Save our sports

Fred Milverstedt reports that UW Law School professor Frank Remington thinks the state should subsidize the UW athletic department's non-income sports teams. The university's longtime faculty representative to the Big 10 and NCAA suggests this would ease the burden on football, men's basketball and hockey - and reduce a projected 1988-89 athletics budget deficit approaching $2 million. The three primary spectator sports, Remington argues, "create a positive image and wider name recognition, which in turn assists the university in attracting more students and faculty." What he calls the 22 "participant" sports may not generate revenue, but provide opportunities for gifted student-athletes to pursue their sports in an educational context. With football generating almost $6 million in revenue for 1988, and the department's annual operating budget about double that figure, Milverstedt writes, "something has got to give." Remington died in 1996: A New York Times obituary noted him as an influential figure in the enforcement of sanctions for NCAA rules violations. The 2007-08 season marked the UW athletic deparment's sixth consecutive "positive net financial margin," according to its annual report.