51-100 Most Profitable FBS Football and Basketball Programs

Last Updated on December 29, 2011

Over the past week, we’ve posted financials for every football and men’s basketball program in the FBS, with the exception of the military academies. Here are the links: ACCBig XIIBig EastC-USABig TenMACPac-12SECSun BeltMountain West and WAC. Yesterday we presented the Top 50 most profitable FBS football and men’s basketball programs.

Below you will find the 51-100 most profitable programs. The “% Invested” column shows how much of the specific sport’s revenue goes back into that specific sport.

Please read below before viewing the financials.

About the data: All of the data is from reports each school files with the US Department of Education. It is the only available data for both public and private universities. However, there can be variances in how each school chooses to report data. For example, each school can decide for itself whether to break out television revenue by sport or leave it in a generic revenue category, which causes variances. After speaking with dozens of schools the most common practice appears to be attributing the majority of television revenue to football and a portion to basketball. The most common split is 65/35.

There are also variances from year-to-year, so be careful when comparing this data to last year’s data. For example, Florida State’s football program showed a gain of approximately $14 million from ’09-’10 to ’10-’11. When contacted for comment FSU explained that in ’10-’11 they broke out contributions by sport, which they hadn’t done previously.

Although far from perfect, this data is the only available data for all Division I programs (with the exception of the military academies). We just want to make you aware of the possible variances and will let you draw your own conclusions.

Please note: we did not rank non-AQ schools last year, so those schools will not show a rank for ’09-’10.

10-11 Rank09-10 RankSchool10-11 Revenue10-11 Expenses 10-11 Profit % Invested
5162Kansas State (Football)$19,731,620$10,867,052$8,864,56855.07%
5256Northwestern Univ. (Football)$28,198,769$19,430,675$8,768,09468.91%
5360University of Texas (Basketball)$16,437,705$8,195,360$8,242,34549.86%
5445Indiana Univ. (Football)$24,230,741$16,112,930$8,117,81166.50%
5540Univ of Arizona (Football)$25,448,212$17,965,169$7,483,04370.60%
5650Michigan St. (Basketball)$16,479,208$9,263,945$7,215,26356.22%
5744Georgia Tech (Football)$22,557,020$15,463,243$7,093,77768.55%
5866Univ of California, Berkeley (Football)$24,328,784$17,398,649$6,930,13571.51%
5958Univ. of Tennessee (Basketball)$13,785,893$6,863,233$6,922,66049.78%
6024West Virginia University (Football)$19,960,732$13,230,226$6,730,50666.28%
61100Oklahoma State (Basketball)$12,262,241$5,658,993$6,603,24846.15%
6252North Carolina State (Basketball)$10,490,494$3,947,120$6,543,37437.63%
6367Northwestern (Basketball)$11,018,639$4,577,278$6,441,36141.54%
6454University of Pittsburgh  (Basketball)$13,574,317$7,181,490$6,392,82752.90%
65 UNLV (Basketball)$10,123,168$3,806,508$6,316,66037.60%
6671Univ. of Kentucky (Basketball)$18,557,243$12,355,375$6,201,86866.58%
67128Vanderbilt Univ.  (Football)$22,455,110$16,507,997$5,947,11373.52%
6863Purdue Univ. (Football)$18,359,413$12,420,742$5,938,67167.65%
6981University of Missouri (Basketball)$11,084,210$5,391,400$5,692,81048.64%
7068Marquette (Basketball)$15,568,569$10,348,303$5,220,26666.47%
71 Boise State (Football)$12,950,605$7,834,316$5,116,28960.49%
7255Univ of California, Los Angeles (Football)$23,017,910$17,913,658$5,104,25277.82%
7347Univ. of Arkansas (Basketball)$14,608,513$9,548,135$5,060,37865.36%
7465Univ of California, Los Angeles (Basketball)$11,621,364$6,702,818$4,918,54657.68%
7569Maryland (Basketball)$10,965,638$6,062,659$4,902,97955.29%
76 BYU (Football)$15,664,108$10,764,814$4,899,29468.72%
7764Univ of Washington (Basketball)$10,474,040$5,702,562$4,771,47854.44%
7880Penn St. (Basketball)$9,485,900$4,851,361$4,634,53951.14%
7978University of South Florida (Football)$17,017,821$12,657,523$4,360,29874.38%
8079Univ. of Alabama (Basketball)$11,016,184$6,819,080$4,197,10461.90%
8198Purdue (Basketball)$9,396,189$5,204,365$4,191,82455.39%
8289Michigan (Basketball)$9,154,689$5,102,129$4,052,56055.73%
8370Georgia Tech (Basketball)$8,543,269$4,625,109$3,918,16054.14%
8435University of Missouri (Football)$24,694,807$20,806,778$3,888,02984.26%
8582Stanford University (Football)$19,521,092$15,888,069$3,633,02381.39%
8686Washington State (Football)$12,741,698$9,193,553$3,548,14572.15%
8775Wake Forest (Basketball)$8,261,666$4,773,315$3,488,35157.78%
8884Univ. of Georgia (Basketball)$8,718,363$5,253,434$3,464,92960.26%
8994Texas A&M (Basketball)$9,786,655$6,340,072$3,446,58364.78%
90111Duke University (Football)$18,243,589$14,837,825$3,405,76481.33%
9195Clemson (Basketball)$7,705,630$4,417,665$3,287,96557.33%
9272Univ. of South Carolina (Basketball)$7,849,818$4,618,566$3,231,25258.84%
93 Army (Football)$8,839,775$5,620,774$3,219,00163.59%
9477Virginia Tech (Basketball)$7,858,609$4,782,477$3,076,13260.86%
95 Cal State – Fresno (Football)$10,059,929$7,040,523$3,019,40669.99%
96 Wyoming (Football)$8,677,505$5,770,034$2,907,47166.49%
9788Univ. of Mississippi (Basketball)$7,175,223$4,270,576$2,904,64759.52%
9885Mississippi State Univ. (Basketball)$6,914,565$4,052,623$2,861,94258.61%
99 Utah (Basketball)$6,220,172$3,516,570$2,703,60256.53%
10057West Virginia University  (Basketball)$7,968,819$5,333,891$2,634,92866.93%

We’ve also created a comprehensive chart with comparisons to ’09-’10: Top 51-100 Most Profitable Programs 10-11 (.pdf)

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1 Comment
  • Tom Francis
    May 27, 2014

    Kristi, I didn’t see Southern Methodist University listed anywhere. They should be on the list somewhere.