OT'ish: SEC Made $527M in Fiscal 2015

Submitted by 608Monroe on

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/2016/01/19/sec-tax-return-college-football-playoff-sec-network-mike-slive/79006606/

This is absolutely crazy, especially when you consider the B1G made $157M.  I get that the SEC (particularly 'Bama/Florida) have paved a recent "success" path for the rest of college football, but I would have never guessed the huge contrast in revenues.

That being said, huge props to Mike Slive who ran an amazing ship in the conference, and exhibited some serious leadership.  Not bad for a dude who was the associate director of Dartmouth not that long ago.  

Of course, all of this is easy to say when you have a Saban.

EDIT 1: Greg Sankey is the first year Commissioner at the SEC.  Should make that clear.  My point being Slive built an infrastructure.

EDIT 2:  The $157M B1G revenue referenced above isn't a fair apples to apples comparison, since B1G itself shows a $32M per team distrubution (which doesn't include Rutgers/Maryland yet, nor a full-share to Nebraska yet).   Thus the real number sits somewhere between $350-400M given Nebraska's partial share.

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ak47

January 21st, 2016 at 1:35 PM ^

People need to stop comparing Harbaugh to Saban.  I know we love the guy but Saban has won national championship at 2 different schools and 4 out of the last six.  Harbaugh has never been to a national championship game.  They aren't anywhere close. You can argue Harbaugh is in the next tier, but Saban has a tier all to himself.

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Yinka Double Dare

January 21st, 2016 at 1:25 PM ^

"This is absolutely crazy, especially when you consider the B1G made $157M."

The B1G made a hell of a lot more than that, they distributed 32 million a team in 2015, and expected to be 35-ish this year, so their rev numbers are probably pretty similar to the SEC.

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LSAClassOf2000

January 21st, 2016 at 1:41 PM ^

To add a bit, I think that the revenue estimates with the new television agreement which is likely forthcoming will eventually (within a few years) put the per team share at something north of $40 million, possibly $45 million depending on whose numbers you prefer to use. $50 million in subscriber revenue from the NYC area (Time Warner and Cablevision) and the 20% bump in ad revenue that came with it will do that, at least in part.

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bluebyyou

January 21st, 2016 at 2:24 PM ^

Why would it make you uncomfortable?  At Michigan, a couple of sports and generous donors support  the vast majority of the roughly 30 other programs that lose money.  On top of that, the athletic department is separate and apart from the academic side of the University and is completely self-supporting.

The problem is that there are only about two dozen schools that run their athletic programs in the black and often are subsidized by student activity fees.

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bluebyyou

January 21st, 2016 at 3:44 PM ^

As an OOS parent, it cost me about 60K per year to send both of my sons to Michigan to get degrees from the college of engineering.

That's roughly a quarter of a million per kid to attend.  On top of that, studies have shown that, depending on the conference, between 100K and 200K per year is spent on each player's development.

While I'm not against a relatively small stipend for parents to be able to visit once or twice a year to see their kids play in game as was suggested but got bounced down by the courts, when I look at the numbers, I don't share your feelings that athletes aren't fairly treated for the hard work they do in athletics.

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somewittyname

January 21st, 2016 at 2:59 PM ^

Could be that all that money is generated on the notion of "amateurism" and the "student athlete." I of course take no issue with notion of a varsity student athlete--it spans back well before anyone thought insane amounts of money could be made off it and was founded on the principle, uniquely American, that there was non-monetary value in athletics that was appropriate for the collegiate setting.

There are now just endless examples of how absurd NCAA sports have become from recruiting to EA Sports video games to age/class year restrictions on turning professional. And there are endless examples of how the NCAA is completely powerless to control its own organization.

Of course it's all still incredibly fun to watch, but the NCAA jumped the shark decades ago. The evolution from amateur to professional has been slow with conferences and the NCAA putting up as much resistance as they can bare, but the money always wins out. Now of  for every Jim Calhoun, John Calapari, and Larry Brown there's a John Beilein. The problem is that ratio, which only seems to grow.

So I guess enjoy what we have while we have it, but I think any argument stating that the amount of money tossed around in college football and basketball is anything but insane is self-serving.

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bluebyyou

January 21st, 2016 at 3:54 PM ^

The money has an upside and a downside

I don't know how old you are, but I remember as a kid when I had to drive from New Jersey to Philadelphia to see the NY Giants play in a Superbowl.  It was a while ago, but some MgoBloggers may remember when you either played in the Rose Bowl or nothing, and your TV exposure was limited to the rarest of viewings. Now you see everything.  And then there are the stadiums...with all due respect, the Michigan Stadium I go to now is not what it was when I was a student...not even close.  Of course, you didn't have TV time-outs or streaming video.

Somebody has to pay for these things.

Running modern athletic programs is anything but inexpensive.

I don't disagree that there is a side of amateur athletics that gets muddied with $$$, but on balance, and I'm old enough to have tasted both the old and the new, I much prefer the options available today.

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Jack Hammer

January 21st, 2016 at 2:45 PM ^

I can fix the problem with one move:  take all amateur sports off the air.  No broadcasting whatsoever.  No TV.  No radio.  Want to watch?  Attend the game.  At no cost.  First come, first serve at the stadium/arena.  Student ID gets you to the front of the line.

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Cali's Goin' Blue

January 21st, 2016 at 2:42 PM ^

These student-athletes aren't the ones who earned the money obviously. They are amateurs and students first of course. That's why you hear about them tweeting out, "I didn't come to tOSU to play no football." This is why we should all try to emulate the NCAA whenever we can. /s even though I hope it wasn't necessary

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Aged Wolverine 68

January 21st, 2016 at 11:22 PM ^

Ya know, I took your post in jest, but to get serious with it.....when are the feds going to get involved I wonder. Too much money at stake for some schools to play by different rules than other schools.

 

 

Ole Miss, which is one of the most racist universities in the country, has one of the best recruiting classes yearly. Things that make ya go hmmm.

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Aged Wolverine 68

January 21st, 2016 at 11:18 PM ^

and Michigan alone does 1 Billion plus in research yearly. Not that the BTN contract is shabby, it just is a little sobering to think how much more academics is worth. Leaders n Best kids. :) 

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