If the Audiology Department could find a strong football recruit or two they might get some love from the athletic department. Networking.

Pearl is the only one of the big three who arguably has earned a pay increase, and I could debate that.

The contract extensions and buyout clause are absurd.

Brian A.
I'd rather be cycling.

Don't you know those are some really stupid negotiations, the only people getting screwed are the fans who are asked to pony up more and more each year and the sponsors who are asked to pony up more and more each year and the university programs which are geographically located in proximity to these athletic facilities that want to take their space and make them go away.

The sooner they get rid of the athletic department and the athletics board and have coaches reporting directly to the university president, the quicker we will be able to contain costs and retain some semblance of a major academic institution.

Personally, I think there's something badly wrong with a university that pays its athletic coaches millions while closing down academic programs for lack of funds.

But that's just me.

I don't get drug into discussions about whether or not someone "deserves" what they are paid. That's a subjective opinion that doesn't lead to anything more than sore fingers or a sore throat depending on the medium.

However, Rachel's statement above is a bit misleading. Pearl and Fulmer are paid by the UTAD, which - last I checked - receives no money from the state or from student tuitions. There's a recently changed and convoluted set of rules regarding the student fees but I don't think any of that money goes to the UTAD, either.

Anyway, unlike most Division I athletic programs, the University of Tennessee's Athletic Department is self-funded through "donations," ticket sales, and concessions. I put the quotes around donations since they are so closely tied to one's ability to purchase season tickets that donation can be a little disingenuous. Still, the point holds, no funds otherwise intended for academic programs are siphoned off by the UTAD. If you want to wade into the proper role of athletics at universities, speculate on how many donor dollars going to UTAD would instead go to academic programs, or conversely, how many donor dollars going into the academic funds are going there because the donors are Vol fans, then have at it. That's all guesswork. But as of right now, there's no direct tie between Fulmer's and Pearl's salaries and the proposed loss of the Audiology and Veteran's personal history programs proposed by the administration.

Let me preface this next point by saying I'm a rabid fan of both Pat Summitt and Joan Cronan and all the Lady Vol programs. They much better uphold my own opinion of what university athletics should be about, and whatever Pat gets paid is A-Okay fine by me, and that goes triple for Joan. However, the point stands that the UTWAD (UT Women's Athletic Department) is not self-funded and does compete directly with university academic programs for funding. Ms. Cronan has come a long way toward making the Lady Vol program self-sufficient and her donor base has grown tremendously through the 20+ years I've been following them. It is certainly Ms. Cronan's dream to see the UTWAD self-funded, but she's just not quite reached that point yet. Maybe another decade or two?

It's not like Coach Fulmer is being overpaid relative to the market.

Despite the raise, Fulmer remains the SEC’s seventh highest paid coach, behind Alabama’s Nick Saban ($4 million), LSU’s Les Miles ($3.751 million), Florida’s Urban Meyer ($3.25 million), first-year Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino ($2.85 million), Auburn’s Tommy Tuberville ($2.8 million) and Georgia’s Mark Richt ($2.8 million).

Cronan's dream to see the UTWAD self-funded, but she's just not quite reached that point yet. Maybe another decade or two?

Yeah, maybe in a decade or two they will have dropped the "W" and just have one "AD"?

Anyway, I don't begrudge anyone making as much money as they can any way they can legally.

But if the AD is swimming in cash, why can't they throw a couple of extra bucks to academics?

I know, CBT will be here to explain in 3, 2, 1...

So never mind.

But what I mainly think is that it's time to drop the pretense and call college sports what it is: professional sports.

Yeah, maybe in a decade or two they will have dropped the "W" and just have one "AD"?

Having separate Athletic Departments was one of the most "progressive" things the University of Tennessee has ever done. While far too many women's sports have languished and scrounged for scraps as "Title IX" mandated anchor weights within - overwhelmingly - men's athletic departments, our Lady Vols have been allowed to grow and succeed and receive the full support and focus they deserve as gifted, hard working student athletes. Please don't destroy what Joan Cronan has built.

A reader reminds us of this:

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2008/may/06/ut-puts-beer-permit-on-ice/

In which UT bungled a request for a beer permit for campus events. According to the AD, it would have moved their program from a $3 million deficit to a $500K surplus. One city council member suggested that if a permit was issued they should earmark some of that to "fund programs combating student alcoholism and underage drinking, and possibly new need-based scholarships."

All of those coaches have either: coached in the NFL, won a national championship, or won a BSC bowl in the last five years.

Coach Fulmer: none of the above.

In 1998, I could've sworn we beat FSU for a National Title? Correct me if I am wrong.....

Randy, with RayCapps posting, you don't need me to chime in. I would only point out one additional fact. Many athletic donors, particularly the high-dollar variety, also contribute substantial sums to academics.

As for Pat Summitt, after Geno's recent raise, she's the second highest paid women's basketball coach in America. I predict when her new contract is announced she will be the highest paid women's basketball coach in America (and should be).

"All of those coaches have either: coached in the NFL, won a national championship, or won a BSC bowl in the last five years."

You are perfectly free to make fun of someone's math skills ("Clearly some of this money should have gone to the math department.") but the greater vulnerability here is either the poor writing or reasoning skills of the original author. At best, the sentence isn't clear. At worst, the qualifier "in the last five years" only applies to one of the series of items he lists.

Clearly some of his time should have been spent on his composition homework.

Now I will open myself up to even more criticism. I have studied the men's and women's Athletics Departments budgets in detail - probably more so than anyone outside of the university system, and more so than almost anyone within the system.

If you are upset about the cost of major college football, blame Title IX. The expense problem with college athletics today is non-profit sports, primarily women's athletics. Notice I said the "expense problem." I didn't say "social problem," or any other type of problem. The reason donors have to pay so much to get good seats for football games is to pay for soccer and the new $1.8 million a year operating expenses of a new aquatic center. (Yes, that's right.)

Football operating expenses have actually declined in the last several years. I haven't seen the 2008-2009 budget, but from 2005 to 2007 the operating expenses declined.

Women's athletics runs an annual deficit that exceeds $8 million. It may be more than $10 million, but it is impossible to know, given the accounting methods used for the merchandising and Host Communications revenues. Also, the women's AD does not share in any of the facilities cost, including Thompson Boling Arena or and of the parking garages.

Football operating expenses consume about 22 percent of football revenue.

Men's basketball generates a very modest operating surplus.

Women's basketball still operates at a fully costed deficit.

The UTAD pays the debt service on every parking garage that has been built in the last several years, although the garages are only used for athletic events 21 times a year. Those garages cost the campus zero.

Someone asked the question about land cost. The athletic department is "charged" for land cost when/if land is transferred from the general campus to athletic department use. Conversely, the UTAD gets a credit when transactions occur the other direction (such as the impending demolition of Stokely Athletic Center, which UTAD will cede.)

There are actually fewer than 15 athletic departments that operate without university or state subsidy. UT is one. (It failed to operate at a surplus in one recent year - I forget which. It was paying three basketball coaches that year, if I recall.) Even that year, the UTAD made a cash transfer of more than $1 million to the campus academic programs, something no other athletic department in the SEC does.

I really like Betty Bean's writing and I don't want to provoke her ire. My comments are only about financial matters - not graduation rates, pat Summitt or football players beating up people in pickup basketball games. Heck, Joan Cronan is a good friend and she doesn't/can't dispute these figures.

For those of you who haven't been inside the sausage factory and only have suspicions or opinions, here's the not-so-secret scoop: college athletics isn't amateur. Well, it isn't amateur for any adults involved with it. We might disagree whether it is amateur with respect to the athletes (that's an entirely different argument), but football and basketball are no more amateur than is the accounting department. And I promise you that no one in Stokely Management Center considers what they do as "amateur."

OK, I'll get off my high horse now.

Well, according to the UT budget documents for FY 2004-2007, the athletics department at UTK operated at a loss in both FY 2005 ($487,954) and FY2006 ($2,523,513). The $1M given to the actual University of Tennessee-Knoxville- you know, the campus- is actually a zero sum game, as the campus remits $1M each year in student fees to UTAD. For the whole of the system, Chattanooga ran a deficit of $45,096 in FY2005, and made money (even if only a little) each of the other years, while Martin broke even. Revenues have grown at the knoxville campus 19.9% over the past 5 years, but expenditures have grown by 20.8%.

I've got no problem with men's programs having to foot the $$ of women's programs in the interest of equity. The bizarre arrangement at UTK, where the athletics department is not under the authority of the campus administration, compromises the integrity of the university as an academic institution. UTAD should not own property on this campus, they should not have free use of the UT brand, and in a year in which all groups of the UT System have had to absorb serious budget cuts, the UTAD should not be spared while others suffer.

Like it or not, sports fans, the primary mission of a university is educational. While we could all go 'round and 'round about the athletics department budget and what it does or does not do for UTK, at the very least the raises announced last night demonstrate a true callousness on the behalf of the UTAD to the fiscal situation of this state and this campus in particular. The raises in the football staff alone would fund close to 10-15 fulltime faculty positions depending on the department. It's easy to say, well its there money so..., but it does demonstrate fully the extent to which priorities in this state are completely and utterly jacked up, and why Tennessee as a state will continue to fall further and further behind dynamic and economically more secure regions of the country.

Pardon my naivete, but since the UT logo is I assume property of the University, do they get revenue, in whole or part, from all sales using the logo? Including UT athletic item related sales?