Median FCS vs. Median FBS Financials

[Lehigh Football Nation]

http://lehighfootballnation.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-one-where-dan-wolken-gets-me-to.html

Dan Wolken's tweets made me put to paper the real analysis of the "median" FCS financials vs. the "median" FBS financials.

[DFW HOYA]

Wolken's numbers are skewed, because "athletic revenues" can include subsidies.

The top 10 by athletic department "revenues":
$37,669,540 Pennsylvania
$37,384,376 Yale
$35,247,420 Old Dominion
$34,595,224 James Madison
$33,536,264 Georgetown
$30,934,100 Villanova
$30,289,714 Liberty
$27,926,304 Lehigh
$26,281,522 Texas State
$25,580,386 Delaware

And the bottom 10:
$7,485,721 North Carolina A&T
$7,367,989 Nicholls State
$7,206,520 Alabama A&M
$6,955,233 Grambling State
$6,698,587 Prairie View A&M
$6,569,097 Southern
$6,527,367 Arkansas-Pine Bluff
$6,301,623 Alcorn State
$5,375,359 Jackson State
$4,643,265 Mississippi Valley State

[FCS_pwns_FBS]

I agree that the statistic Wolken cites comparing revenues is very spurious, but making such a crude comparison of expenses at both levels is essentially committing the same fallacy. Obviously adding major BCS schools in counting expenses or revenues will skew the numbers and not paint a clear picture for the FBS mid-majors. How do major FCS programs stack up against the bottom quartile of FBS in terms of budget deficits? That's what I'd like to know

Also, talking about student fees subsidizing athletics is misleading as well. Georgia Southern raised its athletic fee for the 14-15 academic year to fund the FBS move. The burden of the extra money is spread over 20,000+ students and our athletic fee will still be very average and GSU will still a relatively affordable school. I'm not even sure App. will need to raise fees at all, and if they do, and they also have a large enrollment to help.

Not that GSU or App. are moving to FBS to make a ton of money, anyways.