If only they handed out championships for making money.

AirForceDawg has done his annual dive into the financial information available at the U.S. Department of Education’s Equity in Athletics Data Analysis (EADA) website and come up with the numbers for the fourteen SEC schools for the most current fiscal year.  (For year-over-year comparison purposes, you might want to review last year’s post on the subject.)

If you’re wondering whether Georgia did okay, well, judge for yourself.

– Revenues: $176,699,894
– Expenses: $124,029,698
– Profit: $52,670,196

– Men’s Teams
— Revenue: $142,260,691
— Expenses: $61,790,672
— Profit: $80,470,019

– Women’s Teams
— Revenue: $4,704,781
— Expenses: $19,328,309
— Losses: -$14,623,528

– Football
— Revenue: $129,023,591
— Expenses: $44,909,546
— Profit: $84,114,045

– Men’s Basketball
— Revenue: $10,252,418
— Expenses: $8,539,387
— Profit: $1,713,031

Overall athletic department revenue is up and so is the net profit. The real eye-opener is football profit, which increased from $56,947,313 in fiscal year 2017 to an astounding $84,114,045.  Doing the math, it appears that almost $32 million of that figure went into subsidizing other programs besides men’s basketball and, of course, general administrative expenses.

The comparison with Georgia’s thirteen SEC peers is quite remarkable, as well.

1. Georgia: $176,699,894 Revenue, $124,029,698 Expenses, $52,670,196 Profit
2. Alabama: $181,470,156 Revenue, $149,583,715 Expenses, $31,886,441 Profit
3. Auburn: $147,620,572 Revenue, $132,354,047 Expenses, $15,266,525 Profit
4. Mississippi State: $93,752,613 Revenue, $83,560,214 Expenses, $10,192,399 Profit
5. Texas A&M: $152,971,142 Revenue, $143,231,483 Expenses, $9,739,659 Profit
6. LSU: $145,422,795 Revenue, $137,451,522 Expenses, $7,971,273 Profit
7. Vanderbilt: $80,093,541 Revenue, $74,070,975 Expenses, $6,022,566 Profit
8. Arkansas: $132,545,645 Revenue, $130,595,275 Expenses, $1,950,370 Profit
9. Kentucky: $125,462,485 Revenue, $125,236,165, $226,320 Profit
10. South Carolina: $140,084,150 Revenue, $139,972,480 Expenses, $111,670 Profit
T11. Florida: $157,240,476 Revenue, $157,240,476 Expenses, $0 Profit
T11. Tennessee: $142,686,084 Revenue, $142,686,084 Expenses, $0 Profit
T11. Ole Miss: $99,157,535 Revenue, $99,157,535 Expenses, $0 Profit
T11. Missouri: $93,744,322 Revenue, $93,744,322 Expenses, $0 Profit

When you add it up, the total profit the other 13 schools racked up totaled $83,267,223, an average of $6,405,171.  As a percentage, Georgia’s profit alone comprised 38.75% of the SEC’s total profit.  Yowza!

Believe it or not, I mention this not as a lead in to a rant about player exploitation, but simply to note that you’d think with all that money available, Greg McGarity could pilot an athletic department to a more robust result in the NACDA Learfield Directors’ Cup than a mediocre 25th-place finish [Ed. note:  current showing, pending baseball results] overall and sixth best in the SEC.  But that would mean caring as much about general athletic excellence as the reserve account balance, and that’s not how the Georgia Way is wired.

I keep coming back to this quote from McGarity when he was hired.

McGarity, who played and coached tennis at Georgia and worked in its athletic administration before leaving for Florida, said “there is nothing greater than being part of championships. That’s why we do what we do.

“At the end of the day,” he continued, “all the time you put in at the office, the fun comes when you’re competing for championships and you see what these coaches have done over a number of years to finally get to the top of the mountain and you’re able to be just a small piece of that.”

You having fun yet, Georgia fans?

We may not have the athletic director we want, but we do have the athletic director the powers that be think we deserve.