I’m an admissions tour guide. On every tour, a parent inevitably asks me, “What’s the worst part about Binghamton University?”

“We don’t have a football team,” is my typical answer. That, however, is a lie.

It’s a safe answer, of course, but after talking to Athletic Director Joel Thirer, I’ve begun to understand the staggering costs associated with creating and running a football team. One might expect the revenue created from football to make up for those costs, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Costs, benefits?

“New Hampshire may come close to making money,” Thirer said. “Albany loses money. The University at Buffalo loses money, and they’re 1-A. In the last 10 years Buffalo has poured probably 30 or 40 million dollars in the football program, as a guess. Right down the black hole.”

In fact, there are probably only six teams that make money at the 1-AA level. Thirer, who worked at Illinois State and Southern Illinois before Binghamton, knows why.

“At Illinois State, with 1-AA football, they had an average attendance of about 2,000 for football,” Thirer explained. “At Illinois State, they would average about eight or nine thousand for the basketball games. Basketball is 13 scholarships. Football is 55 scholarships. What’s wrong with this picture? If you’re not playing at the Bowl Championship level, it’s almost impossible to make money.” That statement holds true for many teams, many 1-A teams, including Syracuse.

The America East will probably add football in the near future, but in order to do so, it would need to expand to more like-minded institutions, as Binghamton, Vermont, UMBC and Boston all lack football.

“It won’t happen until we get better in basketball,” Thirer said. “The schools that our commissioner has spoken with have told us that if you don’t get better in basketball, then we won’t join. Why? Because CBS signs a multi-billion dollar deal with the NCAA. The NCAA as an entity exists because of men’s basketball, not even for the Bowl Championship Series in football.”

Basketball is simply a better alternative for teams looking to increase school spirit and get name recognition. Unless a 1-AA football team wins the national championship or upsets a 1-A team (which is very rare), the school will probably get no positive recognition on the national scale. On the other hand, winning one conference championship in basketball gets the school to the NCAA tournament. As a member of the America East, BU has witnessed the level of attention the tournament can bring. People still talk about Vermont’s upset of Syracuse in 2005, and even Albany’s near-upset of Connecticut last season.

“If somebody here, if one of these European kids ends up being NBA caliber, Binghamton’s going to ascend pretty rapidly,” Thirer said. “Look at what one player of that caliber does to your team. Look at what it did to Hartford last year. [Kenny] Adeleke took a team that was a last-place team without him, and put them in the top four. And they’ll probably be in last place again this season.”

Vermont had two professional-caliber players fall into its lap at the same time in 2005. Taylor Coppenrath and T.J. Sorrentine, whom no one recruited, brought UVM out of years of mediocrity and into the national spotlight. The remarkable thing about basketball is that it takes only one or two great players to bring a program to the top.

Football is another story.

“Southern Illinois had five players go to the NFL from their [national championship] team,” Thirer recalled of his first job. “They still averaged under 10,000 people a game for the year.”

The bottom line is that while a few thousand students and community members may get excited about the Binghamton Bearcat football team, there are almost no benefits in money or exposure to speak of.

“You’re talking to a guy who loves football,” Thirer said as I exited his office. “If it would work for Binghamton we would have it. It doesn’t.”

Plus, if there were a team with 90 players to obsess about, my girlfriend would kill me.