The infrastructure, both physical and human, devoted to intercollegiate athletics at the largest U.S. universities is more comprehensive and impressive than the Olympic training facilities of most countries. More challenging is determining the extent of the significant investment that these institutions make in their sports programs. Many programs, particularly outside the most prominent ones, receive an annual subsidy from the institution in the form of a general fund appropriation, an earmark of student fees, or even an appropriation of state funds. However, should an observer trace such funds, it remains virtually impossible to assign a total cost of an athletics program to the institution whose name it bears, as well as comparing it with competitors. Over the years, even as the exploding costs associated with arms races in facilities and salaries have become policy issues, the lack of complete and consistent data on the finances of intercollegiate sports has become a concern in its own right. The NCAA and the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics have both warned that cost increases in college sports may be unsustainable and will force institutions to transfer funds from other educational programs, drop sports altogether, or find new ways of garnering revenue from intercollegiate athletics such that they blur the line between the amateur ideal of competition and competitive business market for intercollegiate athletics. In this article, the author first considers the strategies pursued by institutions in addressing these challenges, as well as relating them to the larger set of questions being raised about the rising costs of higher education as a whole. The author then discusses the emergence of intercollegiate athletics as a business enterprise within the university. The author concludes by considering the improved nature of the data available to study finance issues associated with college sports, encouraging researchers interested in the topic to pursue it. (Contains 2 notes.)