Well for one - I think it would be hard to make the case that all of this spending isnt a weird priority. The US is certainly the only nation where universities host professional level sports teams tat I know of. Competitive sports doesn't mean billions spent nationally on sports (in fact I would guess that its over a billion a year nationally on new and upgraded facilities.)
2. We are talking about universities - they obviously get alot more leeway to spend money on academics, even money losing academics. I mean if your local library funded a sports team, wouldnt you find that weird and wasteful, even if they were spending money on rare books that were barely ever borrowed out?
3. I am talking about the whole. If Minnesota improves, someone else gets worse, unless they too spend money to be better than Minnesota.
Knight-Light - facilities lasting 70-100 years? Maybe the bones of the facility. But Rutgers is already talking about needing to replace and expand the Bubble and the Hale Center - which are less than 40 years old.
I would also argue that nationally we are too obsessed with sports in general. We spend alot of public money to bring them to cities and expect them to do things which they should never erally be expected to do. And universities take that same train of thought.
And yes - I understand the irony given my post count.
