IU has spent big on athletics the past decade
is IU President Michael McRobbie taking money out of his athletic department budget a growing concern is mounted in recent months among IU fans that Indiana's administration has been plucking money out of its department's annual budget for university projects at the expense of athletics in this modern era of exploding revenues and big expenses in college sports is IU's administration holding the Hoosiers back not quite the source of the controversy appears to stem from Big Ten Network revenues move back to the university to pay for multiple campus projects specifically IU's school of global and International Studies and a new hospital critics say McRobbie administration is handicapping athletics by pulling from its revenues for those aims but those criticisms are wide of the mark since the inception of the Big Ten Network in the middle of the last decade conference schools have occasionally earmarked ptn revenues for academic uses it's not a formal Big Ten policy but rather a widely recognized practice followed by many if not most Big Ten schools Wisconsin funneled more than 2 million dollars back to its campus for scholarships and programs including money earmarked for its library Purdue committed 12 million to a leadership can't Center on campus Nebraska hands 10 million back annually each year including 5 million for the Husker Scholars program and the practice hasn't stopped IU from spending big in athletics either in the last decade the Hoosiers have sunk 9 figure dollar amounts into capital improvements projects doubled their head basketball coach's salary and more than tripled their head football coach's salary so while I you as a whole is benefiting from the boom in college sports revenues that's flooded the Big Ten with money in recent years it certainly hasn't done so at the expense of its athletics department