A nothingburger for many. Might even be a negative for some. Is $20 million/year of academic money best spent on helping athletics to somehow indirectly impact academics? Or could it be put to better use more directly marketing/branding the university's academic merits? Or otherwise helping academics? Debatable for sure. Would $30 million/year of increased donations be better spent on athletics to help attract sports fan students or on increased need- or merit-based aid for all regular students (obviously not that all that many donating parts of that $30MM, if it even happens, would actually make that trade, but still)? It's also not helping that many (certainly including parents of prospective students) are getting increasingly fed up with the big time athletics landscape. I was a season ticket holder for 20+ years and had been a fairly significant donor over that period (including Golden Hokie Champion way back when that was a thing). That stopped mostly because of moving far away, but my interest in supporting what this has become in any way has certainly waned significantly. ** Edited by Pylons at 9/24/2025, 1:34:30 PM