Where I went the funding pools were entirely separate. Sports pays for sports stuff (buildings, staff, recruitment, etc. and does some endowment stuff additionally) and the academic stuff comes from tuition and academic grants. Sports drives name recognition and also boosts enrollment rates.

Its bad for parking, but it's just how business works. Maybe if we were in a country that funded higher ed this wouldn't be a problem, but we don't have any pure universities outside maybe some community colleges.