What Does This Mean for Big East and Marquette

[Goose85]

And how many of those teams would be averaging that many if it weren't for the visiting teams? (Northwestern)

And free student tickets.

[TheSultan]

Is the assumption that all athletic departments in the Big 5 conferences make money, or should I say are on the plus side every year?

What happens to tv contracts if viewership or revenue begins to drop (are there renegotiation points in the contracts)?
What happens if attendance drops for football?

What if a meteor hits the stadium tomorrow?

Look, what you are talking about may happen. But those are long term issues that can be resolved well into the future.

[Goose85]

My point is that I don't think the majority of athletic departments are making money. If you add expenses and see a decrease in any revenue stream, my guess is bye bye sports like Men's baseball, track, etc. Even a school like Texas, without some of their major donors, may very well not make money.

[TheSultan]

My point is that I don't think the majority of athletic departments are making money. If you add expenses and see a decrease in any revenue stream, my guess is bye bye sports like Men's baseball, track, etc. Even a school like Texas, without some of their major donors, may very well not make money.

I think all of the Big 5 athletic departments are making a lot of money. Are they all profitable? Who knows, but that could because of building projects and other costs that the institution "assigns" to athletics.

[Goose85]

Here is an interesting article on the University of Texas, who seems to be the leader in all things athletic revenue / spending.

In 2012-2013
Operating Revenue: $165.7 million (of which $37.4 million were from donations)
Operating Expenses: $146.8 million

Without donations, Texas would have been in the hole $18.5 million.

The article also states that Texas is among the few nationally that get no revenue from student fees or state sources.


http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports...enses/5062161/

[TheSultan]

But I don't understand your point here. Donations are part of revenue. That's like saying without ticket fees or without media rights fees, UT athletics would be in the red. Well of course.

It's not as though those donations are simply going to disappear. It is a recurring source of income.

[Nukem2]

But I don't understand your point here. Donations are part of revenue. That's like saying without ticket fees or without media rights fees, UT athletics would be in the red. Well of course.

It's not as though those donations are simply going to disappear. It is a recurring source of income.

Of course, donations can fluctuate quite a bit for some schools depending upon success on the FB field (and BB court for some ).

[TheSultan]

Of course all income can fluctuate. But 2012-13 wasn't exactly a stellar year for Texas athletics and they still cleared $20M in profit.

And my guess is that most of those donations were for the points to purchase tickets. So IMO those are going to be fairly steady. (BTW, the 80% deductibility of those donations may disappear in the next couple of years. Fair warning.)

[IWB]

How much came from the Longhorn Network? That is something that most other schools do not have. So while Texas may have cleared $20mil, those numbers start to peel back for all other schools.

I have freaking had it with the Big 5 conferences. The majority of them lose money, but they are fighting for a split that they can't afford because they don't want to share a dime with the rest of the schools, God forbid one of them make it to a BCS game. Remember, the Big 5 are the ones that created the BCS to cater to themselves. Then, when the smaller schools broke through, they changed the rules.

The biggest reason why I am so fed up with the Big 5 conferences is that they keep throwing the NCAA under the bus. Wow, that's great - bitch about the NCAA. Bitch that they don't let you do what you want, bitch that they have too many rules, bitch that they are understaffed, but it is you football schools that peeled back from the NCAA - the NCAA does not get $1 dollar from college football. Maybe if the NCAA got 1/10 of 1% of the football contracts they could adequately staff themselves to deal with you.

Sorry that schools like Boise State, Air Force, Army, Navy, Cincinnati, Fresno State and Northern Illinois break into the rankings once in a while. Quit trying to hoard every dime or you will kill off what you have.

[Goose85]

My point with sharing the information on Texas is that Texas had the most revenue of any college athletic program, and still needed a huge level of donations to balance the budget and come out on top.

If Texas is that alpha dog revenue wise, how are schools that draw far fewer fans and have far fewer donations making money?

If athletic departments are all so profitable, why did Maryland drop sports or Wisconsin drop mens baseball, etc?
Sure some level of donations can be counted upon, but when one MU donor held off it quickly became an issue.