Intercollegiate athletics will contribute about $11 million to the U - Twin Cities

Donate To GopherHole
Iceland12

Iceland12

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 12, 2008
Messages
24,450
Reaction score
2,285
Points
113
God Bless the BTN and that TV deal!


Intercollegiate athletics will contribute about $11 million more to the University of Minnesota next year than it will spend, according to a report Wednesday to the Board of Regents..

Brian Burnett, the U’s senior vice president for finance and operations, said athletics will get $10.6 million from the U next year but will return about $21.5 million.The U is allocating $6.9 million to athletics for its general operations and $590,000 for fundraising. It also will cover $3.1 million in costs for nonresident student-athlete tuition, academic support, rules compliance and facilities debt.

Counted among the benefits to the U are $12.6 million the department will pay the U for athlete scholarships and $5.7 million in cost sharing for technology, utilities and other services. There’s also money for police officers, insurance, the marching band and more..

According to the presentation, the football program should net $42.7 million next year, men’s basketball $11.6 million and men’s hockey $2.5 million. All other sports are expected to lose a combined $22.7 million...

Of its $121 million athletics budget, the U is expecting $53.8 million next year from Big Ten and NCAA allocations and media rights. That’s up from $36 million in 2016-17...

https://www.twincities.com/2018/07/...eally-make-money-for-the-umn-leaders-say-yes/
 

This is a very interesting overall topic to me, and hope more people (who are smarter than I am in these topics) will also speak up, if they have anything to share.

As far as I understand it, the money that the Big Ten gives to the U comes mainly from four sources: 1) money the conference receives from the CFP organization (which comes from its massive TV deal with ESPN), 2) money the conference receives from its own TV deals with ESPN, FOX, and the BTN, 3) money the conference receives from other (non-CFP) Bowl games, and 4) money the conference receives from the NCAA for March Madness.

All those huge amounts of money get put into a big pot, and then split 14 ways (though I'm not sure if Maryland and Rutgers are still in a "ramp-up" phase?). That's the Big Ten portion of that $53.8M figure, which I think is a large percentage of it. The NCAA also does give every school in DI some amount of money, directly.
 

For me, this is the most salient part is the following...

Regents Darrin Rosha and Michael Hsu have argued the U’s intercollegiate athletics should be contributing money to the U, not taking it away. They didn’t find Burnett’s accounting entirely persuasive.

Hsu on Wednesday took issue with counting the department’s $12.6 million in scholarship contributions. “If we didn’t have 700 student-athletes, we would have 700 students taking their spot and paying tuition, so I don’t see how those numbers should net out,” he said.
 

PMWinSTP said:
For me, this is the most salient part is the following...

Regents Darrin Rosha and Michael Hsu have argued the U’s intercollegiate athletics should be contributing money to the U, not taking it away. They didn’t find Burnett’s accounting entirely persuasive.

Hsu on Wednesday took issue with counting the department’s $12.6 million in scholarship contributions. “If we didn’t have 700 student-athletes, we would have 700 students taking their spot and paying tuition, so I don’t see how those numbers should net out,” he said.
Click to expand...

I guess it really depends on how the money is flowing? Like If the U is charging the athletics department for the cost of each student-athlete, does the "athlete" part really matter in the book keeping? In that case you're still billing someone/some entity for 700 students, so I'd have to disagree with Hsu in that case. On the other hand, if the U is just waiving some or all of the costs for the student-athletes, then I do agree with his point of view.

Iceland12 said:
God Bless the BTN and that TV deal!

There’s also money for police officers, insurance, the marching band and more..
Click to expand...

This would be fantastic. During my time in the band, it seemed like the athletics department only wanted to pay for bowl game travel, and even then some of the bowl games we were worried they would want to save money and only bring part of us/not bring us at all. If this indeed true, I've glad the athletics department is starting to support the band more.
 

I'd really like to see (well have someone go through it for me) the accounting for all this. I don't think every school does it the same and I suspect it is hella complex.
 


swelna said:
I guess it really depends on how the money is flowing? Like If the U is charging the athletics department for the cost of each student-athlete, does the "athlete" part really matter in the book keeping? In that case you're still billing someone/some entity for 700 students, so I'd have to disagree with Hsu in that case. On the other hand, if the U is just waiving some or all of the costs for the student-athletes, then I do agree with his point of view.



This would be fantastic. During my time in the band, it seemed like the athletics department only wanted to pay for bowl game travel, and even then some of the bowl games we were worried they would want to save money and only bring part of us/not bring us at all. If this indeed true, I've glad the athletics department is starting to support the band more.
Click to expand...

The point is that those dollars are merely paying tuition, like any other student would for that education, not actually additional dollars the U is realizing. If it was not being paid, it would be considered a loss because that student spot could have gone to a paying student.
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
I'd really like to see (well have someone go through it for me) the accounting for all this. I don't think every school does it the same and I suspect it is hella complex.
Click to expand...

There actually are rules and standards that are required in accounting for all the expenses and revenue.
 

PMWinSTP said:
The point is that those dollars are merely paying tuition, like any other student would for that education, not actually additional dollars the U is realizing. If it was not being paid, it would be considered a loss because that student spot could have gone to a paying student.
Click to expand...
Ah, yes I was thinking about it wrong, you are correct

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk
 

Gophers_4life said:
All those huge amounts of money get put into a big pot, and then split 14 ways (though I'm not sure if Maryland and Rutgers are still in a "ramp-up" phase?). That's the Big Ten portion of that $53.8M figure, which I think is a large percentage of it.
Click to expand...

Rutgers and Maryland will each get their full share starting in the 2020-21 season. I think the 2017-18 season was when Nebraska finally got a full share.

One minor correction...once Maryland and Rutgers start receiving their full share the pot will get split 15 ways. The B1G keeps a share to finance conference operations.
 



PMWinSTP said:
There actually are rules and standards that are required in accounting for all the expenses and revenue.
Click to expand...

So in general sense you're right.... that doesn't mean your numbers and my numbers will be comparable for any given time period.
 

PMWinSTP said:
The point is that those dollars are merely paying tuition, like any other student would for that education, not actually additional dollars the U is realizing. If it was not being paid, it would be considered a loss because that student spot could have gone to a paying student.
Click to expand...

This is a massive point. If you take away that $12.6M from the $21.5M figure that the athletics dept is "giving back" to the school ... now you're suddenly looking at a "deficit", relative to what the school is giving to the athletics dept.

Does this seem like accounting tricks and smoke and mirrors, to anyone else?

Article in PioPress: https://www.twincities.com/2018/07/...eally-make-money-for-the-umn-leaders-say-yes/



umnhcky said:
Rutgers and Maryland will each get their full share starting in the 2020-21 season. I think the 2017-18 season was when Nebraska finally got a full share.

One minor correction...once Maryland and Rutgers start receiving their full share the pot will get split 15 ways. The B1G keeps a share to finance conference operations.
Click to expand...

Thank you for the correction on splitting 15 ways, instead of 14!

So an interesting question: if these revenue streams remain roughly flat, then we should be expecting the yearly deposit from the Big Ten to actually drop off a bit as we go towards 2020-21?
 

PMWinSTP said:
For me, this is the most salient part is the following...

Regents Darrin Rosha and Michael Hsu have argued the U’s intercollegiate athletics should be contributing money to the U, not taking it away. They didn’t find Burnett’s accounting entirely persuasive.

Hsu on Wednesday took issue with counting the department’s $12.6 million in scholarship contributions. “If we didn’t have 700 student-athletes, we would have 700 students taking their spot and paying tuition, so I don’t see how those numbers should net out,” he said.
Click to expand...

It's funny accounting however you look at it. If you believe that the U of M could cancel all athletic programs and still be sitting in a position to fill those last 700 slots with out of state tuition your fooling yourself. The athletic department is part of the overall marketing of the university to prospective students and not having one would be impactful. If I ask you to give me a ride to work, then pay you $10 and then require you pay me $5 back. My cost of the ride is $5. I can say that the cost of the ride is $10 and I could have talked someone else into giving me $5 but that doesn't pass the sniff test.
 

You don’t think 700 more people applied to the U than were accepted?? And that’s just in one year.
 



Gophers_4life said:
You don’t think 700 more people applied to the U than were accepted?? And that’s just in one year.
Click to expand...

My point was you wouldn't have a surplus of applicants WITHOUT an athletic program. Wisconsin was a party school that let everyone in 30 years ago. They built their brand as a University largely around success on the field of their revenue sports. I looked up a few statistics but one that jumped out was in 1988 only 68% of all the kids enrolled came from the top 25% of their high school class. That number today is 88%. Which means selectivity is up drastically.
 

You must log in or register to reply here.



Top Bottom