A question for you. Who would establish a popular entertainment business along with a hundred or so partners and then doom it to fail for most of the partners?
Answer: The presidents of the university-members of the National Collegiate Athletic Association.
This Frank Fitzpatrick/Philadelphia Daily News article sums up the dire financial picture for most of the NCAA members:

Better than 90 percent of Division I athletic programs spend more than they earn, by an average of $7.1 million annually, according to figures released yesterday by NCAA researchers.
The statistics, for 2004-05, were included in a report urging the NCAA to standardize its procedures for collecting financial data, which was presented during a meeting of the Knight Commission, a college sports watchdog agency.
Only 22 of the 313 Division I athletic departments were self-supporting, the study noted. The rest required bailouts, either direct subsidies from their institutions or student fees, to balance their books. [. . .]
The report did not identify the 22 self-sustaining schools, though commission members indicated they were all among the college football superpowers. . .

This Brent Schrotenboer/San Diego Union-Tribune article analyzes the financial challenges faced by one of the have-nots in the world of minor league professional sports, San Diego State University:

While the current fiscal year doesn’t close until June 30, the athletic department again will receive about $2.8 million in ìone-timeî or ìauxiliaryî funding from other university sources to balance its budget of about $27 million.
The infusion is necessary despite a $160 annual student fee increase implemented in 2004 by SDSU President Stephen Weber, overriding a student referendum. That has added $4.8 million to $7 million to the athletic department coffers annually. An additional $5 million in athletics revenue comes from the state general fund. [. . .]
Most athletic departments at NCAA Division I-A schools are not profitable. But for more than a decade, SDSU has needed help at a higher rate than the national average for public schools.
. . . In the two most recent fiscal years, 42.7 percent of athletics revenue has come from student fees, the general fund and other university funding, according to audited financial statements. [. . .]
Before the season, SDSU projected football ticket revenue of $3 million but ended up with only $1.9 million, forcing tightening in other athletic department expenses this year. The year before, SDSU projected $2.5 million in football revenue and brought in $2.3 million. Meanwhile, the team hasn’t finished better than 6-6 since 1998.
This year, the SDSU athletic department has a projected budget shortfall of $100,000 to $250,000 ñ even after about $2.8 million in ìone-time fundingî was arranged from a university contract with a broadband communications company. . .

The SDSU athletic program finances are the same as most other major college programs, including the University of Houston and Rice University’s programs. As noted here over a couple of years ago and in more recent posts here and here, the present structure of big-time college football and basketball is corrupt, but certainly an entertaining form of corruption. The issue is whether the leaders of NCAA member institutions have the courage to restructure college athletics in a manner that reduces the incentives for corruption while retaining many of the salutory benefits of the enterprise. Inasmuch as history indicates that such reforms will not occur under the NCAA, could a rival concern — one that treats big-time college football and basketball as the minor league professional sports enterprises that they are — be a lucrative play for an entrepreneurial entertainment or media concern?