I’ve had way too much fun breaking down this data (even though it’s missing some break-downs that I would really like to get at).
Average Revenue for 2009-2010 for the Top 10 Revenue Athletic Programs was $112.9 million dollars (st dev $15.4 million). Average expenses for these same top 10 programs was $94.9 million (st dev $11.3 million). Average profit was $13.1 million dollars. Here’s a graphic breaking down the revenue vs expenses for these top 10 programs.
Jumping back to the group that I mentioned in a previous post…I also plotted Participants vs revenue (the two that are way off the best fit line are UT Austin (high end – $256,348 per athlete) and Yale (low end – $43,424 per athlete)). The teams that lie above the best fit line are outpacing the revenue per participant average and the ones below the line have less revenue per participant in athletics. Average revenue per athlete is $122, 256
Also plotted participants vs expenses (theoretically the programs that are spending the money that they have well and are more efficient). This graph should be the opposite, with the programs that are using their money well being the lowest end and the programs that are spending more per athlete being the higher end. Incidentally, Texas ($203,486) is the highest in spending per athlete and Yale ($42,671) is the lowest. Average expenses per athlete is $113, 577. Average Profit per athlete is $8,679.
I have some data that I’ve crunched on revenue and expenses vs enrollment, but frankly I don’t find it that compelling. A few take home messages from this data.
1) Aside from the truly big boys, the money that is made by the school on sports and spent on sports does have some correlation to the size of the athletic program.
2) However, there are some outliers that follow the rule of “if the money’s there, we’re spending it.” The outlier on the low end is Yale and Yale does not offer athletic scholarships. It’s not clear how this is added into the data. Most of the real outliers are on the high end.
3) To state the above differently, making money on your athletic program does not mean that money is going back into the school at a higher rate (even though this is true to a certain extent). The data actually says that if you make more money, you’re likely to SPEND more money on athletics. I’m not sure if this is reflective of the old axiom that you must spend money to make money, but I have read some articles that say that athletic spending is always a precursor to athletic success and pays off in the long run.
4) Going back to the Top 10 data, I think Univ of Alabama is fascinating (#2). Their revenue is ranked 2nd, while their expenses are more in line with the 6th and 7th ranked programs in revenue (Univ of Mich Ann Arbor and Penn State, respectively). It makes me wonder what they’re doing differently or if their data is wrong.
There are a couple things missing from this data. They don’t break out football, but I do plan on reviewing the revenue andexpenses for men’s and women’s sports. Also, as I talked about in several previous posts, many of these programs are receiving state money as well as student fees to support their programs (blech), but this data doesn’t make it clear (at least that i’ve seen so far) what those numbers are. Hopefully Department of Education has shared this data somewhere (but I doubt it, damn Enron-ian accounting.)
