Once again, the Georgia football program is highly profitable.
MOST-PROFITABLE FOOTBALL PROGRAMS
The University of Texas football program in 2011-12 generated the most revenue and highest profit among all programs, according to NCAA data. The numbers, in millions:
School Rev. Exp. Profit Texas $103.8 $25.9 $77.9 Michigan $85.2 $23.6 $61.6 Georgia $75.0 $22.7 $52.3 Florida $74.1 $23.1 $51.1 Alabama $82.0 $36.9 $45.1 LSU $68.8 $24.1 $44.8 Auburn $77.2 $33.3 $43.8 Notre Dame $69.0 $25.8 $43.2 Arkansas $64.2 $24.3 $39.9 Nebraska $55.1 $18.7 $36.4
There’s an interesting correlation mentioned in the article: “It should come as no surprise that the top revenue producers also led the FBS in average attendance in 2011. The top 10 programs in attendance also fell within the top 25 in revenue.” Keep watering down those home schedules, boys.
Get The Picture 
We are about ten years from the schools having to give tickets away like a TV show just to get an audience. They may go to computer graphics and piped in noise like a sitcom.
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You mean you’re not geeked up for App State? Next year’s non-conference is a little better, but the home slate is still pretty sad. Not sure how dropping a permanent home-home with Missouri on the schedule will help the average attendance either.
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Georgia would need to increase spending on football by 62.6% to match what Alabama spends on football. Georgia spends $22.7 million, and they would need to increase their spending by $14.2 million. That is
alarmingdisconcertingabout what I expected. I can’t believe the NCAA is not looking into all of the “consultants” on Alabama’s payroll.LikeLike
Are they breaking an NCAA rule? I doubt it.
I agree that the football arms race is a disturbing trend, but unless it’s against the rules, I’m not sure what should be done. Also, that’s a difficult problem to address with new rules. Where do you draw lines? Gets complicated quickly.
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You Cannot Win… if You Do Not Play.
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I could probably look it up, but my question is this. After the cash reserves are funded, salaries and expenses paid, what are the net gains used for? Future capital improvements? Indoor practice facility (ever?)?
Also, a nine game conference schedule will help with strength of schedule, but what to do with the remaining two open dates (Tech game considered). I, for one, would like to see the strongest possible opponent played. If we are going to be 10-2 or 11-1, let it be against the best. Not so sure about these prospects anymore with the current and future environment. Can we even schedule a Texas or Michigan or UCLA?
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Then never, ever, ever, ever complain about playing for all the marbles. I’m all for mandating scheduling across the board, but if you think we should play 11-12 bcs level games while everyone else plays 9, you’re crazy. That does nothing but give us a greater chance to lose, cause our starters to have to play more snaps, and put us at greater risk for injury. Moreover, our back ups get less playing time which means they’re less prepare when injuries do happen. You can’t put your program behind the 8 ball like that.
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We played and beat three and a half cupcakes this year and we’re not playing in a BCS bowl. Had our strength of schedule been stronger, well, who knows, we might have stayed in the race for one.
Out weak schedule, and it was weak, hurt us in the end. Also, to the Senators’ point, there were a good number of empty seats at Sanford this year. Cupcakes at home guarantee that outcome.
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The ugly loss to USCe cost us a BCS Bowl. Win that game and we’re still ahead of Florida in the polls after the SECCG.
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Since we beat FU when they were #2, why doesn’t that trump the loss of the extra SECCG playoff game? Compare that ranking to the ranking that Bama received after losing to LSU before they were paired again for the NC. Funny about the similarities of reasoning. FU was on a major campaign to brush aside their loss to UGA since UGA lost one more in the SECCG(someone had to lose) and had ramped up pundit opinion before the SECCG was even played. Putting the loser to the team that lost the SECCG into a BCS Bowl doesn’t make sense.
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It drives me crazy.
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uSC’s ugly loss to Florida cost them a BCS Bowl. Win that game and they’re ahead of Florida and Georgia and get a shot at the SECCG.
You see what I did there Indy?
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You’re fishing, aren’t you?
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We played and beat three and a half cupcakes this year and we’re 4 yards away from playing for the BCS championship game. We don’t need an amazing schedule to get to the big dance.
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You’re right, regarding this year. Going forward, I wonder if the 4 or 8 team playoffs will be a reward for strong or weak schedules. Strength of schedule will likely be an important element in the standings. Let’s face it, the BCS CG is hard to reach any year and requires all the intangibles to fall your way. That’s after the requisite talent, scheme and number of wins.
Personally, I would rather be tested against better programs and take the results than massage the schedule and then say, “we’re good, too!”. Prove it on the field and give us a schedule at Sanford that is worth the cost.
ps. I’ll never go back for a September game against the likes of Buffalo.
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LSU took the hard road last year and all it got them was embarrassed in the BCS game against Bama (a team they beat IN BAMA earlier in the year).
I love a big game on a September evening as much as the next person, but unfortunately, not everyone plays by the same rules. Adding in a bunch of “fun” regular season games only widens the handicap we already play with of actually punishing our players when they screw up. If we book those big games are continue to go x-1 or 2, we’ll never have the one that so many seem to care the most about. To each their own, I guess.
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Our schedule wasn’t any weaker than Alabama’s schedule. Didn’t the Senator post that comparison on this blog?
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When was the last time the SECCG loser played in a BCS bowl? ’08 UF? Honest question, but I’m pretty sure that if you lose the SECCG, odds are you’re not going to a BCS bowl.
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sUGArdaddy- Are you advocating that we seed our schedule with cupcakes or try to get others to play fairly weighted opponents? Either way, I don’t think that means we shouldn’t play a hearty schedule with games worth paying for ; anyway, what’s your proposed “solution” ?
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Don’t know how we could predict “fairly weighted opponents”. The Visor was really whining about Arky and in the end the Hoggs dropped out of the top 40. Did anyone think that the fighting Irish would be playing for the tite this year?
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sUGArdaddy. I couldn’t agree more
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“After the cash reserves are funded, salaries and expenses paid, what are the net gains used for?”
Did you ever wonder why Mike Adams let North Campus go to shit a few years ago? He had the same question you have and was willing to ruffle some feathers in order to get some answers, er money. You don’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs.
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All things considered, my preference would be to schedule a good out of conference game to start each year. Like we did last year with Boise State and like we’re doing the next 2 years with Clemson.
The Florida analogy doesn’t hold water b/c Florida State is a much, much stronger program than Georgia Tech.
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Net from the football program goes to pay for debt, future capital improvements, and funding of the non revenue sports.
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Judging by those Butts Mehre improvements, UGA seems to be spending its money wisely;that place is a palace. But if Alabama can hire “consultants”, why can’t we?
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I’m be curious if that top attendance fact is causation or correlation. Generally a bigger stadium is the result of having a top 25 fan base (in terms of size).
Also: for all the outrage about ticket guarantees and it reportedly not being materially higher in payout than a home game, it sure looks like that Jerry World thing didn’t hurt Michigan and Alabama any. I suspect incomplete information being released.
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What’s up with Alabama’s expenses being so high…?
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Wal-Mart had a price hike.
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They have a massive personnel cost.
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Type 2 Diabetes.
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That’s not nice. 🙂
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No it wasn’t…….. 😉 (chuckles while typing)
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Yeah, BD. I try to keep them in line, but they don’t listen to me. Go figure! 🙂
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We spent less than every other program on that list except Nebraska. And 5 of those other programs are in the SEC.
That’s not surprising, just frustrating.
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Why is greater efficiency frustrating?
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Greater efficiency is not frustrating…if that’s what it is.
I’d also like to know how Bama spends it’s extra $14M, cause if we could spend that much and be in the MNC mix as often as they are, I’d rather spend rather than hoard. If we spent an extra $14M, we still wouldn’t drop off this list.
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The university of Alabama actually gives money to their AD.
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Some schools have students that may next have to pay the full cost of tickets to athletic events if revenues don’t increase.
Ath. Dept.-Activities Fees Recieved-%Revenue
Auburn-$5,261,604.00-5.68%
Mississippi State-$4,000,000.00-10.49%
Georgia-$3,202,545.00-3.57%
Florida-$2,507,391.00-2.14%
South Carolina-$2,146,293.00-2.69%
Mississippi-$1,820,200.00-3.98%
Tennessee-$1,000,000.00-0.86%
Kentucky-$738,194.00-0.93%
Alabama-$0.00-0.00%
Louisiana State-$0.00-0.00%
Arkansas-$0.00-0.00%
Vanderbilt-N/A-N/A
Data covers the 2009-2010 school year and is unavailable for private schools. Unavailable data is marked with “N/A” and ”$0″ indicates the athletic department receives no portion of student activity fees. Vanderbilt has no Athletic Dept.
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Is it greater efficiency when 4 of those 5 SEC schools have each won a conference championship since we won our last one? 3 of them have even won multiple. Is it greater efficiency that they’ve also each won a national championship during that time? 2 of them have even won multiple.
Is it greater efficiency when the 4 out of conference schools on the list have each won a national championship since we won our last one?
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I think uT tried just what you’ve suggested and they are underwater.
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You’ve provided one alleged example with no numbers to back it up.
The data above contains 8 examples with numbers to back it up.
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Not a CPA… but I’ve handled a few budgets. Soooo… can we buy a NC? uT is flinging money everywhere “like a dog digging in the dirt”. How’s that working? Are you ” alleging” we can be more efficient in slinging of cash to garner your return metric or more importantly… we should?
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Once again, you’ve thrown out one program that you think is an example (the same one you used before) and have provided no numbers to back it up (same as before). There are 8 examples with numbers listed above.
Is it wise to just fling money around like a monkey flinging poo? No. Is that what I’m advocating? No. I’m simply pointing out the rather obvious fact that we continue to spend less money than teams winning championships. This has been happening for years and we have a notoriously cheap athletic department.
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Did you notice that Auburns expenses where roughly $10mil more relative to other programs? Any idea what that is for (sarcasm font)?
Donations go Auburn Athletics are a hidden unemployment tax!
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If i’m Mark Richt i’m asking GM ‘where the hell is my indoor practice facility? And don’t say we don’t have the money…’
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I am surprised we are 11th in revenue, but disturbed about our continued penny-pinching.
On the “unlimited” consultants issue, it is so inconsistent with the mandated ass’t coach rule that even Emmert and the Presidents should see it. Fix the damn thing, or blow up the limit on the number of coaches. I would say put a dollar limit in (maybe $150-250K range) and limit when they can be on campus with the players. Why limit the assistants to the point no one can spare a spot for a STs coach, yet let someone hire 25 consultants/advisors?
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