Sports biz enthusiasts will enjoy this article about college hoops as a revenue (and profit) generator by John Maher of the Austin-American Statesman.
According to this report, Louisville leads the nation in generating revenue from college hoops -- more than $21M in the 2006-2006 season.
MU? A robust $10.8 million in basketball revenue. Remove the $7 million in reportd expenses and Marquette basketball turned a healthy $3.8 million profit for the 2005-2006 season.
Big money. That's a tidy profit, eh?
More like a necessity, I'd argue.......without fat hoops revenue and a strong profit margin, MU would not be able to field competitive teams in non-revenue sports. There's no detail on what MU considers to be part of its basketball revenue (ie: multimedia rights as an example), nor is there detail in the aritcle about the nature of the expenses -- so its difficult to evalutate the findings.
One way to do gather some detail is via the USA Today compensation sortable database. Tom Crean, the $1,688,487 man. Want more? Here is MU's 990 -- the "Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax" form which lists MU's five highest paid employees (its in .pdf btw)
All of the numbers in the article are supported through forms submitted in compliance with the Federal Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act.
When one factors in that the other 13 sports that Marquette fields all lose money, that $3.8 million profit is spent and gone.
ReplyDeleteThus some subsidization by the university for athletics in general.
This is a very interesting article. I also makes me wonder how much more Marquette could make if they'd get their head out of the sand and get rid of a nickname that nobody likes. I'm quite certain merchandise sales would go through the roof.
ReplyDeleteAs it stands now, merchandise has one hand tied behind its back as nobody wants to be seen with anything that refers to the "Golden Eagles."
It's so unfortunate!
The latest goofy roumor out there is Crean going to Kentucky for Tubby Smiths job. I'm not sure that I would think he would do this.
ReplyDelete