Phil Mushnick

Phil Mushnick

College Football

Colleges cutting sports for ‘revenue’ doesn’t add up at all

For those who give a rat’s rear, we’re in the throes of an education crisis, a national epidemic that imperils our long- and short-range ability to stimulate and advance our intelligent young.

News reports are now heard and read daily: Colleges have become unaffordable. In a country grown and distinguished by its ability to educate its children, higher education has become a luxury item.

And we’re having our academic butts whooped by nations to which we once shipped CARE packages.

But what’s read in the front of newspapers and heard at the top of newscasts contradicts what’s read and heard in the back. The same unaffordable colleges are spending millions just in football and basketball team shipping, handling and storage.

On one day, last week, in men’s basketball: Eastern Washington at Seton Hall. Connecticut at Washington. Southern Cal at Dayton. LaSalle (Philadelphia) at Miami. Northeastern (Boston) at Tulane (New Orleans). Iona at Nevada.

That day’s women’s games included Auburn at Minnesota, and Alcorn State (Mississippi) at Penn State.

And that’s nuts. Yes or no?

Temple University recently announced it is dropping seven varsity sports to save money — redirect it — on behalf of its “revenue” sports, football and basketball.

“Revenue” sports is a con, generally meaning that because more people buy tickets to attend them and networks pay money to televise them, they produce revenue.

Revenue? Yes. Profit? Even breaking even is a long shot. In October, Moody’s Investors Service reported that 90 percent of Division I NCAA sports departments are reliant on school subsidies.

In other words, they rely on money diverted from the academic side, including tuition and board paid by students and their families. In still other words, if these exorbitantly funded athletic departments — so many with hideously overpaid coaches and luxurious facilities to serve as come-ons for recruits — were stocks, they’d be worthless.

The New York Times last week reported that one of Temple’s goners, men’s gymnastics — a TU team since 1926 — this year had the highest GPA among TU teams. So the pennies saved to kill a sport that produces genuine scholar athletes will be assigned to bigger money-losing teams with lesser academic achievement.

And that, too, is nuts. But that’s happening — or already has — there, here and everywhere.

How do winning college basketball and football teams benefit society over the long haul? They don’t. A biologist, historian, economist, chemist, musician? Now we’re talkin’ genuine college.

Saturday, Temple’s men’s basketball team plays at Central Florida. On Dec. 14, eight days after TU announced its elimination of seven “non-revenue” sports, Temple’s women’s basketball team — a keeper — played at Montana.

Many colleges have plenty of money — if you look in all the wrong places.

Big dunk? Where’s the cameras?

From the Department of Cut It Out, Already: Isn’t LeBron James secure enough in his stardom and Nike deals? He still has to finish slam-dunks with bad-ass stares at the TV camera below the basket? What does he do at practice, glare at a cardboard cutout?

There’s still no evidence that any network has prevailed upon any football analyst to choose silence over nonsense. FOX’s John Lynch, during last Sunday’s Cowboys-Redskins: “A very good football play by [Washington CB] Josh Wilson.”

Not even John Sterling would tell us that Derek Jeter just made a “very good baseball play.”

And what does it take for a TV network to demonstrate a little foresight, some minimal quality control?

If MLB is going to continue to show us reels of great plays and the greatest great greats of all time, then great Caesar’s ghost (newspaper great Perry White), stop covering the view with slap-on promos for other stuff!

Then there’s those vague statements issued by “spokespersons.”

First, Notre Dame QB Everett Golson was suspended for a “poor academic decision.” Now ND basketball star Jerian Grant is out because of a “poor academic decision.” Reader John F., Oceanport, N.J.: “Does that mean they chose ‘True,’ rather than ‘False’?”


On TV, anyone can pass as an expert on anything. Last week on CNN’s “Reliable Sources,” Jim VandeHei, the CEO of all-media Politico, spoke his sense of good TV:

“If you look at what ESPN was able to do, there’s a reason that ESPN is so much better than anybody else doing sports. They’re great because that’s all they focus on.

“They wake up every day trying to figure out ‘How do I win at covering the NFL? How do I win at covering soccer? How do I win at covering baseball?’ ”

Either Mr. VendeHei ain’t much of a sports fan or he never has watched ESPN, nor does he understand that ESPN’s ability to spend tens of millions for rights to games is predicated on the per-household, must-pay, rising payments of cable and satellite subscribers.

ESPN’s success is predicated on money, not quality or credibility. If such noble achievement counted — at least as much as endless self-promotion — ESPN would be a .500 team in the Adobe Desert League.

Cano could learn from how Blair played The Game

Paul Blair, the 13-season Oriole, then Yankee, who died Thursday at 69, was an ultimate overachiever, a .250 hitter who in all facets was at least as valuable as a .310 batter. Blair helped win games with his bat, arm, glove, legs, smarts. He was very easy to root for because he played The Game the way Robinson Cano, among others, doesn’t and won’t.


Many experts who have noted Eli Manning’s sudden descent from stardom as a stand-alone, stats-tell phenomena, have missed a few small things, such as the Giants’ sudden absence of reliable offensive linemen, running/blocking backs and receivers. But, oh well.


The NBA should have a rule: If a team makes the playoffs with a sub-.500 record — Nets and Knicks are eligible — its disallowed to jack up prices of first-round home tickets.

Though it’s far too late in a world lost to “bye weeks,” reader Dave McBride wants to remind football experts, everywhere, that no one can “control their destiny; by definition, destiny is strictly out of our control.” Yep, destiny is predetermined — like home runs hit after a runner’s thrown out stealing.

Is there still no one at ESPN to insist that college basketball analyst Jay Bilas speak to us, rather than down to us?


Lookalikes: Submitted by Montebello, N.Y.’s Jordan Breslaw — “American Idol”-launched singer Constantine Maroulis and Rangers forward Mats Zuccarello.