We can agree that profit is gross revenue minus expenses, correct? Non-profits are focused on maximizing the revenue, but not on the profit for the exact reason you stated, there are no share holders or investors that need to be paid dividends, etc. The non-profit is incentivized to put the net revenue back into the organization. This can be in the form of staff salaries, facilities, other programs in the university. The "profit" portion in a given year means they are just carrying over the revenue for future operations or to stash in a fund. It should not be used in a argument for the "major" universities or top performing programs as to whether or not they should play the players. Revenues are not an issue in those cases. Don't cry to me (universities) that you don't have the money to pay student athletes when your university made over $100+ million dollars in a year and you "barely made a profit" as a non-profit organization.

I can't find the original HBO Real Sports link, but they go into depth about the Non-profit status and the way the funding is spent. It is a real eye opener and made me rethink how the argument that profit/revenue should be considered when dealing with the larger organizations.

Below are references, but not only highlights.

https://www.hbo.com/documentaries/student-athlete

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK5BmWP1y98