After reading the Dec. 5 editorial about college professors' incomes versus college coaches' incomes, I did a few minutes of Web searching and came up with a current top 100 list ("Which football and basketball programs produce the largest profits?") and an old (2006) USA Today article about sports marketing companies' deals with schools ("Schools, coaches cash in on lucrative media deals").
The editorial writer brings up coaches from last year's national champion (Texas) and this year's national championship game (Alabama and Notre Dame), which rank Nos. 1, 7 and 12 on the top 100 list with 2010-11 profits of $68.8 million, $40.8 million and $34.7 million, respectively.
According to the USA Today article, Host Communication has long-term deals with Tennessee (10 years/$83.4 million), Kentucky (10 years/$80.5 million) and Arizona (12 years/$80.4 million) while even relatively small schools like California and Missouri have guaranteed $40 million and $32.5 million deals.
Next time the editorial writer is looking for a topic to editorialize on, perhaps he could Web search a little and morph his silly first idea into something enlightening, like philosophizing about how little complaining the U.S. sports entertainment industry has been doing during the biggest recession since the Depression, from high school football all the way to senior golf.
Steve Hensley
Lahaina
