Most schools lose money on football. Les than 20 schools make enough money to pay for the entire athletic department. If capital costs like arenas and stadium were included, no university would make money on sports.

The head football coach is usually not an employee of the University but is really a contractor hired by the athletic foundation, a separate not-for-profit corporation set up to handle the money for the athletic department. How else do you think Notre Dame could fire Ty Willingham without the President of Notre Dame being involved.

The graph compares salary with compensation packages. Most coaches get a compensation package that include summer camps, advertisements, endorsements, and media appearances (being paid for the coaches show and doing the banquet circuit.

If you are going to look at non-tenure track professors, the compassion should be with assistant coaches.

What a liberal you have to be to even post this!

Plus, I can't believe so many professors even make so much!

Given that you've obviously never heard a professor speak, I'm not surprised at you disbelief.

Plus, I can't believe so many professors even make so much!

Indeed, the Saban piece has proven prescient, in that he has, in less than eighteen months, transformed Alabama’s program from a washed-up relic into a national championship contender. Given what that can mean for the institution, he’s underpaid at $4 million.

Until he blows out of there for the next gig in a year or two....but point taken.

But as Eneils quoted:

"We are using them, then putting them out into the world without degrees where doing the forty in 4.5 is useless."

Sometimes, it just don't make any sense.

"I am coaching kids with the greatest football talents in the world. They can do anything in the world with a football except writing a simple declarative sentence on it. But, they keep showing up in my office with grades I know that did not earn. We are using them, then putting them out into the world without degrees where doing the forty in 4.5 is useless."

That's paraphrasing, to the best of my memory.

I agree.

while professors who perform acts genuinely valuable to the mission of the college get stiffed.

I think you misunderstand the mission of 99.9%+ of the universities... to raise revenue.

don't want my tax dollars to be used to subsidize college football.

As the linked article notes, football programs are independently funded and bring in enormous revenues for top schools. Saban isn't being paid for with tax money, let alone federal tax money.

Conversely, there are only 128-odd Division I head football coaching jobs.

So what? There are only 128 University President Jobs at Division I colleges.

Luring one of the handful of them who is a proven winner can make a huge difference.

A huge difference to WHAT? to how many games the football team wins? Some of these universities receive federal tax money! Thank you, I don't want my tax dollars to be used to subsidize college football.

The point of the graph is that subsidized universities plow billions of dollars into pointless, yet popular activities while professors who perform acts genuinely valuable to the mission of the college get stiffed.

No, I'm not a professor.