A smattering of opinions on technology, books, business, and culture. Now in its 4th technology iteration.
10 December 2005
The Sports Economist turned me onto this Daily Bruin article which further pointed me towards the raw data. Interesting stuff. I’ve summarized below the total athletic department revenues, football revenues, football expenses, and net football contribution for the BCS bowl participants and near-miss participants, sorted by football revenues:
| _ | Total Athletic | Football | Football | Net Football | _ | School | Revenues | Revenues | Expenses | Contribution | Texas | $89.7M | $53.2M | $14.5M | $38.7M | Ohio State | 89.7 | 51.8 | 25.7 | 26.1 | Georgia | 68.8 | 50.9 | 12.5 | 38.4 | Notre Dame | 57.6 | 41.8 | 15.1 | 26.7 | Auburn | 50.9 | 40.6 | 16.4 | 24.2 | LSU | 60.9 | 39.7 | 12.1 | 27.6 | Penn State | 60.8 | 33.2 | 10.7 | 22.5 | USC | 60.7 | 29.3 | 16.7 | 12.6 | Virginia Tech | 45.7 | 25.3 | 13.8 | 11.5 | Florida State | 39.0 | 18.3 | 9.1 | 9.2 | Miami | 39.8 | 17.2 | 10.7 | 6.5 | West Virginia | 35.9 | 17.2 | 11.3 | 5.9 | Oregon | 40.1 | 16.8 | 9.5 | 7.3 |
What observations do I make?
* This is a big business, and getting bigger. * There is a dramatic difference between the top and bottom revenue producers in just this list, and this is the cream of the crop. The bottom tier Div1A schools are way behind * Ohio State players must be sleeping on silk sheets and eating Kobe beef at every meal. (Note that there are a lot of uncategorized revenues and expenses at every school so this could be just a matter of different approaches to cost and revenue allocation) * Texas and Ohio State are the revenue goliaths. * West Virginia is the model of efficiency – great results on a (relative) shoestring. Cost of living must be low in Morgantown. * USC needs to hire someone to focus on their business. How can they have the on field results and the brand they have, and yet be so far behind in revenue generation?