Power 5 Revenue Top $6B

[Mavric]

The nation's richest athletic departments -- those in the Power Five conferences -- pulled in a record $6 billion last year, nearly $4 billion more than all other schools combined, according to an Outside the Lines analysis of NCAA data. The gulf between college sports' haves and have-nots has never been greater.

 

Powered by multimillion-dollar media rights contracts and rising ticket-sales revenue, the richest schools have spent aggressively: on private jets, on campus perks like barber shops and bowling alleys, on biometric gadgets for athletes, and on five-star hotel stays during travel. They've also hired a plethora of athletic department support staffers who earn six-figure salaries and sometimes have obscure job titles such as "horticulturalist" and "museum curator."

 

To keep up, smaller conference schools -- dubbed the Group of Five -- are spending, too, but from different sources: Those schools have increasingly shifted hundreds of millions of dollars from students, taxpayers and other university programs into their athletic programs to do so, the analysis shows.

 

ESPN

[Mavric]

Nebraska Revenue (2015)

 

Ticket Sales: $ 36,618,329

Travel Reimburse.: $ 325,000

Contributions: $ 19,353,438

NCAA: $ 961,131

Big Ten: $ 15,953,979

Media Rights: $ 71,924

Student Fees: $ 0

State Govern.: $ 0

University General: $ 0

TOTAL REVENUE: $ 102,157,399

 

Expenses (2015)

 

Scholarships: $ 9,759,530

Visiting Teams: $ 2,510,590

Salaries & Benefits: $ 16,983,957

Admin & Support Staff: $ 20,472,345

Severance Payments: $ 2,588,326

Recruiting: $ 2,229,914

Team Travel: $ 6,950,221

Equipment, Uniforms: $ 2,647,525

Game Expenses: $ 4,846,786

Medical Expenses: $ 864,312

TOTAL EXPENSES: $ 98,023 037

 

NET REVENUE: $ 4,134,362

 

 

Football Recruiting: $ 991,818

Football Revenue: $ 58,421,628

Basketball Recruiting: $ 460,367

Basketball Revenue: $ 8,853,129

[southernoregonhusker]

Don't pay those players . Their scholarships are more than enough .

[RedTexan]

Nebraska Revenue (2015)

 

Ticket Sales: $ 36,618,329

Travel Reimburse.: $ 325,000

Contributions: $ 19,353,438

NCAA: $ 961,131

Big Ten: $ 15,953,979

Media Rights: $ 71,924

Student Fees: $ 0

State Govern.: $ 0

University General: $ 0

TOTAL REVENUE: $ 102,157,399

 

Expenses (2015)

 

Scholarships: $ 9,759,530

Visiting Teams: $ 2,510,590

Salaries & Benefits: $ 16,983,957

Admin & Support Staff: $ 20,472,345

Severance Payments: $ 2,588,326

Recruiting: $ 2,229,914

Team Travel: $ 6,950,221

Equipment, Uniforms: $ 2,647,525

Game Expenses: $ 4,846,786

Medical Expenses: $ 864,312

TOTAL EXPENSES: $ 98,023 037

 

NET REVENUE: $ 4,134,362

 

 

Football Recruiting: $ 991,818

Football Revenue: $ 58,421,628

Basketball Recruiting: $ 460,367

Basketball Revenue: $ 8,853,129

Those numbers don't add up Mavric. By my calculations the total revenue as listed totals 73,283,801 and total expenses totals 69,853,295. I know you didn't add those numbers up, you just copied and pasted them, but something is wrong. May be something as simple as all the revenue isn't listed and all the expenses are not listed.

[Mavric]

Yeah, not sure why they didn't include everything. Perhaps they just went with the "interesting" categories?

The table includes figures for total revenues and expenses along with only select subcategories, (which will not add up to the total). Figures for public schools come from public records requests submitted annually to each school for the NCAA revenue and expense reports they're required to submit each January.
Private schools are not subject to records requests and the limited data on private school athletic department finances come from the U.S. Department of Education.
The year refers to the reporting year; 2015 would be the 2014-2015 academic year.
Accounting changes in 2015 created new categories and made certain prior comparisons of limited use. Prior to 2015, money from media contracts was often - but not always - included in the revenue category for NCAA/Conference distributions. In 2015, the NCAA required it be accurately portrayed in its own column. Any use of media rights figures before 2015 should be undertaken with caution.

[Flood]

As great as these numbers seem, depending on your perspective, they worry me a bit.

 

As realignment continues, we face the question of consolidation among the CFP and the possibility of schools being left out who were previous members of the P5. This could lead to inquiries by the DoJ and Congress and allegations of illegal monopolies in CFB. That part worries me greatly.

 

At the very least, the conferences should be trying to make every effort to keep all P5 schools in a P5 conference, even if conferences fail (Big 12). Otherwise, all it takes is one reasonably powerful Senator from that state to open a can of worms. And that is assuming the G5 do not open that can themselves if they are consistently left out of the CFP, or worse, regulated out by including only P4 Champs when we get down to 4 power conferences.

 

It might be wise for every conference to take on one more 'dead weight' type school than they would like, just to assure this doesn't take place. It costs a little in the long run but keeps the gravy train going as long as possible.