Article on Big 10 Basketball financials.......

[TMA62]

Attached is an article (Op-Ed) on the financials of the Big 10 Basketball. The writer has a pro-Illinois stance and I think the financials he is referring are from last year's season. I don't think that this season that was just completed has been compiled yet. Still, there are some interesting findings in the article. It seems that Purdue is not leading in things like revenue, ticket sales, net revenue but rather in the top 5-6 or so. Schools, like Illinois, Michigan State, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio State, seemed to have better metrics than Purdue.

I think this article is rather a 30,000-foot review of the financials and not getting into details. For example, what schools have the highest priced tickets (individual games or season) and exactly what sources can contribute to revenue generated and does that vary from school to school. Likewise, the budgets can greatly vary between schools as well.

What are your thoughts on this and do you have extra information that is not included in this op-ed?



https://www.news-gazette.com/opinio...cle_34bb991b-a168-5f65-9806-bafc75a800a9.html

 

[rgarlitz]

Have to take issue with the author's premise. It's not how much you make or spend that makes you a basketball school. It's how much you win.

Looks to me like Purdue gets a lot of bang for its buck. Indiana not so much.

And what's going on at Rutgers? I thought that was supposed to be an athletic program on the rise.

 

[cubuffsdoug]

Have to take issue with the author's premise. It's not how much you make or spend that makes you a basketball school. It's how much you win.

Looks to me like Purdue gets a lot of bang for its buck. Indiana not so much.

And what's going on at Rutgers? I thought that was supposed to be an athletic program on the rise.

The article left out how Rutgers never received a full share of B1G money until this year. The year Rutgers entered the B1G, the received $14 million which was a small bump from what they received while leaving the Big East/AAC. Last year Rutgers received $40 million. They have been playing catch-up for some time. Finances are better now, but it'been a rough since entering to conference.

 

[Inspector100]

He left out almost half of the details that make up the big picture, after reading the article. He didn't flow into the comparison to the Iowa women's BB program very well. Sort of like I have to do this. I also felt he added Purdue data just to make sure Purdue was mentioned. Very nice of him to do that. You can take any approach you want to critique or support his article. The only thing I can determine as the truth is the data he revealed.

 

[POTFHBTFU]

There are variables missing here. First he doesn’t know how to read financial statements which is evident by his comment about balance sheets. Also expenditures are not tracked the same across the board as some coaching compensation is paid by outside the athletic department, how or if they depreciate or expense assets, and how they bill tuition and room and board for the players (I think Illinois athletics is invoiced in state tuition for all players regardless id they are from Illinois).

 

[Schmedly_Whiplash]

I guess I'd be pretty pissed if I was a UI fan, spending all that money for a 'good but not great' program.

 

[Dryfly88]

There are variables missing here. First he doesn’t know how to read financial statements which is evident by his comment about balance sheets. Also expenditures are not tracked the same across the board as some coaching compensation is paid by outside the athletic department, how or if they depreciate or expense assets, and how they bill tuition and room and board for the players (I think Illinois athletics is invoiced in state tuition for all players regardless id they are from Illinois).

I'm not a finance guy, but this has always been my question when these kind of "reports" are put out there. There was one that showed Duke "spent" $20 million on basketball and PU spent 7 million. The 2 coaches salaries are a couple million different. So where does the rest of that difference come from?

I would just like to see a detailed breakdown of what goes into those numbers. I know one of them included a buyout for a previous coach.

 

[Hausta01]

There are variables missing here. First he doesn’t know how to read financial statements which is evident by his comment about balance sheets. Also expenditures are not tracked the same across the board as some coaching compensation is paid by outside the athletic department, how or if they depreciate or expense assets, and how they bill tuition and room and board for the players (I think Illinois athletics is invoiced in state tuition for all players regardless id they are from Illinois).

I stopped reading when he said Illinois has the best balance sheet because their revenues exceed expenses.

 

[Hausta01]

I'm not a finance guy, but this has always been my question when these kind of "reports" are put out there. There was one that showed Duke "spent" $20 million on basketball and PU spent 7 million. The 2 coaches salaries are a couple million different. So where does the rest of that difference come from?

I would just like to see a detailed breakdown of what goes into those numbers. I know one of them included a buyout for a previous coach.

It's all just accounting differences. One school tags almost everything to a specific sport while another has a big bucket for general expenses and only tags a few items like coach salaries to each sport.

An example could be Purdue has a "sports equipment" account that is used for all sports.
Illinois has an account for each of football equipment, men's basketball equipment, etc.

This is how one school has significantly higher costs to one sport than another school but the total costs of the athletic department or fairly similar

 

[Dryfly88]

It's all just accounting differences. One school tags almost everything to a specific sport while another has a big bucket for general expenses and only tags a few items like coach salaries to each sport.

An example could be Purdue has a "sports equipment" account that is used for all sports.
Illinois has an account for each of football equipment, men's basketball equipment, etc.

This is how one school has significantly higher costs to one sport than another school but the total costs of the athletic department or fairly similar

So these reports are meaningless, that's what I suspected.

 

[tjreese]

I'm not a finance guy, but this has always been my question when these kind of "reports" are put out there. There was one that showed Duke "spent" $20 million on basketball and PU spent 7 million. The 2 coaches salaries are a couple million different. So where does the rest of that difference come from?

I would just like to see a detailed breakdown of what goes into those numbers. I know one of them included a buyout for a previous coach.

It would be nice to see that and NIL money to see what kind of war chest schools have