New York Times Op Ed- Tax College Sports!!

I mean if it is successful it must be taxed right?

The Op-Ed does the regular arguments and does not address the real issues that opposes it's view of the world.

For instance:
College presidents contend that their hands are tied by confounding economic forces. To pay for non-revenue sports like volleyball and track, they depend on their football and basketball programs. But this Faustian line of logic obscures some important points.

Hey I got to use "Faustian" in a sentence so it must show that my points are good.

Football and basketball is the goose that pays for everything else in many cases. It seemed these non revenue sports were of the utmost importance to lets say the readership of the New York Times when we were dealing with college women sports. It did not matter in order to implement Title XI that a lot of men's sports had to hit the chopping block. Oh well women's basketball, soccer, and softball you were of the utmost importance a few years ago now it appears you are collateral damage.

What about the Olympics. Well I suppose a lot of Colleges would have to cut back on things such as track and field, swimming, and the other "Olympic Sports" .So I guess our medal count goes down. A small price to pay for a few bucks I guess.

The fact that many of these college programs don't have to take money from the legislature and thus other educational programs seems to be a point he wishes not to address. In fact the huge important fact that schools like LSU, Georgia, and South Carolina actually contribute direct payments to the general fund of the Universities is just ignored!!!

Where is this College Football mess the Op Ed writer is talking about?. Is it a mess that a Conference like the SEC has a television contract with ESPN where every school (From Vandy to Bama to LSU ) gets a nice 15 million dollars a year. Is it a mess that every school gets a equal share of the Bowl revenues post season. All this helps programs from not having to be funded by the taxpayer. What is the problem?

How are the citizens of Louisiana, Florida, Ohio, California, etc , etc helped by taxing College Sports revenue?So it goes into the hole that is the federal budget and our taxes have to go up?

What about the huge SALES tax revenue that these towns get. That is never on these people's radar because well these towns are often not Paris in the spring. They are the other towns like Baton Rouge, Knoxville, Rome,Columbia, and South Bend. Not exactly tourist destinations. Many of a local and county governments get a nice chuck of their revenue from these sales tax dollars.

So color me skeptical that taxing college sports so it can fund more "Cash For Clunker" schemes is somehow a net plus over the above.

It also has the effect of keeping other Athletic programs down that are trying to improve and also get off the taxpayer dollars. Think a program like Boise State.

BUT BUT WHAT ABOUT THESE COACHES SALARIES!! I mean Les Miles,and Nick Saban are making so much money and that is so so so bad. First while College Sports are exempt from taxes the Coaches are not.

A good hunk of this money is going to Feds. The coaches salary issue is a red herring in many ways. On the whole much more money has been spent on improving educational facilities for the student athlete and again funding and keeping healthy non revenue sports. In the end there is no magic money tree at these Universities.

Finally there is a lot less "fat" in College Athletic budgets than people think. Even the most blessed of programs had to cut back this economic cycle. This was coming after a year where transportation costs for the college sports programs went through the roof because of gas prices. The cost of transportation is where a college athletic budget is the most exposed. Unlike a regular business they just cannot announce to fans they are adding "x" dollars in the middle of a season to their ticket prices.

All these facts should be kept in mind before we tax college sports.