People say that a lot, but most athletic departments aren't actually profitable. The biggest thing that athletics helps with is marketing exposure for the university. Applications go through the roof when a team is on TV. It improves morale in the alumni base which has a big effect in academic donations as well.

I'm a Clemson grad for example and 15 years ago, Clemson's athletic department budget was about $30 million a year (for all sports combined). Since Tivo, it's gone up to about $70 million a year but it's totally self sufficient as well. It's all fueled by donations, ticket sales and TV revenues. TV revenues account for about $20 million of that budget so half of the increase is purely from TV.

Sure, some athletics departments are "profitable", others are not. That doesn't contradict the proposition that there is too much money involved in college athletics, and that it is and was the responsibility of college presidents and boards to prevent that. Blaming Tivo for this is more ridiculous than any Tivo-blaming we ever heard from the copyright mafiaa.

The TV advertising value of college and pro football relative to everything else on TV has gone through the roof ever since skipping commercials became the norm.

If you can identify another reason why TV contracts for the SEC, ACC, Big 10, Big 12 and PAC 12 suddenly skyrocketed in the last 15 years I would love to hear it.