You appear to be very naïve and a bit ignorant on how things work. Read at your own risk.
1) The reason for UMN operating in the red is not due to Maturi "pumping into non-revenue generating sports" (show me the data). The reason is simply due to outstanding liabilities and reduced funding which has substantially offset school revenue (I've documented this a number of times in previous posts...I won't do again here though).
Program expenses over the last two fiscal years have risen (I've also documented these statistics in the recent past), while state funding has dropped significantly to less than 15%. That comes to a drop of over $80M/year which translates into painfully forced spending cuts and staff relocations that are projected at roughly $90M ranging from facilities management to class scheduling.
The UMN athletic budget is currently $72M. As stated by the AD finance administrator last year, without BTN money to bail them out over the past couple years, the UMN would NOT have been able to sustain their debt repayment schedule (i.e. TCF, general fund loans, etc.) forcing them to go back to the general fund or look for other immediate sources of emergency revenue.
In all fairness, Maturi has actually done a superb job with balancing the AD budget. In fact, he has been commended recently for reducing expenses, and reliance upon the general fund IIRC to 3%/yr, while inching the athletic dept. closer to becoming financially self sustaining.
2) In addition to current income of $232M/yr, as the BTN broadens its footprint over the next five years, current projections indicate it could generate substantially more than a quarter of a billion dollars a year for the Big Ten conference. That would more than double aggregate revenue distribution to member schools to $16M (I have also provided actual breakdowns of these numbers as well in previous posts). BTN revenue distribution is based upon all sports not just hockey, but indeed hockey will play a significant role and sweeten the pot.
While I agree with you that the NCHC will not come close to matching BTN revenues for member schools, in essence they're not trying to match it. In response to the projected increase in BTN revenue to member schools, they're simply trying to focus their energies on their own media deal to help sustain and expand their athletic programs in general, not just hockey, which IIRC is the only major revenue generating sport for every member school of the NCHC thus far.
Regarding FSN, it only reaches at best 3 million potential viewers in a regional market of Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. UMN charges a licensing fee to a regional sports network (RSN) like FSN to broadcast their games…that’s it. That is essentially pocket change to the UMN compared to carriage and advertising revenue generated and in part distributed to Big Ten schools by the BTN national market which covers over 35% of the US alone. To give an example of how little licensing fees amount to with an RSN, the Twins signed with FSN a few years ago to broadcast 105 or so games/yr until 2012 for only $12M. UMN’s contract with FSN to broadcast about 28 games/yr or so is substantially less than that.
The BTN footprint already reaches 14 times the amount of households in the US and Canada than FSN, and is positioned to increase that by 60% over the next five years. Multiply that by a few cents increase in carriage fees/household, include a projected ad revenue increase of over $80M, and school revenue kickbacks from the BTN will by far exceed the relatively stagnant revenue growth potential of any local RSN.
