OK, that's a bit unrealistic. I could build them one for a few hundred, though, and they could pay a student $50 to flip over the numbers during the game.
In University I participated in a club sport "funded" exclusively through the student government -- really more of a tax rebate than anything else since only 60% of what the climbing "team" paid in student fees we got back to buy ropes, biners, rent a van for outings. That sort of stuff.
College sports do serve a real community-building purpose. Just... a few hundred or maybe low thousands total per sport instead of a few tens of millions for the main sport.
I get not wanting to have a minor league football team with unpaid labor, but even rec league basketball needs a scoreboard.
There is no reason why the state should spend its educational subsidies on funding auxillary recreational activities solely for the benefit of university students when a good GPA is not necessary to recreate, nor do university students have a greater need of recreation than anyone else.
The problem is that it is really hard to know where to draw the line and the US as usual takes it fully to the extreme.
All that being said, I thought the big sports were a revenue driver for the schools that chose to participate in the bigger leagues?
No, you couldn’t.
It has to keep working for years/decades, be maintainable, survive bad weather conditions, etc. even if you made the scoreboard out of wood and painted it, it would have to be large enough so that the stadium could see, the paint would fade and it would take weeks to make it, etc.