<p>A few years back the former President of Harvard University wrote a book called The University in the Marketplace. About a third of the book addresses college athletics and it makes some good and often little understood observations. Apparently college athletics is nowhere near as remunerative for the colleges as is generally assumed. The vast majority of programs apparently loose money. He felt that many college presidents would gladly scale back their athletic programs but they have a tiger by the tail and cannot let go. The pressure from alumni among other things keeps them paying ever larger amounts in the vain hope of having a successful enough program in the big sports to offset the costs of the rest of the athletic programs. This is a bit of a squirrel cage because successful programs cost lots of money and not all of them can or do succeed at the necessary level.</p>