Big Ten vs SEC: Sports Revenue

but to say that basketball brings in a lot of revenue is, I think, not all too accurate.  Football crushes all in terms of revenue.  I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I've heard that at most schools Football is what pays for "all" other sports, other than basketball which does bring in a bit of revenue.  

The reason it's hard for their revenue to be high is 1) the crowds that attend games are so much smaller and 2) they have so many more games and traveling is expensive.

Basketball generally brakes even when it comes to revenue.  The payoff for home games barely covers the team's expenses. 

Football on the other hand banks 5+ million per home game.  The revenue is significantly higher for football and that money is used to pay for 24 or so other sport that lose money.

Her footnote essentially negates the whole point of her article.  

"An official within an SEC athletic department provided me with the following qualifications to the data: ”For instance, some institutions may report debt service associated with their football stadium as direct football expenses, while others may show debt service as Other, Non-sport specific.  The same goes for game day security, parking, cleanup, etc. which some may show as direct football expenses, while others may show as facilities costs – not directly attributed to football.  I do believe total revenue and expense numbers are comparable, but when you break down the numbers into categories there is a lot of leeway for variances between institutions.”"

Essentially, her argument is that the SEC out earns the Big 10 in football, but acknowledges the Big 10's supremacy in total sports revenues.  Then she notes that really only total revenues and expenses are comparable, i.e., the category where the Big 10 blows away the SEC.  

While I agree the report is somewhat biased. I believe her numbers are correct. She does not omit BTN $ completely. It's simply that it's ONLY counted in the aggregate numbers. So, football specific revenue (and comparisons) does not reflect BTN $, but on the whole it's accounted for.

Another factor that will alter these numbers moving forward is the rapid growth in BTN revenue. While the payout to the Big Ten schools was $72M for 2009, the networks profitability doubled the following and should see similar growth this year. That's going to add up to a LOT more $ in the AD's hands.

If Big Ten teams had won the last five national championships, we'd be doing the exact same thing.  Don't kid yourself.  Heck, we try to trumpet our "academic superiority," knowing full well that we prostitute ourselves to let in athletes every bit as much as they do.  

your work allows you to look at MGoBlog but not Forbes?

sounds like a very business minded enterprise.

She noted that the numbers were from July 2009-June 2010, so only focuses on the 2009 football season. She also acknowledged the discrepancy between the number of schools in each conference.

I think it would be interesting to look at numbers from multiple years, to get a more complete picture, rather than just a little snapshot of one season.

UM is notoriously cheap with paying its coaches.  Spending >$1 mil for a DC is almost unprecedented in Ann Arbor.  Also, we don't pay players or have to pay for upkeep on borrowed dealership vehicles.

Here's the truth:

1.  Where you go to college has a very minor impact on your future career/earnings.  The distinction between flagship public universities (like say, Michigan vs. Alabama) is even smaller.  The best high school students in Alabama mostly attend UA, just as the best students in Michigan mostly attend U-M.  Ditto for Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas.

2.  The SEC isn't on top because of some random  "cycle."  There are cultural and population factors that work in their favor.  High school football is enormously popular in the South, leading to much greater participation.  There is also a much larger African-American population in the South than anywhere else.  As the South's population grows proportionately faster than that of the country as a whole (and especially faster than the Midwest/Northeast), the SEC's recruiting advantage only grow stronger.

3.  Our athletic department is currently $170 million in debt, as a result of the stadium renovation.  If we're "spending less money," that's just a bunch of bookkeeping shenanigans.

The SEC is the best college football conference now, and probably will remain so in the future.  There may be the occasional season in which it isn't, but those will be fluke occurrences.  There's no point in denying this or denigrating them; it's just how it is.  If anything, it works to our advantage, because we are a rare Northern school with the national profile to survive in the 21st century - and our conference competition is weaker than SEC schools'.