Quote Originally Posted by SUPharmacist View Post
Definitely interesting stuff. Not having done any research myself (also not going to do any and not expecting anyone to for me), I would think the real info I would want would be a before and after for each of these FBS schools. Just because Montana and NDSU seem to be in a good spot, doesn't mean those teams didn't improve their financials with the move up.
A cursory look at the data, and knowing when teams like App State, Ga Southern, CCU, etc moved up, you can see that they are not increasing it from big dollar media contracts... because, there aren't any big media contracts for the Sun Belt, MAC, and CUSA. Instead, these schools increased there budgets by either significant increases in student fees, or school funds (which ultimately came from state funding), or a combination of both. Massive increases in spending all to say that an institution plays football in the Football Bowl Subdivision. Doesn't really seem worth it... most of these teams become "FBS level fodder" for P5 teams to play at home for an easy win in the OOC...