (both funded by oil money, not football) and Vanderbilt, which is itself an anomaly in the SEC and would probably fit better in the ACC as currently constituted, culture-wise.

By contrast, the smallest endowment in the Ivy League is Brown's $8 billion. And remember, the really important number is endowment per student. The Ivy League schools are on average much smaller than those in the SEC. What about all that football money? Where did that go? It would seem that not enough SEC alums on average make enough money to contribute materially to their alma maters. Or don't consider doing so worth their while. 

It would be interesting to compare the career earnings of, say, members of the University of Alabama football team with, say, the Columbia football team. Yes, more of the former would go to the NFL and make big money there. The lion's share (pun intended) of the members of Columbia's team undoubtedly end their careers when they walk across the stage at graduation and go on to have successful careers in a range of professions, a good chunk of them lucrative. I know which team I'd bet on.

If UNC goes to the SEC for football money it will be a monumental act of stupidity.

Holden Thorp was in town to speak last week and somebody asked him about the football question. He reportedly said something like this: "A lot of people want UNC to be Harvard five days a week and Alabama two days a week. I think UNC should be the University of North Carolina seven days a week." Very wise words indeed. The university of Andy Griffith, who wandered into a footbal stadium bewildered before declaring "what it was was football." Football. A nice opportunity for socializing, grilling, being in fall air, silly songs and dances, nothing more.