I see no problem with having both. However, maybe MIT and Stanford could teach some finance classes to the athletic departments and school administrators!
Bill Belichick was hire for one reason only and that was to get the UNC football program competitive within the ACC. The clock is ticking on the ACC teams that want to move to the Big10 and SEC. Back in 2023 when the Big10 and SEC expanded, FSU and Clemson sued the ACC to be allowed to move conferences. The lawsuit was finally settled and the main outcome was that ACC teams can leave the conference before the current Grant of Rights and ESPN contract are up in 2036. In fact, the year they negotiated that they can leave the conference without penalty is 2030. Curious enough, that's when the new Big10 media deal will be renewed. While UNC is a basketball Blue Blood, football pays the bills and they feel they need to be to be more competitive in that sport to be considered. It was a Hail Mary move that didn't work out. I think that UNC will have a home in either conference no matter what, but I have no inside info.
Having a top football program is huge for the local economy of these college towns, even for high powered academic institutions. The University of Michigan brings in over 1000,000 people to Ann Arbor every home game. The amount of money spent on home gamedays is immense. Just in food and drinks alone bring in millions. I last went to a UofM game last November against Northwestern (took my youngest there for the first time) and we spent close to $100 that day alone and we were being frugal. That was just parking and dinner afterward (shout out to the famous Blimpie Burger). There are people that spend thousands every weekend. Ann Arbor is consistently named one of the top cities to live for quality of life in the nation. The University of Michigan is a big reason why. In fact, in US News and World Reports 2024 article, the top 3 cities with the highest quality of life were all major football university locations (#1 Ann Arbor MI, #2 Madison WI and #3 Boulder, CO). Each of these schools has major football programs and the University of Michigan and the University of Wisconsin are both very highly rated schools. The University of Colorado is no slouch academically either.
As soon as Stanford teaches finance classes to its own liberal arts students and professors.
The amount of money even a team like Michigan brings in for football pales in comparison to that of a $5 trillion company like Nvidia brings in for the area around Stanford.
That may be true for a handful of places but not most. Nike in Oregon would be another one but there are very few. Most state universities are in small-ish cities and they depend on those football weekends, generally only 6 or 7 games, to turn a profit for the entire year.
And? Nvidia is a for profit company that partners with Stanford for research. Stanford does research outside of Ndivia. You know who spends more on research then Stanford does? The University of Michigan. In fact, the only university that consistently spends more on research than Michigan ($1.6 billion) is Johns Hopkins ($3.2 billion). You know who else consistently spends more on research than Stanford ($1.2 billion)? Washington ($1.4 billion), UCLA ($1.3 billion) and Wisconsin ($1.3 billion). Yet each of these universities consistently say that their athletic programs help their universities and surrounding areas achieve their academic and economic goals. And yes, Stanford cares about their football program. If they didn't, they wouldn't join a conference based on the East Coast (ACC) when their former conference, the PAC12 all but folded in 2023. Stanford let it be known they wanted into The Big10, but didn't have the athletic and media profile the Big10 was looking for. If they didn’t think athletics helps their university, Stanford would let their football program drop to a lower conference or even a lower division. They wouldn't have fired David Shaw when his program took a nose dive in recent years. David won them a ton of games after he took over for Jim Harbaugh back in 2011. Michigan and Stanford are both members of the AAU. The AAU is an organization of researched oriented universities. It's very prestigious. In fact, every Big10 member but Nebraska is a member of the AAU. Research is huge for many of these public universities and football helps.
I just don't understand why any of the boosters would contribute to money to athletics. Unless you are someone like Phil Knight what benefit does a winning football program have to your bottom line. I would expect you would contribute to academic departments that can help make breakthroughs that will increase your profits.
It’s marketing. Having big time winning programs that are always on TV and continuously talked about brings in students. Alabama actually increased their academic rating when Nick Saban was hired and they went on their championship run. More and better national students applied and they were able to admit better quality student.
Who wants to travel 6-7 times a year to watch your team lose? Probably not people with enough money to be able to donate to their universities sports programs. Also the more one donates the more benefits one receives. Upfront for sure and unwritten as well. I am sure some are just happy to be able to donate directly to the players without consequence.