This is a “plumbing and heating” chapter in which we describe the data we utilize in our analyses, trace where these numbers come from, and in some cases describe their weaknesses. We present sample means, medians, and standard deviations for the variables we use in our analyses so that readers can acquire a sense of where we are now, for example, in the funding of intercollegiate athletic programs. We outline both the measures of economic success we seek to explain (for example, the incomes of students after they graduate) and the likely factors that influence those incomes.