It's bowl season and in some cases, taxpayers are funding the games:

According to a survey last year by Street & Smith's Sports Business Journal, the Chick-fil-A Bowl is the most profitable. This year marked its 12th-straight sell out, generating a roughly $2 million profit on about $12 million in revenue and $10 million in expenses. Revenue has risen more than 70% over the past decade, a marked improvement from the 1990s when the bowl actually lost money.

Bowl executives don't do badly either, with most getting six-figure salaries. Based on 2006 tax returns, the Sugar Bowl's Paul Hoolahan makes more than $450,000 a year, the Outback Bowl's Jim McVay nearly $500,000, and Fiesta and Insight Bowl Director John Junker more than $400,000.

The schools do pretty well, too. The payout to each school participating in one of this year's five BCS games -- the Rose, Orange, Sugar and Fiesta Bowls, as well as the BCS title game -- was about $17 million. Even some of the smaller bowls pay well. Minnesota and Kansas each received more than $1 million from the Insight Bowl, while Missouri and Northwestern earned more than $2 million from the Alamo Bowl.
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From 2001 to 2005, seven tax-exempt bowls received $21.6 million in government aid. The Sugar Bowl, which in one four-year period got $4.1 million in funding from the Louisiana Department of Economic Development, pays a consultant more than $10,000 a year to "monitor legislative developments . . . related to the continued financial support of the Sugar Bowl." From 2001 to 2005, 38% of the Brut Sun Bowl's total revenue, or about $9 million, came from receipts from a Texas rental-car tax that are diverted into the bowl's bank account.

To ensure the bowl games maintain their tax-exempt status, the committees hire state and federal lobbyists. Watts Partners, the Washington, D.C., lobbying firm run by former University of Oklahoma quarterback and Rep. J.C. Watts, has been paid more than $500,000 in consulting fees by the BCS.

By law, tax-exempt groups must renew their status every few years. It makes for some good reading. In 2005, the Orange Bowl told the IRS that it "conducts the Fed-Ex Orange Bowl so that residents and visitors of the community become interested in the climatic, recreational, commercial, agricultural, social, educational and economic interests of the area."

Everyone who reads this blog knows that I enjoy college football, but this is a bit ridiculous. In doing some research on this, I found an article on the Sugar Bowl by Dan Wetzel from Rivals.com that shows how the Sugar Bowl spends its money. Wetzel writes, "Like the other BCS bowls it’s a not-for-profit, so while no individual is walking away with millions, the [Sugar Bowl] appears to be little more than a massive boondoggle." Wetzel also points out that the Sugar Bowl isn't exactly struggling financially due to its $28.3 million in reserves. Yet it managed not only the $4.1 million from the Louisiana legislature, but another $1 million from local governments, as Wetzel also found in his research.

So why are taxpayers funding popular and profitable businesses like college bowl games?

H/T: Cato @ Liberty