[alnorth]

oh, and yeah, there are accounting gimmicks. Some schools have a very rigorous practice of using budget codes and charge the athletic department with their share of the electric bill, building maintenance, etc, while other schools are more loosey-goosey, just pay for all of that stuff for the university as general expense without explicitly charging the athletic department, etc.

Even with that though, there aren't many profitable athletic departments, but thats not necessarily a bad thing. The school's debate team and the commencement ceremony are also probably not profitable, but we decide we want those things and are willing to pay for it. If the school's athletics need another couple million, we may decide that is a worthwhile expense to keep the team at the competitive level they are at.

Thats why you've got to compare FSU's expense as best we can to their peers to see if they are being unreasonably wasteful, unless their revenues are just wildly too low and there's nothing they can do to fix that (like move to the Big 12), in which case they are spending out of their league.