Women's basketball - ALL teams lose money?

[duke79]

Interesting story today on Bloomberg.com about how almost all NCAA women's basketball programs lose money - even UConn - mostly because of high salaries paid to coaches. See link below

http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?...d=aXhIBbrYLbvA

[uh_no]

Interesting story today on Bloomberg.com about how almost all NCAA women's basketball programs lose money - even UConn - mostly because of high salaries paid to coaches. See link below

http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?...d=aXhIBbrYLbvA

Almost every mens program loses money as well. Almost every athletics program loses money.

EDIT: I take that back, nearly every athletics department loses money, and almost all of the big name mens basketball programs lose money (I believe there was a thread on here lately showing duke lost the most money last year or something to that end)

[4decadedukie]

I find this completely unsurprising. Intercollegiate sports are very expensive and virtually all (with the exception of some Division I Football and Men's Basketball programs) are financial losers, requiring augmentation from general university funds.

[uh_no]

I find this completely unsurprising. Intercollegiate sports are very expensive and virtually all (with the exception of some Division I Football and Men's Basketball programs) are financial losers, requiring augmentation from general university funds.

Just for some context: Duke's athletics subsidy was 16 million last year...I think it's commendable how close uconn actually comes to breaking even. As much money as womens basketball loses, at least they generate some revenue. Aside from basketball and football, just about every other sport generates zero revenue, and every expense goes straight off the fiscal loss for the year.

In terms of Uconn, its no doubt that the publicity and notoreity that uconn has gained from its basketball programs (both men and women) has been good for the school and the state.

[dukelifer]

Just for some context: Duke's athletics subsidy was 16 million last year...I think it's commendable how close uconn actually comes to breaking even. As much money as womens basketball loses, at least they generate some revenue. Aside from basketball and football, just about every other sport generates zero revenue, and every expense goes straight off the fiscal loss for the year.

In terms of Uconn, its no doubt that the publicity and notoreity that uconn has gained from its basketball programs (both men and women) has been good for the school and the state.

The picture is not quite that clear. The data the media uses comes from Title IX reports filed by each University- but these are not filled out consistently from institution to institution or year to year within a university. The inconsistency of the Title IX reports is a point of emphasis in the most recent Knight Commission report. It is clear that the non-revenue sports lose money- but how much football and basketball lose or make is a matter of interpretation given broad categories of revenue accounting in those reports.

[uh_no]

The picture is not quite that clear. The data the media uses comes from Title IX reports filed by each University- but these are not filled out consistently from institution to institution or year to year within a university. The inconsistency of the Title IX reports is a point of emphasis in the most recent Knight Commission report. It is clear that the non-revenue sports lose money- but how much football and basketball lose or make is a matter of interpretation given broad categories of revenue accounting in those reports.

No doubt. I think one point of contention is the amount athletics bring into other university vendors (duke store for instance) So I don't think the basketball team ends up getting credit for things like jersey sales (which of course, is silly). I'm sure there are differences in financials between public/private universities also that make the comparisons less apt.

[dukelifer]

No doubt. I think one point of contention is the amount athletics bring into other university vendors (duke store for instance) So I don't think the basketball team ends up getting credit for things like jersey sales (which of course, is silly). I'm sure there are differences in financials between public/private universities also that make the comparisons less apt.

That is correct. They do not get credit for it. The privates like Duke also have much larger costs of attendance- so that has to be corrected for as well. The picture is definitely murky- but all we do know is that some within athletics make a lot of money compared to the rest of the University.