Top 50 Most Profitable FBS Football and Men’s Basketball Programs 2009-2011

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: ACC, Big XII, Big East, C-USA, Big Ten, MAC, Pac-12, SEC, Sun Belt, Mountain West and WAC.

Below you will find the top 50 most profitable programs. We’ll post 51-100 later today. 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.

10-11 Rank	09-10 Rank	School	10-11 Revenue	10-11 Expenses	10-11 Profit
1	1	University of Texas (Football)	$95,749,684	$24,507,352	$71,242,332
2	3	Penn State Univ. (Football)	$72,747,734	$19,519,288	$53,228,446
3	2	Univ. of Georgia (Football)	$74,888,175	$22,036,338	$52,851,837
4	6	Louisiana State Univ. (Football)	$68,510,141	$21,492,741	$47,017,400
5	4	Univ. of Michigan (Football)	$70,300,676	$23,552,233	$46,748,443
6	5	Univ. of Florida (Football)	$72,807,236	$26,263,539	$46,543,697
7	7	Univ. of Alabama (Football)	$76,801,800	$31,580,059	$45,221,741
8	12	Notre Dame (Football)	$68,782,560	$25,164,887	$43,617,673
9	8	Univ. of Tennessee (Football)	$56,831,514	$19,135,650	$37,695,864
10	9	Auburn Univ. (Football)	$76,227,804	$39,069,676	$37,158,128
11	17	Univ. of Arkansas (Football)	$61,131,707	$24,059,193	$37,072,514
12	10	University of Oklahoma (Football)	$58,811,324	$23,191,402	$35,619,922
13	13	University of Nebraska (Football)	$54,712,406	$20,147,302	$34,565,104
14	18	Texas A&M (Football)	$45,414,074	$15,560,216	$29,853,858
15	16	Michigan State Univ. (Football)	$45,040,778	$17,420,499	$27,620,279
16	21	University of Louisville (Basketball)	$40,887,938	$13,336,649	$27,551,289
17	14	Ohio State Univ. (Football)	$60,837,342	$34,373,844	$26,463,498
18	15	Univ. of Iowa (Football)	$44,506,832	$20,510,807	$23,996,025
19	11	Univ. of South Carolina (Football)	$45,464,058	$22,482,479	$22,981,579
20	19	Univ. of Kentucky (Football)	$34,020,276	$14,352,110	$19,668,166
21	22	Univ. of Wisconsin (Football)	$43,296,599	$23,662,925	$19,633,674
22	20	Oklahoma State (Football)	$33,213,396	$13,787,271	$19,426,125
23	27	Univ of Washington (Football)	$39,405,237	$21,306,380	$18,098,857
24	99	Florida State Univ. (Football)	$35,870,789	$18,689,809	$17,180,980
25	30	Univ. of Illinois (Football)	$28,079,694	$12,910,507	$15,169,187
26	29	Duke (Basketball)	$28,917,329	$13,819,529	$15,097,800
27	26	Virginia Tech (Football)	$35,083,799	$20,009,657	$15,074,142
28	33	Univ of Arizona (Basketball)	$21,209,980	$6,918,239	$14,291,741
29	28	Clemson Univ. (Football)	$31,730,042	$17,992,943	$13,737,099
30	25	Univ. of Minnesota (Football)	$30,524,945	$16,985,182	$13,539,763
31	31	North Carolina (Basketball)	$19,672,012	$6,510,942	$13,161,070
32	34	Ohio St. (Basketball)	$17,020,807	$5,251,724	$11,769,083
33	48	Univ of Southern California (Football)	$31,148,724	$19,423,723	$11,725,001
34	41	Syracuse University (Basketball)	$19,017,231	$7,532,455	$11,484,776
35	51	Univ. of North Carolina (Football)	$26,385,760	$15,050,721	$11,335,039
36	37	Arizona State (Football)	$27,842,879	$16,564,598	$11,278,281
37	76	Mississippi State Univ. (Football)	$22,575,985	$11,766,024	$10,809,961
38	38	Texas Tech (Football)	$26,569,287	$15,788,943	$10,780,344
39	23	Univ. of Mississippi (Football)	$28,515,471	$17,764,174	$10,751,297
40	36	North Carolina State (Football)	$21,856,742	$11,329,718	$10,527,024
41	90	University of Louisville (Football)	$25,658,653	$15,582,161	$10,076,492
42	42	Wisconsin (Basketball)	$16,353,313	$6,394,547	$9,958,766
43	46	Indiana (Basketball)	$17,804,586	$7,945,102	$9,859,484
44		Utah (Football)	$21,235,202	$11,426,280	$9,808,922
45	43	Illinois (Basketball)	$15,408,818	$5,630,297	$9,778,521
46	32	University of Colorado (Football)	$25,955,136	$16,308,544	$9,646,592
47	49	Minnesota (Basketball)	$15,141,713	$5,549,650	$9,592,063
48	39	Univ of Oregon (Football)	$27,713,278	$18,198,476	$9,514,802
49	53	Oregon State (Football)	$21,690,794	$12,282,221	$9,408,573
50	61	Iowa State (Football)	$21,862,535	$12,513,317	$9,349,218

We’ve also created a comprehensive chart with comparisons to ’09-’10: Top 50 Most Profitable Programs ’10-’11 (.pdf)

Conference Finance Series