Damn, Louisville is broke

Looks they are Mississippi tier poor now

They will be far from the only one.

the reality is that if fans stop buying tickets, think of the hole that will cause to schools athletics budgets

look at what sec fans are paying these days for tickets and other costs just to attend

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What's going on isn't sustainable

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This is true. Donor fatigue will set in soon at most places. It's ok to chunk millions to win some games in the short-term but long-term the money folks will not be so willing to continue to sink funds into a financial hole of which there is no return on investment.

staying in the ACC - the Orange school in the SC Upstate is $2.65B in the RED for long term debt - with $259M in debt service due very soon -

https://www.fitsnews.com/2026/05/06/code-orange-clemsons-financial-crisis-deepens/

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A year ago, our media outlet blew the whistle on the deteriorating financial situation at Clemson University, a state-supported institution of higher learning in the South Carolina Upstate.

Last month, Clemson’s board of trustees – governed by a majority of unconstitutional lifetime appointments – heard additional data attesting to the school’s increasingly perilous financial footing. A slide show was presented to the board by Clemson’s chief financial officer, Rick Petillo, which concluded the institution has yet to reconcile its red ink problem.

As Clemson’s administrators and trustees squabbled, the school’s red ink continued to climb. According to the institution’s most recent annual comprehensive financial report (.pdf), the school’s debt ticked up to $1.15 billion – or $38,882 for each one of its 29,545 students. Of that total obligation, $236.9 million is due within one year.

Clemson’s total long-term liabilities have also continued to expand. That total figure now stands at $2.65 billion – an increase of $231.9 million from last year. Of that total, $259.1 million is due within one year.

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there's also this -

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Dabo Swinney earns $11.45 million annually ranking 4th nationally. The Tigers generated $78.2 million in football revenue averaging recent fiscal years.

Clemson’s NIL collective TigerImpact reportedly raised $5 million initially but lags far behind SEC powerhouses spending $20-40 million.

The program faces financial pressure competing outside the ACC’s lower media payouts. Swinney’s contract runs through 2031 with a staggering $60 million buyout, making him virtually untouchable despite three consecutive seasons without ACC championship appearances.

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After decades Clemson is headed back to the SoCon.

I am not sure where the race of college athletics ends but Clemson will not be a player. It simply does not have the alumni base. At the beginning of the 1990s Clemson entire enrollment was less than Ohio Sts business school dept.

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Like LSU absent Graves and one or two guys wouldnt have a top 5 NIL budget but as long as hes selling chicken theyre good.

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Louisville had their own Graves in the form of Papa Johns man. He was a big reason their Athletics grew to prominence in the first place. He threw tons of money at that school.

But they ran him off in yet another cancel culture rage that seems to have been overblown at best and an outright setup at worst.

Now they are "revisiting" the issue.

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I am not sure where the race of college athletics ends but Clemson will not be a player. It simply does not have the alumni base. At the beginning of the 1990s Clemson entire enrollment was less than Ohio Sts business school dept.

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Its not about the size of your alumni base, its about whether you have high millionaires or billionaires now who want to **** measure by buying athletes.

Its why Duke despite their ultra low enrollment has the highest budget in CBB most years.

Before you just needed some bored millionaires, now you need $40M/year just to hang with the elites which means you need a bunch of millionaires or 1-2 billionaire types to swing that.

Players wanted a piece of the pie. Now they are eating the whole damn pie. There will be no pie left soon.

The freakery the past year or two has been fun to watch. The model can and will absolutely sustain itself. Why? Because high schools produce a lot of football players who want to keep playing. The Ivies don’t even give out scholarships and they seem to field teams every year with no issues.

Sure, there will be changes - I believe for the good - but college football is a thriving business that will keep going.

And if other sports lose funding then so be it. Most of all these subsidized sports should have died off long ago anyway. No one has a right to play a sport no one is willing to pay for with a school name on the jersey. There are sports clubs in every major city for every type of sport if a student wants to try and keep playing certain sports while they attend college.

And a lot of this is just the market catching up and telling these schools that perhaps they were dumb to pay guys named Dabo and Kirby 10’s of millions. And I imagine these crazy NIL prices will also significantly fall as schools simply stop bidding. The bottom line is the supply of players is just about endless so every school will have access to players whether they pay a lot or a little.