The “94% of athletic departments lose money” statistic is doing a lot of work here. Athletics is, in this respect, exactly like the math department. The university does not ordinarily ask whether mathematics “generated enough revenue” to cover the salaries, classrooms, scholarships, and administrative costs associated with teaching math. It decides the activity advances the institution’s mission and subsidizes it accordingly. That does not mean athletics spending is beyond criticism. It means “athletics revenue minus athletics expenses” is a fairly strange way to determine whether the expenditure is worthwhile. And PCSA’s response to concern about those deficits is especially curious: impose additional medical, scholarship, roster, administrative, and reporting obligations that CBO says will themselves cost institutions tens of millions of dollars annually.