Athletics Subsidies - CU at 15%

[Darth Snow]

Which puts us, at rough guestimate, somewhere around the bottom of the top 1/3 of schools. interestingly enough, it dropped from 24% to 15% from 2006-2010. I have a feeling that the subsidy is directly tied to the buyouts of the coaches.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/2011-06-23-2011-athletic-department-subsidy-table_n.htm?loc=interstitialskip

For reference... CSU went from 34% to 50% !!!

 

[Bone Buff]

Took me a second to realize what I was looking at. Closer you are to 0%, the better off you are.

 

[MtnBuff]

Interesting stuff. I think you are on to something in regards to the coaching buyouts. Also the cost of the conference switch could factor in.

Accounting for college athletic programs is also a really squishy subject. Schools can make a profit look like a loss or a loss look like breaking even. This article talks about "subsidies" but the nature of those subsisdies can vary greatly. In some cases it means money from the university general fund going to cover direct AD expenses, in others certain fundraising and publicity expenses for the entire school are "billed" to the AD meaning in effect the AD is subsidizing the general school.

They also include as a subsidy the fees and assessments from students. In many of these cases the students are recieving free or greatly reduced prices for admission to athletic and other university events, very different than taking money out of the history department to cover the football coaches private jet.

It also doesn't account for things like the CU AD being assessed out of state tuition for all athletes regardless of their residency status. In this case the university recieves the state benefit from this student and still takes the money from the AD at the higher rate.

I do wonder how a lot of the schools, especially those in non-AQ conferences can continue to participate in BCS level football with their athletic departments taking over $10 million a year in subsidies. The cost of doing business is going to continue to go up and I don't see anyone lining up to give the MWC, the WAC, the MAC or the Sun Belt substantially higher TV contracts. Even if they were to double their TV revenue CSU would still only be getting about $3 million a year, far short of their deficit.