KCS isn't flush with money/funding. As a taxpayer with multiple children in the school system, I pull their annual reports every year, and it's painfully obvious. Inside Tennessee, KCS is run-of-the-mill, but compared to most other states, teacher pay is low and the buildings/facilities are increasingly sub-standard. KCS funding is heavily dependent on our property taxes, and as a Knox County resident, we pay some of the lowest property taxes in the entire country. The price tag is nice, but at the end of the day, you ultimately get what you pay for.
While I agree that KCS doesn't prioritize sports, I would argue that they shouldn't. I would rather my tax dollars be prioritized for academics and facility upkeep, and we're barely doing that. I played sports throughout grade school, I still love everything about sports, and if I want to donate a million bucks to a school to pay for a new scoreboard, uniforms, etc (like the Haslams putting field-turf at every stadium in the county), I'm free to do that. I just think that sports should be secondary when it comes to public funding prioritization.