ORLANDO, Fla. — Students at most of Florida’s public universities pay high fees to support their school’s sports teams, even though the vast majority of students don’t play and many never even attend a game.
A records analysis by The Associated Press shows eight public universities in Florida with NCAA-sanctioned teams get between 36 percent and 75 percent of their athletic funding from student athletic fees. Those fees are among the highest in the nation.
Those fees have grown 31 percent over the past five years, and collectively brought in nearly $100 million in 2013.
The only outliers are the state’s marquee programs. The University of Florida gets only 2.2 percent of revenue from fees. Florida State University gets 14.5 percent from fees.