I love all things OSU just as you guys love all things Alabama. But if I'm being honest, I would rather our BB team never make another tournament than have the AD siphon money from the football program to help them get there. For me, in sports, there is only football. Everything else is just a distraction to pass time until football is back.
Athletic department finances has been a hobby of mine for a while (far from an expert but I do occasionally look up the numbers). You'll see me ranting occasionally about UAB or South Alabama's wastefulness, or when I called Texas A&M a sleeping giant (they went on to eclipse Alabama in revenue, though that was due to donations).
There's a little more nuance than just take money from football to pay for basketball. First off, everyone takes money from football really. They have a well funded tennis and golf program, where does that money come from? It sure isn't all from golf and tennis boosters. They fly some of the women around first class, now that's Title IX requirements, but still. And, as I understand it the surplus Alabama athletics generally has goes back to the university. So, instead of going into some sort of a piggy bank, it makes it back into the university system. I also pointed out a while ago that investments in basketball facilities should be Title IX neutral, so not quite as effective a money burn as flying females around first class, but a more useful investment nevertheless.
I firmly believe money can both be spent more wisely, and that if that's done the revenue can and will actually be a profitable investment. People pointed out the investment in baseball, that's not even a revenue sport. Basketball and football are! So Alabama spending on baseball isn't necessarily the best investment, but on basketball? Where it is generally profitable, with much more room for profit? That makes sense.
It isn't that no money has been spent. It's that it's been poorly applied with short term goals. I pointed out the 24 million spent on Coleman. That, as per usual lacked vision. Now may be people were like if you don't upgrade Coleman I'll stay at home. Fine, but that's the type of counterproductive support Alabama basketball doesn't need. The better long term move there was clear. Either build a new arena instead, or perhaps you put that 24 million dollars aside to do something bigger at a later date. But, the 24 million is emblematic of the type of support the program gets. Here's some money, go spend it. Problem is it wasn't enough to do anything meaningful, but it was enough to be a big waste.
The pressure seems to exceed the funds, it's like giving someone a thousand bucks to buy a car and say here we need a good reliable car, go get one, and then a short while later after it is broken down repeating the process, over and over, yet wondering why you are spending all this money and still don't have a reliable car. May be you should just put more into it from the start and actually buy a reliable car.
Same thing with the hiring and firing process. They're paying top 20 money to each coach, but when it's all said and done they're paying top ten money. It's like they think a coach is going to fix all the stuff they don't want to do. Problem is if you are going to go cheap, you might as well actually save money. I can't recall the specifics of the Gottfried departure, but I'm sure that wasn't cheap either. Once you factor in the Grant buyout Alabama under Avery was paying near top 10 money, and once you factor in Avery's 5.5 million (I wonder where that money magically came from?) Alabama will once again be shelling out top ten money. But what have those tens of millions added up to?
I'm not saying spend a lot more on basketball. I'm saying make the use of the money more focused and with better long term plans. I've outlined tens of millions spend over the past several years that didn't really produce anything that meaningful. I'm not saying take more money from football, I'm saying come up with a better plan (which I understand would take some level of cooperation from boosters). I'd think people spending the money could be enlightened to the point that they understand it's better to spend 100 million and make a big difference than to spend 50 million and basically flush it.
