Local opinion: How about being No. 1 in academics?

The top national ranking in men’s basketball and No. 14 and bowl game invitation in football may have cost the University of Arizona as much as $87 million, all of it red ink.

The emotional attachment UA sports fans have makes them blind to the athletic department’s and university’s financial troubles. They must open their eyes.

UA president Robert Robbins owns the problem by calling himself the No. 1 sports fan. Such fanaticism — he attends home and away games — helped get the university into this jam via his bailouts of athletics and, perhaps, ignoring or missing financial red flags.

Robbins reported Nov. 2 that the UA had 97 days of cash on hand. Board of Regents’ policy requires 140 days; the difference is $240 million.

He described several causes, took no blame and amended his story several times. For a month, he avoided much discussion of sports spending. Instead, he described the issue as a calculation problem, use of an outdated formula and overspending by unidentified campus units.

He did say $55 million in UA loans to the athletic department have not been repaid. He has now upped the loan figure to $87 million, which he said covered revenue shortages, putting the lie to the long-held claim that sports pay for themselves. Big salaries for the men’s basketball coach and current and former football coaches, all of which Robbins approved, reveal a spending problem.

UA’s No. 1 fan has finally conceded budget issues will affect sports programs. Coming are a 25% increase in season ticket prices for unspecified sports and athletic staff layoffs.

“Athletics, they are cutting,” the Arizona Daily Star quoted him telling the Faculty Senate on Dec. 4. “They are firing people. They are laying off people 100%.”

Finally, some accountability from Robbins for the bloated athletics budget and his financial irresponsibility. Perhaps that will mean an emphasis and funding for academics over sports, now lost in the headiness of national rankings.

To compare and lend perspective on academics vs. sports, here’s a takeoff on the Star’s “by the numbers” feature often accompanying stories on UA games:

$2.3 billion: Approximate UA budget in fiscal 2023.

$100 million: Approximate UA athletic budget in fiscal 2023.

$87 million: Robbins’ latest figure for what he lent athletics from university coffers in recent years because of revenue shortages and, presumably, irresponsible spending.

$36.7 million: Total of the five-year salaries for men’s basketball coach Tommy Lloyd, at $20.8 million, and football coach Jedd Fisch, at $15.9 million.

$13.57 million: Payouts to the previous two head football coaches, who were fired and had to be paid their contracted salaries.

$4 million: Approximate total of the $100 fee charged each undergraduate student annually to subsidize sports. The school has collected this fee since 2017, again belying the claim that UA athletics are self-supporting.

$985,000: Salary of Dave Heeke, director of UA athletics, who runs a unit with 500 students.

$300,000: Salary of Lori Poloni-Staudinger, dean of the UA College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, who runs a unit with 10,000 students.

$130,000: Approximate median salary in fiscal 2023 for a tenured full professor.

10.2 to 1: The ratio of UA football players to coaches.

18 to 1: The ratio of UA students to faculty members.

ZERO: The increase in donations to academic programs because of sports success, something that UA fundraising officials have long acknowledged.

The athletic tail has wagged the academic dog at the University of Arizona for too long. The regents would be justified in firing Robbins for mismanagement — highly unlikely given their invertebrate nature. If he stays, he must change the dynamic.

He should seek No. 1 rankings in academics and push the athletic program to the subordinate role in which it belongs.