Originally Posted by
MU88
Just on the men's side, MU's lacrosse team has 46 athletes , but only 12.6 scholarships. Tuition plus room & board is about $47,000 this year at MU. So, if lacrosse is fully funded (which I don't believe it is), the 12.6 scholarships would cost MU $592,200 including room & board (this cost is merely the "on paper" cost. But for R & B, we all know that the scholarships are merely monies MU "pays" itself. Having 12.6 extra bodies on campus actually costs the school virtually nothing). Tuition at MU is $35,480. So, for the 33.4 paying students that are at MU for lacrosse, MU receives $1,185,032 in tuition payments in real cash (I excluded room and board from the non-scholarship numbers since I am assuming that all r & b monies are spent on r & b). According to the department of education, MU spent $760,995 on men's lacrosse last year, total, versus $10.5 million on men's hoops. I don't know if the lacrosse number includes scholarships, but I would not doubt it. If it doesn't, worst case scenario is that MU lost around $168,163 "on paper" by offering lacrosse. However, since most sports at MU are not fully funded, it would not surprise me if the $760,995 number includes scholarship expenses. So, in that case, MU actually earns just over $400,000 "on paper" by having lacrosse. Further, as described above, the incremental cost of having 12.6 extra students on campus is virtually nothing. So, the tuition costs of $447,000 attributable to the 12.6 lacrosse players scholarships are just imaginary. Hence, you are actually looking at a profit closer to $1 million. Not bad.
Lacrosse is a relatively cheap sport. I would guess travel would be the most expensive cost. Coaches salaries are low. In view of the numbers described above, I would guess lacrosse has been a highly lucrative addition to the athletic department.
As a side note, MU has 7 coaches for its men's team who were paid a combined, $2.265 million last year. That included Buzz, who probably received $1.8 million from MU. So, the average head coaching salary at MU is less than $100,000 for each men's sport.