Athletics departments at public universities receive more than $1-billion in student fees and general campus revenues and services, according to an analysis, published today by The Indianapolis Star, of the 2004-5 athletics budgets of 164 of the 215 biggest public institutions.

Without such support, less than 10 percent of the athletics programs would have been able to sustain themselves based only on ticket sales, television contracts, and other sports-related sources of revenue. Most would have lost more than $5-million, according to a lengthy article and accompany statistical tables by the Star’s Mark Alesia. The report is timely, with all the members of the NCAA’s elite coming to town this weekend for the Final Four.

When such findings are considered alongside the major tax breaks that accrue to the programs, he writes, more critics are accusing college sports as having become largely a business of mass entertainment that shouldn’t get a tax exemption. Moreover, they say, at a time of rising tuition and stagnant state support for higher education, sports shouldn’t be propped up by so much money generated outside athletics departments.

But the tide may be turning. A powerful committee in the U.S. Congress is now looking into whether the NCAA and colleges’ sports programs merit the tax exemptions they now enjoy as education-related enterprises (The Chronicle, March 24).