I am firmly in the camp of Enterprising the AD, specifically Football and probably Basketball. The School is the majority stakeholder of the Brand and Facilities and it is run as a Benefit Corporation. My point is that the Olympic Sports are more broadly non-polarizing and should just be supported by general budget. They are low revenue and high value.
Good point. I don't know if you have been following CAL at all, but they recently shook everything up. Cal's longtime AD was either fired, retired, or resigned. They promoted two young associate ADs as Co-Ads for all sports except football, specifically just focusing on their non-revenue and Olympic sports, I think with your general budget idea in mind. Cal hired Ron Rivera at like $800K/yr to run football only. Rivera reports directly to the chancellor with no input from the Co-Ad's. They completely walled off the separate operations.
Cal's AD budget is deep in the red going back like 15 years. UCLA has to pay Cal funds to offset their move to the B1G. Even with the recent news, CU's financial situation looks great compared to Cal, UCLA or a bunch of other teams, including ones in the B1G.
I looked at the Knight Commission report on college AD finances and they run deficits like the government. Expenses and debt service is out of control spending like drunken sailors... Nubs breaks even, but 36% of their budget is to facilities/debt service--$77M, no wonder they stopped the stadium renovation plan. Ohio State ran a $40M deficit, 26% debt/facilities--$76M. Rutgers $45.5M deficit; UCLA $52M deficit. I highlight the debt load because that is usually not someplace where cuts can be made and they just pay interest. I can see why the B1G wants the private equity, as except for a few schools the SEC revenues really blow them out of the water.
knightnewhousedata.org
Overall, I was surprised how well CU competes. We are at/near the top of B12, but also generate revenues in the neighborhood of MN, MD, Rutgers, Purdue,
Ole Miss, GA Tech, UVA, Louisville and some others, however we generally offer less sports. Our debt is $33.2M, which pales in comparison to some of our peers. UoA screwed their books.
As an aside, the financial numbers sort of changed my perspective on Lane leaving Ole Miss for LSU. I hoped Lane would have been loyal and stayed, but they are really a small fish in the huge SEC pond, like bottom 1/4 by a large %. There revenue came in at $149M (CU is at $146M) and they play against 9 teams over $200M. Texas rakes in $331M; A&M $266M. They are make less than South Carolina and Missou by decent margins. Who knows why Lane did it, but if he stayed at Ole Miss with them paying his exorbitant market rate + keeping his assistants at market rate, the Ole Miss AD would have been stretched for sure.
