If Money Could Buy a Championship

The saying goes “you get what you give.” Can the same phrase be applied to sports though? In recent years, schools that have won championships are the ones who have invested more money into their programs. Our very own Kristi Dosh, ESPN’s sports business reporter and founder of BusinessofCollegeSports.com, has a piece on schools with the highest revenue that have made it into the tournament, but what about the schools who have the highest expenses?

If it were to come down to spending, who would win it all? Here’s a look at all 64 teams including their overall expenses for their basketball program. All 32 games are broken down by region. The information below is from the Office of Postsecondary Education of the U.S. Department of Education.

Before one makes an argument about Kentucky (the reigning champs, whose total expenses came to $15,119,088, about $300,000 less than Louisville), unfortunately money doesn’t buy a new recruiting class or guarantee a win.

Duke for example beats out Louisville by $411,145; and Louisville is the number one seed in the tournament.

If the Final Four were to come down to the biggest spenders of each region it would be Kansas, Arizona, Syracuse and Duke.

Taking a look at the winners of each region, could there be a connection between spending more and winning a national championship?

As you will see in this years bracket the winner would be Duke. Interestingly enough, Duke has the most National Championships compared to the other three remaining schools.

What makes up a team’s expenses is a multitude of disbursements that can include athletes room and board, equipment, and travel expenses, but a big part of team spending is used to pay the head coach.

Without quality coaching a team won’t even make it as far as The Big Dance, and the better the coach, the more a school is willing to spend to keep them. How much of the overall expenses are paid to the coaches? The information is from USA Today and the Arizona Star.

The coaches whose teams that have made it to our predicted Final Four aren’t doing too bad for themselves. Coach Boeheim of Syracuse might want to look into asking for more money though, since he’s the only coach who isn’t getting paid at least a quarter of what is being spent.

Louisville, who was just short of Duke in expenditures, was the highest not only in revenue, but also net revenue. Just trailing slightly behind Louisville is Syracuse and Duke. As mentioned earlier, Louisville is the number one seed in the tournament, and is also favored to win by many.

All in all, could money be a beneficial factor in winning a championship? Only the next few weeks will tell.

Follow Mackenzie on Twitter: @KenzieThirkill 

Editor’s Note: Creighton’s expenses were incorrectly listed as $404,350 in the original post. The error has been resolved.