WINNING THE POSITIONAL ARMS RACE, LOSING ALL THE SAME.  The ZooConn football team earned a trip to the Fiesta Bowl to get schooled by Oklahoma, and dropped $1.6 million for the privilege. (Via University Diaries.)

Something is very wrong with a system in which schools get punished for athletic success. If I were an administrator or student at UConn, the question I would be asking is: Who did profit off of the Fiesta Bowl?

Possibly nobody. Northern Illinois lost $154K on the Independence Bowl (and the game) at the end of 2008; at the end of 2009 they were the last team to lose the now-discontinued International Bowl.  The accounting for the Humanitarian Bowl (a win) is not yet in.