Tuesday, April 12, 2016

University Transfers to Big Time Athletic Departments: Subsidy or Investment?

As promised, here are the NCAA Division 1 schools (from the database of athletics department budgets for 201 schools provided by The Chronicle of Higher Education) with the lowest reported subsidies to athletics.

The table includes all schools with a reported subsidy (defined as the sum of student fees and institutional transfers) of less than 20% of the athletics department's revenues. There are 45 schools that make the cut. Of these, 9 have a reported subsidy of less than $1 million (which translates to less than 1% of total athletics revenues) and 16 others are less than 5%.

Almost all of these schools are part of the so-called Power 5 conferences where there is big time athletics and big time money.

If you want to redefine what The Chronicle calls a "subsidy" intro what might otherwise be called an "investment," then each of these schools show a return of at least 500% ($5 for every $1 invested) on funds invested into athletics. At the top end of schools that receive such "investments" the return is 500 to 1 (Michigan). In any department on campus such ROI numbers would cause administrators to smile.

A decision to call such funds "subsidies" or "investments" is probably based on how one views the overall worth of college athletes beyond just dollars and cents.  Here are the numbers:
institution subsidy as % of athletics spending external revenue subsidy
156 Oregon State University 19.4% $51,016,341 $12,285,453
157 University of Colorado Boulder 19.0% $52,017,285 $12,209,473
158 Washington State University 18.6% $44,322,180 $10,104,638
159 University of Utah 17.5% $46,608,204 $9,862,106
160 University of Virginia-Main Campus 15.8% $70,462,157 $13,235,814
161 Arizona State University-Tempe 13.5% $64,656,064 $10,073,205
162 Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University 11.1% $64,954,358 $8,110,828
163 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 10.8% $74,693,320 $9,078,593
164 Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus 10.4% $61,361,761 $7,107,777
165 North Carolina State University at Raleigh 9.5% $63,792,160 $6,708,651
166 University of Louisville 8.8% $80,976,749 $7,768,599
167 University of Arizona 7.9% $92,009,900 $7,901,134
168 Florida State University 7.6% $96,794,108 $7,980,366
169 University of Minnesota-Twin Cities 6.6% $99,165,090 $7,011,066
170 Oklahoma State University-Main Campus 6.4% $110,281,827 $7,521,475
171 University of Wisconsin-Madison 6.3% $119,837,558 $8,073,360
172 Clemson University 5.9% $70,417,577 $4,375,745
173 University of South Carolina-Columbia 5.7% $92,987,503 $5,631,976
174 University of California-Berkeley 5.5% $85,279,969 $4,982,173
175 Texas Tech University 5.3% $72,636,657 $4,086,756
176 University of Mississippi 5.1% $71,962,577 $3,886,423
177 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 4.9% $76,921,197 $3,927,372
178 Mississippi State University 4.3% $59,625,111 $2,650,000
179 The University of Alabama 3.9% $147,237,173 $5,997,100
180 Auburn University 3.9% $109,331,204 $4,384,800
181 Indiana University-Bloomington 3.6% $81,660,417 $3,008,362
182 University of Washington-Seattle Campus 3.5% $96,725,508 $3,549,679
183 University of Florida 3.5% $120,302,863 $4,308,442
184 University of Georgia 3.2% $100,220,875 $3,274,712
185 University of California-Los Angeles 3.1% $83,715,508 $2,711,272
186 Iowa State University 2.9% $66,212,985 $1,957,396
187 University of Kansas 2.6% $95,116,692 $2,564,374
188 University of Arkansas 2.0% $94,857,567 $1,936,405
189 University of Missouri-Columbia 1.8% $82,203,587 $1,515,000
190 University of Oregon 1.1% $193,875,299 $2,155,099
191 Michigan State University 1.0% $103,582,498 $1,094,958
192 Texas A & M University-College Station 1.0% $118,234,414 $1,241,457
193 University of Kentucky 0.9% $95,823,941 $861,548
194 University of Iowa 0.6% $105,275,037 $683,917
195 University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 0.2% $157,643,504 $256,316
196 Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College 0.0% $133,679,256 $0
196 Ohio State University-Main Campus 0.0% $145,232,681 $0
196 Purdue University-Main Campus 0.0% $71,372,206 $0
196 University of Nebraska-Lincoln 0.0% $94,797,692 $0
196 University of Oklahoma-Norman Campus 0.0% $129,226,692 $0
196 The University of Texas at Austin 0.0% $161,035,182 $0

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