The University of Profligate
by StoopsMyAss on Mar 4, 2009 1:41 AM CST
26 comments
[EDIT: Bumped.--OPS]
By now some of you may have read this post at Doc's Office, a blog by Cedar Rapids Gazette sportswriter Scott Dochterman. Doc reveals the revenue figures for every Big 10 team, as well as expenses and cost of recruiting specifically for 2007 - 2008 season.
I was stunned to see that only Ohio State spends more money on thier football operations than Iowa. In fact, Iowa spends more on their football operations than Georgia, Alabama and, get this, Notre Dame -- and significantly more than Iowa State (in fact $17 million more annually) but given their product that comes as no surprise to anyone.
Iowa football hands a $12 million check to the University every year. And given the state of other Iowa athletics, save wrestling, it's a damn good thing. BUT...our other Big 10 football program brethren hand back much larger checks to their schools . For example, Ohio State hands back $32 mil, Michigan hands back $41 mil, even lowly Iowa State hands back a check for almost $8 mil. Folks, among all Big 10 teams only Indiana, Purdue and Northwestern are more profligate than Iowa.
Apparently Indiana doesn't like football or know how to manage it, and we all know about jNU.
So I sat around for about an hour trying to answer this question: What the fuck is costing so much? Okay, salaries are pretty hefty as we all know, with Ferentz leading the way. And...then...what?
The only thing I could think of was that Iowa was paying for the renovation "over time" with some crafty accounting, which they must "report" as part of the annual operating budget? But that seems like a stretch.
Thoughts? I'm stumped on this one. And a bit embarrased. UConn basketball hands back a $17 million dollar check for God's sake. This seems odd to me.
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Only seeing one year of operating costs
may be deceptive. It may not, but I’d like to see a 5 yr average or something to have a better feel for it.
Something is clearly showing
in expense that is not on par with the other schools. Iowa is expensing something the other school’s are not (I cannot be convinced Iowa spends more on football than Michigan). The only way to tell is to look through the complete financials, if such a thing is a public record.
Cost Differences
I only have a couple of guesses.
How much is the annual upkeep for the stadium? Michigan is basically a big hole in the ground so its annual costs could be a lot less than Iowas.
Secondly, did Iowa have to pay more for teams to come play them this year and to travel to Pittsburgh vs Michigan having shorter drives for teams and a shorter road trip to ND?
Did no bowl game save Michigan a lot of money?
You're right
Indiana doesn’t like football, as evidenced by the University of Kentucky flag that flys among all the other Big Ten flags over their football stadium.
"I'm not doing any good back here."
//(double-checks definition of “profligate” online)
Maybe the stadium renovation is being accounted for in the figures. Maybe a one year snapshot is skewing the perception of these figures.
But look at Iowa compared to Wisconsin: Both are this close to being considered a top tier program in the Big Televen. Both are located in a small-ish but hip Midwestern city. Both hate Bielema.
Iowa
FB Revenue — $37,998,729
FB Expenses — $26,166,182
Men’s recruiting expenses — $637,685
Wisconsin
FB Revenue — $37,733,698
FB Expenses — $22,979,031
Men’s recruiting expenses – $452,958
Identical revenues (in 2007), a year in which Iowa massively underachieved and Wisconsin massively overachieved. Revenues are 4 million apart, but both very high in relation to other schools. I think the explanation may lie less in stadium rehabs and more in football donations. Maybe other programs have higher donation money devoted to football, which offsets some of the costs, and thus aren’t reported the same? I’m no CPA, so I may be way off.
by YouCanPutYourEddsInIt on Mar 4, 2009 9:25 AM CST reply actions
I meant EXPENSES are 4 (make that 3.5) million apart.
by YouCanPutYourEddsInIt on Mar 4, 2009 9:26 AM CST up reply actions
donations
shouldn’t cause expenses to go down. they are considered revenue, not an offset to cost.
BSD
Generally yes
But donations put toward capital projects decrease the amount loaned, which decreases the debt charges. That’s why it’s a little difficult to extrapolate interest expense for the recent renovations.
storminspank: "Or we could join you can take our pants off."
by Patrick Vint on Mar 4, 2009 10:50 AM CST up reply actions
and is in the least populous big xi state –
Illinois – 12.9 million
Pennsylvania – 12.5 million
Ohio – 11.5 million
Michigan – 10 million
Indiana – 6.4 million
Wisconsin – 5.6 million
Minnesota – 5.2 million
Iowa – 3 million
I’m not whining about this – but it’s reasonable to assume your recruiting expenses will be somewhat higher than tOSUs, PSUs or IL (pre-retarded Zook) when those state’s have 4x the population, and presumably their residents are not 60% comprised of people over 60 (I made that up; I have no idea other than Iowans are old).
Depreciation and interest expense, thy name is Kinnick
From a February 17 Gazette piece:
"The department’s largest expense was for facilities, which includes maintenance and debt services.
Iowa’s football program spent nearly $9 million in this category, a nearly $500,000 increase from fiscal year 2007. [University-wide] coaching salaries ($12 million) and administrative/support staff salaries ($10.6 million) provided the next highest expense."
In other words, a huge chunk of the annual cost of the program is on day-to-day maintenance of the football facilities (by far the most extensive athletic facilities on campus, with Kinnick, the bubble/offices, and the outdoor practice facility) and interest paid (probably about $4-5M per year at this point in the amortization table) on the debt incurred during the $86.5M Kinnick renovation from 2004-05. That doesn’t even count the depreciation “cost” of renovations (“cost” because there’s no actual cash outlay for it). Even if the University was conservative and depreciated the renovations on a 30-year straight-line, it’s still expensing nearly $3M a year for the press box and scoreboard.
This is why Minnesota, which doesn’t even own their own stadium (and rents at a deep discount) and, therefore, has none of the interest/maintenance/depreciation expenses of Iowa, can run its program for less than $10M.
Let’s all take a deep breath and avoid jumping to conclusions about our spendthrift football program, shall we?
storminspank: "Or we could join you can take our pants off."
by Patrick Vint on Mar 4, 2009 10:27 AM CST reply actions 1 recs
Well, there you go. I was too lazy to look. Minnesota’s football expenses are about to go through the roof as they move on campus from the Sexodome. jNU spends no money on football facilities since they have plenty o’ seats. Michigan is in the midst of a $226 million (expected) renovation that is hoped to be completed by Aug 2010.
Ahhh - yup.
And Wiscy spent over $100 million on Camp Randall renovation in 2002 or so, which they surely have debt service on for the next 5-8 years. That should explain it. With Michigan’s renovations, we’ll see Iowa’s numbers become par for the course within the next two years.
by YouCanPutYourEddsInIt on Mar 4, 2009 1:15 PM CST up reply actions
Cost of scholarships is another big item
If I remember correctly, they get charged the full out of state tuition on the great majority of them. I think I remember reading on these here internets that there are other schools that handle this accounting differently, i.e., the athletic department gets charged for in-state tuition.
Dumb question
Did they have to make repairs or replace anything in the football department due to the flooding in Iowa City?
Nope
Kinnick and the rest of the football facilities sit on high ground. There was no damage to the football department, as far as I know. Softball and track took it in the shorts, though.
storminspank: "Or we could join you can take our pants off."
Track shorts
I loved seeing those girls track shorts back in my running days. Except on the shotputters, of course.
Psht
Anyone that can’t enjoy 230 pounds of love crushing his pelvis isn’t a real man.
I got more rhymes than Wade Lookingbill's got dunks
How much money needs to be spent on
maintenence for Kinnick during the off-season? I can’t imaagine that there is a whole lot to do, other than mowing the grass in the summer, and that won’t be a problem this year. What maintenence needs done when no one is using the facility? Do all the toilets need flushed once a week or so to keep the pipes from rusting out?
This was an absolutely irresponsible post
Unless the author was willing detail each teams totals… This is an excise much akin to trying to listen to Rush and take what he says as gospel truth…
Also reminds me of a questionaire I received from my congressman back in late 80’s.. It asked (and I paraphrase) would you like Russian forces marching through you back yard? Obiviuosly his way of support higher military build up…
Without seeing details this study is garbage in garbage out…
I remember my first beer...
induced blog post.
"When you don't know that you don't know, it's a lot different than when you do know that you don't know." Bill Parcells
Why all fuss about unexplained perhaps fictous numbers?
When there are more questions about where the numbers come from, what they include where they go
I just don’t think its worth reading anything into it nor can you tell anything about it. No one has explained where the numbers come from nor how any other university gets their numbers and what they include.
Are you accusing Scott Dochtermann of libel?
I got more rhymes than Wade Lookingbill's got dunks
by Adam Jacobi on Mar 18, 2009 10:14 PM CDT up reply actions
No cant do that but I can...
Call it incomplete, useless bit of figures that have not been documented errr shall I better say explained…. If he were to provide where the numbers came from and what they respented and how every unviversity came up with them, then I may consider this article newsworhty or at least informitive. But just to simply spew numbers that he obivously has no idea on how they were collected or interpreted is like calling the PRINCETON OFFENSE AGGRESSIVE…
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