There are a *lot* of accounting gimmicks that go in in supporting the sports teams at Universities.

For instance, take U.T. Austin, where I got my undergraduate degrees.  I paid student fees which supported the medical center on campus, which notionally was in place for all the U.T. students.  In fact, it was used as a way to push the medical costs of the sports teams onto the students, who were already paying upwards of 4000$ a semester.

People are acting like these coaches put up the money to buy these stadiums and start these teams and put their neck on the line, when in fact they get incredible benefits from being affiliated with a university, with almost no personal risk (a nice golden parachute if they do get fired).

It's a vastly different story than, for example, risking one's own fortune to buy a professional sports franchise, and should be treated as such.  These coaches pocketing massive amounts of money while the remainder of the Universities are in the red are akin to the branches of AIG and other failing instituations justifying getting huge bonuses because "their segment did good."