Our accountability has not been great, but our accounting on the other hand...

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...dynamite.

DOUBLE CORNHUSKER HONOR ROLL: Give kudos to Nebraska: They are the ONLY public FBS athletic dept with NO subsidy from the school, and NO athletic debt. That's pretty impressive, Cornhusker friends!

 

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The whole tweet to save you a click:

TOO MUCH ATHLETIC DEPARTMENT DEBT? (...and those without any!)

The wise @KnightAthletics folks have been warning us for years about the crippling rise in debt held by major athletic depts, fueled by a wild arms race in facilities. Now, in fairness: There are often advantages to how cheaply public universities can borrow money (or issue tax-exempt bonds), but the rising amount of athletic debt is certainly a problem.

DOUBLE CORNHUSKER HONOR ROLL: Give kudos to Nebraska: They are the ONLY public FBS athletic dept with NO subsidy from the school, and NO athletic debt. That's pretty impressive, Cornhusker friends! Also notable to me is how several Sun Belt teams may have very large subsidies, but aren't financing their growth with debt, which seems wise and is more flexible than racking up debt (Kennesaw State is close, too).

(Note: Private schools and a few states do not report this data, so the below chart is limited to schools who report data)

The Top 3: The 3 biggest athletic debtholders have all just built (or completely rebuilt) huge, lavish stadiums in major (and very expensive) West Coast cities.

As for #1 on this chart: UC Berkeley recently had to rebuild their historic stadium, which is quite literally on topic of an earthquake fault directly underneath the field, and required seismic engineering and construction that dwarfs any normal project, thus the massive price tag and its huge debt bill. Memorial Stadium "moves" independently in different "pieces" during an earthquake... It's incredibly cool, but sure wasn't cheap to build there in San Francisco!