As these things go, the plan was eroded over time, with the (in)famous Proposition 13 of 1978 dealing a big blow.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Master_Plan_for_Hig...
It doesn’t matter to me if these sports generate more revenue than it costs. It is a distraction that we don’t need. If people want to participate in spectator sport, there are other places for it.
My justification is the same as that Google uses to kill projects. There might be a project at Google that makes a hundred million dollars of “pure profit”. However, if it takes even equivalent of a month of time and attention of the executive leadership team and the board every year, it is decidedly not worth doing and must be scrapped.
Similarly, it doesn’t matter to me how much money sports and other such distractions make. If it takes time and attention of the management and or the board of regents, it must be scrapped. Educational institutions exist for education. Cut it all out!
This is objectively false for the small college I went to… in any case, you ignored my whole comment, even if it does make money, I don’t want it because this money corrupts beyond just the one university. It changes expectation for all colleges and universities. Now my NCAA division 3 college has to go to donors and beg for flood lights for the football stadium. This is time the UA people could spend on begging for dorms or chemistry lab equipments.