Financing College Sports

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  • #122761
    VaWolf82
    Keymaster

    This is a subject that has interested me ever since I did a series of articles the same summer that Marv was tweeting about doughnuts. Here’s the latest article bemoaning the position of the Pac 12

    The Pac-12 expected to send approximately $29.5 million to its athletic departments in FY17 — a modest year-over-year increase that will fall well short in comparison to distributions made by other power conferences…

    2016 (actual)

    SEC: $40.5 million
    Big Ten: $34.8 million
    Pac-12: $28.7 million
    Big 12: $28.45 million
    (The ACC has not reported FY16.)

    Pac-12 revenue deficit (relative to SEC, Big Ten) is real, and it’s spectacular

    Don’t have any idea why the ACC isn’t giving out numbers, but here’s the latest thing that I could find on the 2015 ACC revenue distribution:

    In the ACC, each of the 14 schools that received a full share of conference revenue – every one except Notre Dame, which is a part-time member that remains independent in football – received an average of $26.2 million in conference revenue, according to a tax filing the ACC recently released. Notre Dame received $6.2 million…

    The ACC’s $403.1 million of revenue ranked fourth among the Power 5 conferences, ahead of the Big 12 ($267.8 million) but behind the SEC, Big Ten and Pac-12 ($439 million). The ACC ranked third, ahead of the Pac-12 and Big 12, in the amount of money it gave back to its members.

    Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/sports/college/article83238577.html#storylink=cpy

    Now for ND:

    NBC Sports Group announced a 10-year contract extension to televise Notre Dame football games Thursday, doubling the length of its previous agreement.

    NBC and Notre Dame said the extension would begin in 2016 and run through the 2025 season. The contract, reportedly worth $15 million annually for football, had never run for more than five years.

    http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/9186897/nbc-extends-notre-dame-fighting-irish-football-deal-2025

    So if we add $15M for ND football with $6.2M from the ACC for other sports, we get $21M plus whatever they get whenever they steal a bowl game from an ACC school. In other words, ND doesn’t look like it’s still out-earning the other P-5 schools. But the revenue difference may not be enough to push ND into the ACC, since they are obviously doing quite well:

    Notre Dame plans to continue using revenues from the contract to fund the school’s financial-aid endowment for the general student body, not including athletes. The school said that since 1991, about 6,300 undergraduates have received nearly $80 million in aid from revenue generated through the NBC contract.

    Notre Dame also uses NBC revenues to endow doctoral fellowships in its graduate school and MBA scholarships in its Mendoza College of Business.

    But then again, maybe an increase in revenue would increase ND’s interest in joining the ACC:

    http://www.theuconnblog.com/2017/5/13/15634424/notre-dame-join-acc-network-football-uconn-huskies-conference-realignment-undefeated-against-nd

    Note that the ND to ACC article is from a UConn blog that is hoping that UConn would join the ACC as 16th member.

    #122777
    choppack1
    Participant

    No UConn. Ease. We already have Syracuse and just got rid of Maryland. If it’s not Notre Dame, I would prefer a school that actually brings something to the table football-wise and fan support (in the same sport)

    #122791
    VaWolf82
    Keymaster

    2016 (actual)

    SEC: $40.5 million
    Big Ten: $34.8 million
    Pac-12: $28.7 million
    Big 12: $28.45 million
    (The ACC has not reported FY16.)

    Timely thread since the ACC released its tax records showing that the ACC revenue went down versus 2015 and is in last place among the five power conferences:

    The 14 full-time member schools received an average of $26.3 million. Notre Dame, a member in all sports but football, received $4.25 million.

    http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/19420865/acc-revenue-slightly-373-million

    The espn article ends with the ACC’s excuses/dreams:

    In acknowledging that gap during ACC spring meetings Thursday, Swofford said, “That’s why we’re doing the channel,” referencing the forthcoming linear ACC Network, set to launch in 2019. “We fully expect a gap with particularly the Big Ten and SEC here for a couple of years, but that’s the very reason we’ve signed to do what we’re doing. We fully expect that gap will narrow considerably when we get the channel up and running.”

    #122792
    VaWolf82
    Keymaster

    As expected, ND denies any interest in joining the ACC for football.

    http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/college/ct-notre-dame-acc-football-rumors-20170517-story.html

    That article also supports my conclusion in the original post that ND’s NBC deal no longer puts the Irish ahead of other schools:

    …The program maintains its partial football independence thanks to the television deal it has with NBC, which runs through 2025 and pays the school $15 million annually.

    But here’s the thing: Notre Dame would make more money annually as a full-fledged ACC football member, and it would make significantly more money as a full football member once ESPN gets the ACC Network off the ground in 2019…

    The Chicago Tribune article then manages to combine delusion along with a few useful facts:

    but what happens if — sometime between now and 2025 — an undefeated or one-loss Notre Dame team is passed over for a College Football Playoff berth simply because it doesn’t play in a conference championship game?

    It’s not impossible that we could end up with four undefeated conference champs along with ND….but the odds are so low that the possibility is not worth discussing.

    A one-loss ND team would then have their strength of schedule ranked versus the other one-loss teams. Whether that evaluation would be rigged either for or against ND is impossible to predict. But it seems like the voting being rigged against ND is low enough that their administration is probably not worried at all.

    As with most things, it comes back to the money. The difference is that ND gets to decide how much money is enough.

    #122793
    choppack1
    Participant

    Well the big question is whether or not the domers opt for a better geographical and financial fit by going to the big 10.

    #122794
    VaWolf82
    Keymaster

    Well the big question is whether or not the domers opt for a better geographical and financial fit by going to the big 10.

    True, but not possible for a while (2025?) because of the contract they signed with the ACC.

    #122795
    VaWolf82
    Keymaster

    Better article (better context for financial numbers) on finances from USA Today.

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/2017/05/19/acc-revenues-drop-30-million/101881486/

    #122797
    Daniel_Simpson_Day
    Participant

    Call me pessimistic, but as fast as TV viewing habits and methods are changing I can’t help but think this ACC channel will be obsolete by the time it is up and running.

    #122801
    choppack1
    Participant

    Dsd – nothing pessimistic about that. Remember, this commish and his minions coveted Miami, BC and the Cuse and added va tech only because they had to. At that time
    , they demonstrated their short-sidedness by looking at traditional tv markets vs markets that actually gave a flip about college sports. I am sure this deal is every bit as short-sided

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