I was raised in a dual-college household. My father has for almost all of his nearly 90 years been a supporter of Duke football and basketball, and he did his best to ensure my brother and I followed in his footsteps. It was a lost cause.
My brother and I were drawn to Kenan Stadium, Carmichael Arena and the Tarheels.
We went to more Duke games in the 70s growing up – Duke was horrible and tickets were plentiful at both Wallace Wade Stadium and Cameron; Carolina was competitive, and, with a lot more alumni, seats were pricier and harder to come by.
Despite the shade of blue we rooted for, however, we shared a similar outlook on the games and the athletes. The games played second-fiddle to academics. So when Dean Smith, North Carolina’s hall of fame coach, said he was most proud of what his athletes accomplished in the classroom and beyond school, we knew he meant it. (He listed their accomplishments at the end of his first book, The Carolina Way.
College sports has come a long way since those halcyon days, and calls for reform have been brewing.
The U.S. Senate, in a rare act of bipartisanship, has answered those cries by passing the Protect College Sports Act, which has about as much a chance of becoming law as North Carolina has of beating Notre Dame this weekend.
The legislation touches on many of the challenges facing football and basketball in particular: athletes profiting off their brand; Name Image and Likeness revenue; transfer and eligibility rules; and protecting scholarships.
The extent to which these sports require governing, and who should do it, is debatable. But the conversation is missing a bigger issue – what is the role of “college” in college sports.
Virginia as a Microcosm
Dwayne Yancey has written a fair bit about the cost to students and the costs to colleges and universities to operate big-time sports.
“Some see this as just a routine part of the college experience,” he wrote when talking about the fees students pay to subsidize sports, “others (and I count myself in this camp) see this as students being squeezed to pay for what is increasingly a professionalized sports program.”
The connections among students, alumni, and residents with no connection to the universities they root for on Saturdays, however, are complicated.
Let’s start with fundraising.
Athletic programs at the University of Virginia and at Virginia Tech are not just entertaining students on Saturday afternoons, they’re building an emotional bond to their universities that is lifelong. As students become adults, and eventually donors to the university, athletics are a proven pathway to getting donors supporting not just the athletic department but academic departments as well.
Quantitative data is challenging to find, but a 2008 meta-analysis found that “intercollegiate athletics does have a small, but statistically significant, effect on giving” to academic programs.
And as giving has grown in recent years, the size of the athletic impact on academic giving may be growing as well. So long as the spending doesn’t get out of control, the case for big-dollar college athletics as a tool to help drive academic fundraising as well stands on solid ground.
At the University of Virginia, for example, between 2020 and 2025, the athletic department has has taken in about $14.6 million more in revenues than it has spent, according to data from the Knight-Newhouse College Athletics Database. At Virginia Tech the athletic department over the same period is about $26.2 million in the black.
Any donors that moved to donate to the universities’ academic programs as a result of their commitment to the athletic programs is a net gain.
As such, athletics can serve as a “front porch” for the university, writes Jeff Geldien of Gonzaga University, by “drawing attention and fostering excitement.” However, it is important that “athletics remain aligned with the university’s broader educational mission.”
That math becomes more challenging, however, when athletic department financial loses begin to stack up.
At Old Dominion University, the athletic department has recorded loses of $3,074,954 in 2023, $4,891,821 in 2024, and $2,391,036 in 2025. An unsustainable trajectory that the university will need to address.
Not All About Money
While fundraising for academic programs can be a significant upside to having an athletic program, there are other benefits to consider.
Chief among them are creating an atmosphere that brings people together.
There’s a lot of handwringing currently about technology, mostly around data centers and concerns over artificial intelligence. But there’s another concern that has received considerably less attention.
A piece by Julie Beck in the September 28 “One Story” newsletter from The Atlantic talks about the price we pay for convenience made possible by technology. Namely, community.
“Once you open your eyes to the tradeoff between convenience and community,” she writes, “you start seeing it everywhere. It’s more convenient to ride a Peloton bike at home alone than to go to a spin class full of other sweaty bodies (whom you might end up chatting with).”
The list is lengthier, but the point is worth absorbing. We are living increasingly isolated lives because we’d rather have technology solve our problems or do our work than have to interact with others. Keep that in mind the next time you swap eating out with having food delivered to your house.
Division II and Division III schools aren’t likely to generate huge dollars for academic research because of their athletic programs. And there is evidence that at Division II schools the relationship with athletics is getting out of control.
A story in Inside Higher Education earlier this year about a GAO report on athletic spending found that “All DII programs spent more money than they generated in the 2023–24 academic year, according to the report; the 297 DII colleges reviewed spent a combined $2.7 billion on athletics while only generating $365 million in collective revenue.”
That’s a lot of loss for schools that tend to tread water financially.
At at least one Division II school in Virginia, however, things are becoming more balanced. The University of Virginia College of Wise reported to the U.S. Department of Education this year that in 2025 its athletic department operated at break-even.
For a college that is a substantial economic driver in Wise County, that feels like a fair trade-off, when one considers the social good that comes from the program.
Wise County is a poor, challenged part of Virginia that offers limited opportunities for building community. UVA – Wise’s athletic programs bring a needed boost in entertainment. And it creates an opportunity to people to gather and actually connect.
The power of this connection is on display every Saturday that Christopher Newport University’s football team is in town. Like UVA – Wise, CNU reports a balanced athletic budget. It also is in the Top 20 nationally for attracting fans to home games, with are raucous. The school pep band is loud and energetic. Families gather to eat and celebrate before games. And the stands are typically packed.
Something my family witnessed first-hand when my youngest son took a recruiting visit to see the Captains play.
Keep the Game and Academics Aligned
When talking about money in college athletics, there is genuine reason to be concerned about how money is changing the game. It’s also important to not lose sight of the bigger picture that college athletics make possible.
At larger schools like Virginia and Virginia Tech, millions flow through the athletic department, but that money is buying more than (hopefully) wins. It’s building life-long supporters of the university who, as they grow, will potentially financially support the institutions.
And at smaller schools, college athletics play a role in strengthening community, and creating a space where people can connect. Something increasingly difficult to find in today’s society.
The trick – rather at a major university or a smaller institution – is to keep athletics and academics aligned.
We aren’t that far removed from when the balance was healthier.
