Yesterday there was a really great article about the 140 most profitable programs in college athletics, compiled by the SportsBizzMiss, Kristi Dosh. She put together a basic list of revenue minus expenses to take a look at the most profitable programs in American collegiate athletics. Not surprisingly, football and basketball dominated the list, with Texas football reigning champion by a considerable margin.
Make sure to click through the link above - it's a great article and a ton of great work by Dosh. Keep in mind that these numbers are from 2009.
The most interesting thing to me?
Not only is Louisville basketball the most profitable basketball program in the country, it’s more profitable than the football program at any Big East school. It’s also more profitable than any football program in the ACC or Pac-10! Keep in mind, these numbers were for the season before Louisville basketball began play in a new arena.
Incredible - and really opens your eyes to the struggles of the Big East. Or maybe Louisville is just doing that well.
Villanova on the other hand, landed at 117th (ahead of both Boston College football and basketball AND Rutgers football). They took in just over $7.5 million while spending just over $6 million for about a $1.5 million profit. This is going to spark another post from me, but for the time being I'll just say that I'm a bit shocked that our expenses are that close to our revenue.
I was under the impression we did a bit better in terms of profit - I'd love to see a breakdown of those numbers. I know for a fact we don't sell a ton of merchandise, but I'm wondering if our splits for games at the Wells Fargo Center are not as great as I imagined. It's also hard to believe that the television revenue is included in these numbers, unless we're splitting that number across all our sports for some reason.