Football Revenues at I-AA vs I-A

[Ronbo]

Was checking out this site and found some interesting figures. Didn't have a chance to look at everyone so I listed a few I-A's that you would think were bigger time programs.

http://ope.ed.gov/athletics/Search.asp

2005 Football Revenues

Montana I-AA $5,834,632
Delaware I-AA $4,770,228
Colorado State $3,445,782
Marshall $5,422,949
James Madison I-AA $2,913,120
Boise State $3,942,425
Idaho $1,996,166
Hawaii $5,164,810
Northern Illinois $2,267,048
Bowling Green $2,374,803
Youngstown State I-AA $1,225,069
Cincinnati $5,238,462
New Mexico $6,875,650
UNLV $2,597,623
Nevada $2,471,430
Southern Miss. $4,969,368
Louisiana Tech $2,879,053
Southern I-AA $2,720,000
Washington State $9,904,767
Utah State $1,867,704
Texas State I-AA $446,909
North Texas $1,430,676
TCU $7,814,061
Baylor $6,500,150
Houston $3,073,861
East Carolina $5,360,281
Duke $7,727,680
Montana State I-AA $3,131,166
Troy State $3,512,268
Grambling I-AA $1,308,151

[pitpen]

Makes you wonder what Delaware would have made.

==Moderator Edited: Please do not post smack on the discussion board==

[youwouldno]

I wonder about the numbers on that site, insofar as it seems like there is a fudge factor where schools can list revenue as "not allocated," which I don't fully understand. The figures for some programs seem odd. Also, scholarship money can count as both expense and revenue.

Furman reported football revenues of $3.7 million; I believe a portion of that is the 'revenue' from scholarship donations.

[TexasTerror]

Montana I-AA $5,834,632
Delaware I-AA $4,770,228
James Madison I-AA $2,913,120
Southern I-AA $2,720,000
Montana State I-AA $3,131,166
Grambling I-AA $1,308,151

Guess the 'Classics' aren't working out for Grambling as they are for Southern, but even then those pesky playoff schools who don't do the 'Classic' circuit that are considered elite 'I-AAs' have about twice as much revenue than Grambling...:bow:

I figured it'd be the other way around since the 'Classics' are supposed to generate the $$$ for these programs...

[colgate13]

Furman reported football revenues of $3.7 million; I believe a portion of that is the 'revenue' from scholarship donations.

Yup.

It's a fun site to use, and you can make some generalizations and comparisons from it, but you have to take it with a grain of salt. That is data reported by the colleges and accounting methods vary.

[Tealblood]

These numbers are pretty much a waste of time to use as a comparison. For instance do Montatna people have to pay money to a booster club for the right to buy certain tickets and get better parking.

The numbers mean what each individual school is doing relative to its accounting methods in our case we have to legally do the accounting the way the state of SC says we do which is different form Furman(private) or Ga Southern (state of Ga.)

All in all the numbers are fun to argue about but pretty worthless

And yes I remember that App St. beat the crap out of us 30-3

[SUjagTILLiDIE]

Guess the 'Classics' aren't working out for Grambling as they are for Southern, but even then those pesky playoff schools who don't do the 'Classic' circuit that are considered elite 'I-AAs' have about twice as much revenue than Grambling...:bow:

I figured it'd be the other way around since the 'Classics' are supposed to generate the $$$ for these programs...
Grambling and Southern makes well over a million a peice on the Bayou Classic alone. Southern also has the highest ticket prices in 1-aa while being 3rd in average attendence. Those numbers look a little off. TT get you some buisness.

[tsutiger]

Guess the 'Classics' aren't working out for Grambling as they are for Southern, but even then those pesky playoff schools who don't do the 'Classic' circuit that are considered elite 'I-AAs' have about twice as much revenue than Grambling...:bow:

I figured it'd be the other way around since the 'Classics' are supposed to generate the $$$ for these programs...

Texas Terror,

Come on bro. Use common sense. Obviously the numbers reported by Grambling are incorrect. They make that much from the Bayoo alone. Also consider they played 1A WSU, who paid them around 400K, then you got homecoming. Those three games are easily over 2 million in revenue.

[Ronbo]

They must allocate monies made in the accounting process. For instance Montana's concessions go to the University and not the Athletic Department. I don't think parking does either. So concessions and parking are not counted towards Football income. Grambling must only pay the Football program a portion of the income from the games and uses the rest towards the University. For instance Grambling might make $5 million from games and only pays the Football Program $1.3 million for accounting purposes.

[JoshUCA]

In the 2004-2005 year, UCA (D-II) brought in more Net Income than ANY other university in the state of Arkansas (including all D-IA & D-IAA). UCA had a Net Income of $4,221,223, while the University of Arkansas was next with a net of $1,406,082! The information came from Here (http://www.arkansasbusiness.com/news/print_editions/ab_sports_finances05.pdf). There is a story Here (http://www.arkansasbusiness.com/news/article.asp?aid=43008). Hopefully we can keep this up during our transition to D-IAA!

[TexasTerror]

They must allocate monies made in the accounting process. For instance Montana's concessions go to the University and not the Athletic Department. I don't think parking does either. So concessions and parking are not counted towards Football income. Grambling must only pay the Football program a portion of the income from the games and uses the rest towards the University. For instance Grambling might make $5 million from games and only pays the Football Program $1.3 million for accounting purposes.

Exactly...the money isn't always heading right back into the athletic department. At some schools, it may help pay for the President's house and all the landscaping they do there, atleast that's the way it seems at one I-AA school...:nono:

[JoshUCA]

Although, according to the number on the link in the first post UCA only made $1,389,107...and the U of A's number is still the same...so it must be some of the stuff that ya'll are talking about. so is the $1,389,107 what actually went to the Athletic department and the other 3,000,000 went elsewhere??? I don't know but I like the 4 million dollar number better!:smiley_wi

[grizband]

These numbers are pretty much a waste of time to use as a comparison. For instance do Montatna people have to pay money to a booster club for the right to buy certain tickets and get better parking.

The numbers mean what each individual school is doing relative to its accounting methods in our case we have to legally do the accounting the way the state of SC says we do which is different form Furman(private) or Ga Southern (state of Ga.)

All in all the numbers are fun to argue about but pretty worthless

And yes I remember that App St. beat the crap out of us 30-3
Yes, we do.

[Ronbo]

Yes, we do.

Between the 40's seats are required to pay a yearly fee that's pretty large to the GSA. Any Griz fan have that number? From the 20 yard line to the 40 yard line, it's smaller, $150 a seat plus your $170 season ticket. So to sit between the 20 and 40 it's $53 per seat a game for a six home game season. If you sit between the 40's it considerably higher.

[*****]

Guess the 'Classics' aren't working out for Grambling as they are for Southern, but even then those pesky playoff schools who don't do the 'Classic' circuit that are considered elite 'I-AAs' have about twice as much revenue than Grambling...:bow:
I figured it'd be the other way around since the 'Classics' are supposed to generate the $$$ for these programs...The money goes to a general fund and is used to run the entire school. We discussed this at length with Prof. J. Kenyatta Cavil on I-AA WAVES last month.

[TexasTerror]

The money goes to a general fund and is used to run the entire school. We discussed this at length with Prof. J. Kenyatta Cavil on I-AA WAVES last month.

This is a huge issue in itself...

I know many schools give a great deal if not all of their paydays (outside of what is used to get to said locations, etc) back to the university general fund.

That is probably what hurts the overall SWAC athletic program (the SWAC is 4-36 this year against Div I competition in baseball according to WarrenNolan.com) and many other of the low-major conferences across the board in the non-major sports.

Football needs to be the $$$ generator to keep the programs afloat and help out the lesser programs...

[JaxSinfonian]

Different accounting methods do indeed make these numbers hard to use for comparison's sake, as Tealblood said.

For example, all you'll learn from Jax State's numbers is what the Gamecocks spend. The football revenue listed - $1,712,943 - is exactly the same as the expenses, and it's exactly the same every year. So is the athletic department exactly breaking even every year? Not hardly.

Essentially, they're not reporting athletic revenue. Ticket revenue, etc., is simply counted as part of the university's overall revenue. The school then allocates to athletics an amount to exactly cover what it spends, It's a rather sinple way to keep from saying how much JSU "loses" on sports.

There's an argument for this - if you consider athletics to be a valid part of the university's mission, why subject it to financial scrutiny and accountability that you wouldn't require for, say, the theater department? And if you don't consider it a valid part of the mission, why are you doing it to begin with? Of course, that's an easy argument (for a sports fan or administrator) to make if the athletic department isn't bringing in enough money to cover what it spends.

It also helps to keep the "loss" JSU takes on sports - football in particular - out of view of those who are hostile to athletics, football in particular. The downside is, it also hides the extent to which sports actually pays for itself. If the athletic department ever actually does "turn a profit" will we hear about it? Seems like they'd want to brag, but then they might get some questions about how much they "lost" in previous years.

[tsutiger]

Exactly...the money isn't always heading right back into the athletic department. At some schools, it may help pay for the President's house and all the landscaping they do there, atleast that's the way it seems at one I-AA school...:nono:

Exactly, my ash. Bottom line you tried to hate on the G'Men. Basically saying, they don't go to the playoffs because they say they make more money by playing in classics, but most of these playoff schools made more money then Gram. I'm a CPA. Freak the accounting, and how "REVENUE was allocated". Bottom line if you used a little common sense you wouldn't have posted that bullshat. You don't have to be an account to see that Gram's number are wrong. How do you allocate REVENUE earned from a football game as being EARNED by the Science department?

[darussian12]

At some schools, it may help pay for the President's house and all the landscaping they do there, atleast that's the way it seems at one I-AA school...

hey TT im gonna go out on out a limb and guess you're talking about that fine University in SM considering how often you let the world know there's no lost love there :-) ...but then again i could be wrong if they do such things at Sam :smiley_wi

[DUPFLFan]

Drake University

Football Revenues $120,007
Football Expenses $626,860

That's why no scholarships....

[TexasTerror]

hey TT im gonna go out on out a limb and guess you're talking about that fine University in SM considering how often you let the world know there's no lost love there :-) ...but then again i could be wrong if they do such things at Sam :smiley_wi

No, referring to the "other" TSU, the one in Houston...

The university President used $$$ "mistakenly" on her own house landscaping. It's been front page news in Houston because she's a pretty solid President that has quite a few issues keeping track of her $$$ and hiring people who have issues with the feds related to their $$$ spending and accounting over the years...

I was joking that this individual used some of that 'Classic' money to pay for her landscaping at home...I mean, if money is not going back to the athletic department, it has got to go somewhere, right? :p