All the attention Fry Fest is getting reminds me of a phone conversation with an alumnus years ago. I was working for the UI Foundation and was trying to extract a donation. He interrupted my pitch and asked, “Is any of this going to the football program? Because I’m hanging up now if it is.” I told him no and explained all the money raised that day went directly to the students.

He wasn’t alone in his misgivings. Many people I solicited feared their hard-earned money would go toward what they believed to be an overly compensated program.

And that’s understandable, considering current football coach Kirk Ferentz is the highest-paid official working for a state-sponsored program, with an annual salary of more than $3 million.

Before you get out your pitchforks and torches and go storming Ferentz’s residence, consider this: That money comes from Hawkeye athletics and nowhere else. Athletics is the only public athletics program in the state no longer accepting contributions from the state Board of Regents’ general fund.

Hawkeye athletics generates its own revenue and pays for its own expenses. It’s a business, and as Inglourious Basterd Lt. Aldo Raine would say, “Business is a-boomin’.” Richard Klatt, the associate athletics director for external affairs, said Kinnick Stadium sold out every game except one last year, bringing in $19 million. Ticket sales aren’t the only way Hawkeye football makes money. Dale Arens, the licensing director for the UI Licensing Program, told me the Hawks received $2 million in licensing fees last year. That doesn’t sound like much, but that’s only the fees athletics collects, which is 10 percent of wholesale costs. That’s before retailer markup. Arens estimated Hawkeye licensed apparel drew in approximately $40 million to $50 million in sales worldwide.

Hawkeye football is more than a business; it’s an economic phenomenon. When Kinnick Stadium fills up, so do local businesses’ coffers. Hotels, for one, get a huge boost. Josh Schamberger, the president of the Iowa City-Coralville Visitors Bureau, said practically all hotels in the Iowa City-Coralville area — as well as half of Cedar Rapids — are booked for every home game this year. No other event comes close to having that effect, he said. That effect spreads to meals, parking, and other tourist-related activities visitors might spend money on.

Revenue doesn’t just flow into local businesses and the athletics department; the UI and Iowa City communities also see revenue. All those people staying in hotels have to pay a healthy hotel tax, which goes back to state and local governments. All football tickets are subject to a combined 6 percent state and local-option sales tax. Then there’s what I call the “drunk tax” — fines for alcohol-related violations — brought in $87,600 in 2008, according to a DI series last fall. Iowa City police Capt. Richard Wyss said the city spent $18,000 in overtime but received $22,000 in reimbursement money from the university.

Athletics pays all athletes’ scholarships to the university, totaling $8 million last year. That’s $8 million in guaranteed tuition and fees for students who may not have been able to attend college otherwise, Klatt told me. Much of that comes from football revenue.

Hawkeye football makes an obscene amount of money, but that money goes a long way to help the community.