Saturday Millionaires, by Kristi Dosh

College football fans know all about the big money in the game.  Astronomical budgets, millionaire coaches, palatial facilities, huge TV contracts, and tremendous popularity add up to big, big money.  Every year, we hear more and more about paying players and realigning conferences, and wonder about money taking the fun out of the game.  As a sports business reporter for ESPN, Kristi Dosh has a front row seat to the ins and outs of the business of college football.

In her new book, Saturday Millionaires: How Winning Football Builds Winning Colleges, Dosh takes reader into the numbers behind the schools and teams we love watching on Saturdays.  She addresses many of the trends of college football, while shedding light on some of the myths and misconceptions people have about the money involved.  Is it true that a handful of big schools run their programs at a profit, while many barely break even or run a deficit?  Yes, the growth in success and popularity of college football has the "unfortunate consequence of inspiring others to compete beyond their means."  But contrary to what we hear from smaller programs, that same growth has coincided with expanded TV coverage, and a BCS system that increasingly spread around exposure and money, so that smaller schools and schools from the lower-tier conferences have games televised and appear in more bowls than ever.

And what about paying players?  Bad idea.  The big money for bowl appearances?  It's usually not enough to cover a school's expenses.  And those millions that are thrown around for TV contracts?  Here's the deal: to play in Division 1 athletics, schools have to field teams in 16 sports, 14 or 15 of which never make money and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not well over a million, to run each year.  That football TV money is the lifeblood of many athletic departments.

Dosh covers these questions, as well as telling the history of conference TV deals, ongoing conference realignments, the BCS, and projecting the future of the football playoff system.  Dosh's book is by no means an expose of the sordid money dealings of college sports, but a sober accounting of the reality of funding collegiate athletics.  I, for one, am thankful that college football has retained its uniqueness and distinction from pro sports, and am hopeful that the NCAA and the playoff system will keep the difficult balance between the big money and high stakes and the purity of the student-athlete experience.

Thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!