athletic department

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/magic-nick-saban-everyone-wants-alabama-155022258.html

An interesting read about revenue changes at Alabama corrrelated with Nick Saban becoming the coach.  Athletic department revenue went up by 11.7 million.  Tuition revenue increased by 58 million (mostly from increases in tuition and enrollment from out of state students).  Nick Saban only costs 5.3 million (in money).  Selling your soul in the name of football can, in fact, pay well. 

The Michigan-relevant takeaway would be that a successful athletic program generates a lot of income for the school.  That conclusion is obvious, but seeing it in print is nice.  It's also nice to have a retort for your friend who is convinced that schools waste money on football.

US News rankings for rough perspective: Michigan 29, Rutgers 68, Michigan State 72, Delaware 75, Alabama 77.  The student in the article, who is from Long Island, cares more about Alabama and Delaware than Rutgers; read into that what you will.

Per Kyle Meinke, the Athletic Department has sent out a flier detailing which Block M's are and aren't right. A lot of people here knew about the Split M, but here's the official guide.

Not every block M was created equal. What is and isn't approved, per the U twitter.com/kmeinke/status…

— Kyle Meinke (@kmeinke) February 28, 2013

What's funny is that Yost and Crisler have "incorrect" Block M's

So after hearing about MSU's Mark Hollis complaining at MSED about his apparent lack of budget, it was surprising to see this article in this week's issue of SBJ

http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2011/08/22/In-Depth/Budgets.aspx?hl=Athletic%20Department%20Budgets&sc=0 (Paywall)

In a feature story on college atheltics (which is very interesting from the 'brand' perspective...), SBJ lays out the AD budgets for all schools in major conferences.  Of note is the big ten, where Michigan ranks second behind only Ohio State.  

2012 Big Ten AD Budgets

1.) Ohio State - 126.5 Million

2) Michigan - 109.8 Million

3) Penn State - 92.0 Million

4) Wisconsin - 88.1 Million

5) Nebraska - 79.1 Million 

6) Michigan State - 78.8 Million

7) Minnesota - 78.6 Million

8) Iowa - 74.9 Million

9) Illinois - 70.2 Million

10) Purdue - 68.7 Million

11) Indiana - 61.5 Million

12) Northwestern - N/A

So Mr. Hollis does in fact have at least half of UM's AD budget (though its still a fairly significant gap). 

Other interseting takeaways:

- Michigan's AD budget growth over the three year period (FY2010 - FY2012) was 29.8% (84.6 Million to 109.8 Million), which does prove that the big house renovations are really paying off

- Michigan's AD budget is the third largest in the country, behind only Texas (153.5 Million!), and Ohio State (126.5 Million).

- Every school in the Big Ten has experienced posive budget growth over the three year period.

Lastly, here's a great article on the success of branding in college athletics, which is sure to piss everyone off.

http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2011/08/22/In-Depth/Branding.aspx

Ed-M: Bumped

Perhaps you, like I have wondered which Michigan sports teams have been the most successful over the past couple of decades. We all remember the national championships (well most of them anyhow), but does that success translate to the sort of consistent success needed to be considered the Champions of the Champions of the West?

Starting in the 1993-94 academic year, the National Association of College Directors of Athletics (NACDA) began its Directors' Cup program. Using Directors' Cup points data, I quantified the performance over the past 18 years for each of Michigan's 27 varsity sports.

The first table shows teams ordered by average NACDA points earned since academic year 1993-94.

Notes:

1. The numerator in average points is the total Directors' Cup points accumulated by a given sport.
2. Since NACDA caps the number of mens and womens sports a school can use toward the cup at 10 per each year, there are some years where Michigan teams placed high enough to earn points but no points were awarded. In such cases, I credited those teams with the same number of points awarded to other schools with identical place finishes.
3. The denominator in average points is equal to the number of years in which MIchigan competed in the given sport. For most, that's 18 years. For some, it's fewer (e.g., Men's Soccer, 11 years).
4. In 1997-98, the maximum points awarded for a championship was increased from 64 to 100. I did not adjust up scores from the earlier era because NACDA's formulas are based on the number of schools participating in NCAA regional and finals championships and those numbers have changed for numerous sports over the years. As such, I decided it was better to keep the points awarded consistent with NACDA data.
5. In 1997-98 NACDA awarded Michigan 2nd place points for (then) I-A Football. I adjusted that to 1st place points and awarded them 100 vice 80 points.

With all that in mind, here are the results in tabular form:

Women's Gymnastics, Men's Swimming, Men's Wrestling, and Men's Ice Hockey lead the pack.

Chart? Chart.

In addition to the average points metric, I looked at performance year-to-year. Here are a few examples of top performing programs and one that has had some struggles.

Note: The 1995-96 Natl Championship team earned 64 points while the 1997-98 Natl Championship team earned 100 points.

Yes, Football earned NACDA points last season.

Brutal. Just brutal.

(Much more after the jump.)

Not a whole lot of new ground here, but Adam Rittenberg gets an interview with David Brandon about "branding" and the Michigan athletic department.

http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post/_/id/29096/michigan-ad-dave-brandon-talks-branding

Money quote for me:

People want Michigan to be on the national stage. They want us to be innovative. They want us to embrace our traditions -- and I do, I'm a part of that tradition -- but I also believe there's a lot of people that want us to be fresh and to be competitive, not just on the field through performance but also in the way we present our program to the nation.

I occasionally read Business of College Sports by Kristi Dosh.  While she could have a stronger grasp on accounting rules, she isn't bad and takes a good look at stuff like budgets, revenues, and tv deals for college sports.

Below is a link for today's article about Michigan's Facilities Expenses over the last ~10 years. It's an cool inside-look, if only for the table with expenses and donations per line item.