247: Ranking college football's richest, poorest programs

[GT_EE78]

> we look to be middle of ACC in financial rankings (6 are below us and 7 above- ignoring ND)
>48th of 65 within P5
>some don't use money wisely(See Tex,UGA,Mich at 1,2,3)
"ranked all 65 Power 5 football programs by gross revenue over the past fiscal year (July 1, 2018 through June 30, 2019)."

Ranking college football's richest, poorest programs

...

247sports.com

 

[CuseJacket]

Interesting article. So the timeframe measured spans CPJ’s last season and ends right before Collins’ first.

Does anyone recall how this compares to prior “revenue” rankings? And what makes up gross revenue in this case? My interpretation is that, because this is gross revenue, this does not include expenses e.g, salaries and recruiting. But I recall past discussions highlights a number of loopholes and exceptions to the way $$$ are accounted.

It’s especially confusing because the call out re: GT mentions revenue, profit and spending all at once, even though the article is a ranking on revenue only.

247Sports take: Not surprisingly, Georgia Tech's revenue plummeted during Paul Johnson's final campaign prior to the arrival of Geoff Collins and crowds dwindled. The program fell 19 spots from 2017 with a mere $12.9M profit. The Yellow Jackets are hoping their investment in the new regime will pay off down the road.

 

[RonJohn]

The USA Today has listed a chart for athletic department revenues and expenses for several years. All of the data can be found at: https://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/finances

I don't understand the article posted by @GT_EE78 . The link in the article shows that the ACC distributed a minimum of $27.6 million to each school, yet lists the revenue of WF as $26.7 million. The USA Today report, which gets it's information from NCAA filings, shows that UNC athletics brought in $104 million, yet this article shows revenue as only $39.3 million. They don't explain what the numbers are supposed to mean very well, and I don't know that I trust 247 reporters to really understand finance enough to report accurate numbers.

 

[CuseJacket]

The USA Today has listed a chart for athletic department revenues and expenses for several years. All of the data can be found at: https://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/finances

I don't understand the article posted by @GT_EE78 . The link in the article shows that the ACC distributed a minimum of $27.6 million to each school, yet lists the revenue of WF as $26.7 million. The USA Today report, which gets it's information from NCAA filings, shows that UNC athletics brought in $104 million, yet this article shows revenue as only $39.3 million. They don't explain what the numbers are supposed to mean very well, and I don't know that I trust 247 reporters to really understand finance enough to report accurate numbers.

Yea, I responded quickly to try and get in front of misinterpretations and the years-old default to opinions > data, and my post only raised more questions.

After digging in to this a little more, I think there's some clarity. The 247 article is a weak summarization of another, more substantive article published on Pennlive.com in March 2020. The numbers posted are strictly football revenues i.e., not all sports revenues. The Penn Live article also gets into football expenses and profits. All of this is based on data reported to the U.S. Department of Education.

Which are richest and poorest college football programs? New revenue figures for all 65 Power Five schools

Fresh annual data has just been published by the U.S. Department of Education through its Equity in Athletics Data Analysis. We've listed everyone in the Big Ten, ACC, SEC, Big 12 and Pac-12. Here they are, ranked #65 to #1.

www.pennlive.com

Here's the short, unhelpful blurb re: GT.

#48 Georgia Tech $42.6 million (-19)


Paul Johnson’s triple-option regime came to a weary conclusion with a 7-6 season and listless bowl loss. Yellow Jacket crowds dwindled and the program dove 19 spots from 2017 with a piddly $12.9M profit.

Not sure how much it matters, but in 2018 we played Georgia in Athens and Clemson in Atlanta. Our AA recognizes more ticket revenue during Georgia home years, unless things have changed. Overall attendance visibly appeared down that year though.

 

[GT_EE78]

The USA Today has listed a chart for athletic department revenues and expenses for several years. All of the data can be found at: https://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/finances

I don't understand the article posted by @GT_EE78 . The link in the article shows that the ACC distributed a minimum of $27.6 million to each school, yet lists the revenue of WF as $26.7 million. The USA Today report, which gets it's information from NCAA filings, shows that UNC athletics brought in $104 million, yet this article shows revenue as only $39.3 million. They don't explain what the numbers are supposed to mean very well, and I don't know that I trust 247 reporters to really understand finance enough to report accurate numbers.

and I'm not going to try to explain either as something does look off. 247's is way smaller .maybe it's not really gross revenue after all. Somehow the rankings still look similar with GT at 50th and still 7 ACC teams above and 6 below. the order is different but not by a lot. I'm not going to disagree regarding who to trust.... A&M jumped from 17 to #2 in USA .

edit_ just saw Cuse's post.Thanks - football revenue versus all sports revenue.
Wonder where A&M got theirs if the revenue wasn't from football?

 

[BCJacket]

The Department of Education gathers Athletics revenue and spending data for Title IX compliance. The data lags by a couple years. But every school has to report accurate #s:

Equity in Athletics

ope.ed.gov

 

[ncjacket79]

The Department of Education gathers Athletics revenue and spending data for Title IX compliance. The data lags by a couple years. But every school has to report accurate #s:

Equity in Athletics

ope.ed.gov

But they don necessarily account for expenses the same way as I recall so the margin may be way off. For example is stadium maintenance football expense, allocated to multiple sports or paid by the university?

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

Interesting article. So the timeframe measured spans CPJ’s last season and ends right before Collins’ first.

Does anyone recall how this compares to prior “revenue” rankings? And what makes up gross revenue in this case? My interpretation is that, because this is gross revenue, this does not include expenses e.g, salaries and recruiting. But I recall past discussions highlights a number of loopholes and exceptions to the way $$$ are accounted.

It’s especially confusing because the call out re: GT mentions revenue, profit and spending all at once, even though the article is a ranking on revenue only.

I don't doubt the accuracy of this data, but I do question it's usefulness as a solitary statistic. In this case, ranking revenue and profit, without the rest of the data, is not really a useful tool. How much are we reinvesting into the football program in comparison with our peers is the better question, and I haven't been able to find an updated ranking on that since 2017.

 

[boger2337]

I want to know how much a program spends strictly on football, how much profit they make, and the win column for that year. Is that data not readily available with 6 months after the end of the previous season??? Seems crazy thats not public record to me.

 

[Jerry the Jacket]

From a long term trend standpoint, mid 40's in terms of finances is not to far from our program performance over time. If you look at it most years we fall in the low 30'a to mid 40's in terms of final rankings. Our recruiting efforts align pretty much in this same performance scale. So while there may not be a direct correlation between spending and results, there does seem to be high degree of influence. As someone once said, "it is what it is".

Go Jackets!