This kind of spending is not sustainable.

USA Today reports.

Can college athletics continue to spend like this?

Bubble, in a sports context, typically refers to college basketball teams with middling résumés, or perhaps the sort of gum that comes with trading cards. Economist Andrew Zimbalist suggests college sports may be facing a bubble of a different sort, the kind that goes — pop!

Total revenue for the 50 public schools in the Power Five conferences rose by $304 million in 2015, but spending rose by $332 million from the year before, according to a USA TODAY Sports analysis of financial information that schools annually report to the NCAA. At the 178 public schools in Division I conferences outside the Power Five, revenue increased by $199 million, but spending rose by $218 million.Revenues in college sports are rising, and have been for decades, thanks largely to TV rights fees for football and men’s basketball. But expenses are rising even more: Athletics departments typically spend more money than they generate. By the NCAA’s reckoning, fewer than two dozen public schools can cover their annual operating expenses without money from university coffers, government sources or student fees.