It's pretty interesting that South Carolina, which has the same population of Louisiana (4,723,723 to 4,601,893), is able to fund two top football programs Clemson with the top paid coordinator duo (#1 OC, #4 DC) South Carolina with the #3 highest paid head coach in the SEC, #7 nationally South Carolina has a 80,250-capacity stadium, Clemson 80,301 Think if they had one Big State U like us instead of two to support
Although note that while Louisiana has two pro sports franchises (NFL Saints, NBA Pelicans), South Carolina has zero
No, as of 2012 only 8 D1 AD's are entirely self-sustaining (no student fees, gov't subsidies, etc.) and neither Clemson nor USCe are on the list. LSU is always sure to make a point of it whenever instructors are laid off and bitch about Les' salary.
I'd think the fan base, season ticket holders, etc is a big part of that support. Plus the tax payer money used to build the stadiums. But again, the Louisiana fan base supports LSU plus the NFL Saints and the NBA Pelicans, while there are no pro teams in SC
Even if they are not entirely self-sustaining, the revenue probably goes a long way toward supporting itself, requiring minimal gov't subsidies. And even then, those subsidies are probably made up for at least in part by tax revenue from merchandise sales and tourism during football season.
It depends. Some schools only have a 3% annual revenue shortfall that needs to be made up, some as large as 70%. Self-sustaining is no small feat when you consider that only a few disastrous decisions by the AD can sink you deep in the red, see Tennessee. In LSU's case, that's a damn good thing. In a state where university employees haven't gotten raises in 3-4 years, perpetual mid-year budget cuts are the new norm, and top professors/administrators are fleeing like rats from a sinking ship, while the head football coach now makes $4M+ per year, it would make for a very dicey political situation if significant state funds went toward subsidizing that pay.
And while South Carolina supports 2 major college programs to Louisiana's one, Louisiana also supports 4 mid-majors (Tech, Tulane, ULL and ULM) and 6 championship series programs (McNeese, SELU, Northwestern, Grambling, Southern, Nicholls).
Which is why we need to consolidate all those little schools into 2-3 big ones. The money is too spread around academically.
