Athletic budgets by ranking

[MrTitleist]

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/schools/finances/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[COS Cowboy]

OK, I'm confused. It says we had a $30,266,873 in revenues and $30,476,152 in expenses so we are roughly $200k in the red. Then they show a $15,229,766 subsidy. Why would we need a $15 Mil subsidy when we are only $200K in the red?

Some of the others don't make any sense either. Oklahoma State shows $87,270,598 in revenue, $96,782,619 in expenses and $6,284,687 subsidy. They are about 9 mil in the red and their subsidy doesn't cover the difference. Am I missing something?

 

[TSpoke]

Im not sure but I am guessing the subsidy is counted in the revenue. If you see our % of subsidy is around 50% and 15 mil is 50% of 30mil.

 

[COS Cowboy]

You may be right, but it still doesn't make sense for some schools.

Texas A&M had revenues exceeding expenses by $38 Million. Why do they have $5.2 million in subsidies?

 

[NowherePoke]

You may be right, but it still doesn't make sense for some schools.

Texas A&M had revenues exceeding expenses by $38 Million. Why do they have $5.2 million in subsidies?

The biggest thing to keep in mind is that there is no uniformity in reporting of athletic budgets. It's not like SEC filings, so you have to take it all with a grain of salt. There are so many variables. Scholarship costs vary dramatically (particularly between public and private) and that impacts athletic budgets on paper, but doesn't really reflect how much money athletics is spending to be competitively relevant as nearly all FBS programs are providing the maximum allowable scholarships.

It's usually pretty tough to truly glean how much each program is spending on the expenditures that matter competitively (coaching salaries, travel, recruiting budget, marketing, etc.), and these don't typically reflect capital expenditures related to athletics (although maybe some schools carry debt service related to infrastructure upgrades on the athletic budget, but again there is a lot of variation in what is reported).

In terms of TAMU, the subsidies probably reflect student fees that are earmarked for athletics (just a guess on my part) that are paid in every year regardless of need.

In the case of Wyoming, keep in mind that our scholarship costs are pretty low and we sponsor near the minimum number of sports allowed to compete at the FBS level. With that in mind, we are relatively competitive with our conference peers in terms of athletic budget resources. We only maintain that level due to generous subsidies however (which are of course, not uncommon for programs at our relative level, call it "upper mid major").