Surrounded by athletic greats like Texas A&M University, The University of Texas, Baylor University, and Rice University, the University of Houston his pumping major bucks into their athletic programs.

The Texas Tribune writes:

University of Houston Pours Millions into Athletics

As classes wrap up at the University of Houston on Thursday, marching band members will fan out to perform at campus dorms and lead students to a pep rally at the school’s one-year-old, $128 million football stadium. There, administrators hope students will pick up free T-shirts, collect autographs and listen to a speech by the team’s much-hyped new football coach.

The rally, school officials say, is one way the university is trying to spark a new culture of support for its sports teams. Empty seats in the new stadium’s student section were far too common last year. If the Houston Cougars want to become a nationally competitive program, that needs to change, they say.

But while fan attendance may be lacking, the university’s teams have received huge support in another way. To fund its ambitions, the University of Houston has transferred more than $100 million from its academic side to its sports programs in recent years, figures reviewed by The Texas Tribune show. Meanwhile, the university has launched or is planning a series of expensive sports construction projects, and the school’s athletics department has struggled to stick to its annual budget.

Athletics departments at public universities are generally expected to pay their own bills, with schools usually chipping in to cover shortfalls. But Houston’s subsidies in recent years have grown beyond the norm. From 2008 to 2014, the school transferred $106 million to athletics, according to financial reports reviewed by the Tribune. The next highest spender among major public NCAA schools in Texas was the University of Texas at El Paso, which transferred $47 million.