This simply is not true.
First, the football team was not making a lot of money in the late 90s and 2000s. That's a fact. The very first time we had ANY stable Athletics income was when we joined the ACC. When we were in the Big East, it was feast or famine, due to the payout structure. Oh, and the University FUNDED the Athletic Department during those lean probationary times.
Second, Donna Shalala absolutely funded athletics. She pushed for the IPF. She got the arena built (FINALLY!). She pushed for Miami to join the ACC (and was sued for it). HOWEVER, she absolutely believed in hiring "up-and-comers" in a lot of roles, and YES, those people do not command higher salaries. But the facilities and budgets increased under Donna Shalala, they did NOT decrease. If you want to argue for increasing those budgets MORE, I would simply ask where the money would have come from. Because Shalala was absolutely NOT taking money OUT OF Athletics. If anything, UM occasionally covered Athletic deficits out of the UM general operating budget.
Third, the acquisition of UHealth (it was acquired, not built) came from UM operating funds as well.
As for the COVID money, I'm not going to argue, COVID revenue certainly helped. But Joe Echevarria was already turning things around on the operational side, even before COVID.
