College football is big business (who knew?)

The Chronicle reports on just how big a business college football has become  With an Assist From Alabama, Southeastern Conference Breaks the $1-Billion Mark

"Thanks to a lucrative television contract and robust earnings generated by several highly ranked football teams, the 12 athletic programs in the league brought in $1,006,798,094 during the 2009-10 fiscal year, according to new data from the Education Department. That's about an 11-percent increase from the previous year and a nearly 77-percent bump from six years ago.
The league's biggest boost came from the University of Alabama, where revenues spiked by 24 percent in 2009-10, to $129.3-million. With its increase, Alabama leapfrogged Ohio State University and the University of Florida to reach No. 2 on the list of biggest revenue-producing programs in all of college sports. The University of Texas, which brought in $143.6-million, remains No. 1."
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"Still, as revenues have grown, so have expenses: Even though each of the top 20 moneymakers in college sports pulled in more than $75-million last year—eight programs alone made more than $100-million—that doesn't mean all of them turned a profit. Of the 120 athletic programs in Division I-A, all but 14 operated with a deficit*. (For a list of the top 100 earners, see this LSU fan blog, which first reported on the conference's crossing the billion-dollar mark.)"

*"Institutions in Division I-A, which include some of the biggest and wealthiest athletics programs in the NCAA, allocated a median of $10.2-million to their athletic departments in the 2009 fiscal year, according to the NCAA’s annual analysis of Division I financial data. That allocation was an increase from the median of $8-million that universities provided to sports program during the previous year."