When Harper and Trout signed their huge contracts last month, I had several liberal friends on facebook who posted things about how it was a travesty to pay anyone that much for "just playing a game." "Couldn't that money better be used to do such and such" they said...
Well, that shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how salaries are determined; your salary is determined by your replacement cost and how much others value the product of your labor.
So Trout's replacement cost is enormous because there is no one on the planet who can play baseball the way he does. Others value his product immensely because they will pay tens of thousands of dollars for season tickets to see him. The fact that baseball is "just a dumb game," doesn't matter; people like it and will pay for it.

How does that relate to this argument? Well, people value the product of college athletes. Athletics drive the bus when it comes to fundraising. People will donate $18M for a new stadium or practice facility and pay for tickets and watch TV. Most people do NOT value the product of arts and humanities as much. If you are an art major and produce an awesome sculpture, you still won't sell too many tickets to the art museum or get alumni to pony up more cash.

I realize that injecting economic theory into universities is touchy because they SHOULD be institutions of higher learning, but they aren't because they rely on donations and tuition like anything else. You can talk about "Academic pursuits" all you want, if you can't pay to keep the lights on and the teachers paid it won't make a difference. Athletics helps to keep the lights on, art history is a net drain on finances.