Finance

Top-50 Highest Athletics Department Revenues

by
bcsguestwriter
March 21, 2012

Last Updated on March 25, 2012

This week, BusinessofCollegeSports.com has shown you the revenues, expenses and net income (profit) of athletics departments in the BCS AQ conferences. To conclude this series, BusinessofCollegeSports.com will rank the top-5o athletics departments with the highest revenues, expenses and net income. First up is athletics department revenues.

The data was obtained from the Department of Education and is from 2010-11. While this data is not perfect, it is the only data publicly available for both public and private institutions.

School	Athletic Department Revenue	Conference
Texas	$150,295,932.00	Big 12
Ohio State	$131,815,819.00	Big Ten
Alabama	$123,910,432.00	SEC
Florida	$123,008,257.00	SEC
Michigan	$122,486,490.00	Big Ten
Penn State	$116,118,026.00	Big Ten
LSU	$106,421,671.00	SEC
Oklahoma	$104,338,843.00	Big 12
Auburn	$103,982,441.00	SEC
Tennessee	$102,495,204.00	SEC
Notre Dame	$94,507,919.00	Big East
Wisconsin	$93,594,766.00	Big Ten
Iowa	$92,903,555.00	Big Ten
Georgia	$92,341,067.00	SEC
Arkansas	$91,768,113.00	SEC
Louisville	$87,736,320.00	Big East
Florida State	$86,946,503.00	ACC
Oregon	$85,740,068.00	Pac-12
Kentucky	$84,878,315.00	SEC
South Carolina	$83,704,667.00	SEC
Nebraska	$83,679,756.00	Big Ten
Stanford	$81,125,476.00	Pac-12
Michigan State	$80,963,182.00	Big Ten
Minnesota	$78,924,683.00	Big Ten
Virginia	$78,439,006.00	ACC
USC	$75,707,273.00	Pac-12
Texas A&M	$74,944,301.00	Big 12
North Carolina	$71,369,784.00	ACC
Washington	$70,231,336.00	Pac-12
Indiana	$70,172,641.00	Big Ten
Oklahoma State	$70,123,206.00	Big 12
Kansas	$70,028,683.00	Big 12
Kansas State	$68,875,266.00	Big 12
Duke	$67,986,188.00	ACC
Purdue	$66,066,303.00	Big Ten
UCLA	$66,003,893.00	Pac-12
California	$65,006,338.00	Pac-12
Boston College	$64,078,272.00	ACC
Connecticut	$63,043,322.00	Big East
Clemson	$61,174,977.00	ACC
Virginia Tech	$61,077,122.00	ACC
Colorado	$60,923,253.00	Pac-12
Miami	$60,325,003.00	ACC
Baylor	$59,859,235.00	Big 12
Missouri	$59,005,954.00	Big 12
Arizona	$58,274,431.00	Pac-12
WVU	$58,003,719.00	Big East
Maryland	$57,765,018.00	ACC
Illinois	$57,539,367.00	Big Ten
Northwestern	$56,214,293.00	Big Ten

Several things stand out in this list. First, every Big Ten team made the list. This is notable, as the SEC is typically viewed as the “power conference” when it comes to all things finance. The SEC had a great showing in the top-50, but only nine of its twelve athletics departments made the list. The conference with the least athletics departments on the list was the Big East, which only placed four of its members on the list.

The chart below depicts how many places each conference held in the list.