scholarship in a sports, how do you know that student wouldn't have still been admitted standards the school used for the non student-athletes? If a person played a sport in HS and was good at it, it doesn't necessarily mean he/she is a dumb jock. Yes, schools will sometimes use athletic scholarships as a loophole for a enrolling a student who may not have qualified via normal channels. However, it is dangerous to generalize that it is done for majority of student-athletes. I would not be shocked if there are current student-athletes out there who received a partial athletic scholarship and a partial academic scholarship.

Since you think a softball player, who had a 2.9 GPA in HS, has no place at that school. Then how do you know that same school didn't also admit a non student-athlete who also had a 2.9GPA in HS? Just because someone had a 4.0 GPA in HS and high ACT/SAT scores, does not guarantee that the student will maintain that same level of excellence in college.

As far as who benefits from the non-revenue sports, I have given you examples. You have just opted to either ignore them or dismiss them because you have a different way of defining their "value." The school benefits because it increases their exposure. If a HS student, who receives 2 academic scholarships from 2 colleges, loves to play a certain sport and wants to continue playing it as long as possible, then the college that sponsors the sport could be enough to persuade the student to attend there. The student-athletes and the other students benefit because it gives them school pride which is no different than the school pride you see at the HS level. The community benefits because at some schools there is more interest and support from the community for a non-revenue sport than for basketball or even football. As I keep repeating each school is unique, so it is foolish to try to attempt to fit them all into the same cookie cutter mold.

A country's Olympic program benefits from it. Just because Queen Harrison (2008 US Olympian) and Marcel Lomnicky (2012 Slovakian Olympian) are the only 2 VT alumni (that come to mind outside of Bimbo Coles) to compete in the Olympics doesn't mean there weren't others in the past or ones in the future. Even though VT may not have a strong Olympic connection, it also doesn't mean VT values the non-revenue Olympic programs less or is willing to eliminate them in order to save money for the athletic department.

If the power conferences decide to form their own association, then they may decide to sanction the same number of sports as what the NCAA currently sanctions (approximately 40). If they decide as a collective that members must sponsor 20 (of the 40) and VT wants to be affiliated with the association, then VT will sponsor 20 sports. Don't automatically assume that the new association will limit the number of sanctioned sports. The new association will most likely come to the same conclusion as the NCAA and even the NAIA; there are significant differences between each region of the US. As a result, a good percentage of the sports are regionalized in terms of their popularity at the youth level, HS level, and fan interest. Since all the schools will not decide to relocate to the same region, the new association will probably make sure to include a certain number of regionalized sports. If that piece isn't broke, then don't try to fix it.