It seems that Cal WBB has lots of company in running a large deficit.

According to the latest available data (for the 2008-09 season), only TWO of the 340 Division I women's basketball programs were profitable.

And this exclusive group of money-makers did NOT include UConn or Tennessee, or Stanford, or any of the other big-name WBB programs.

This sobering look at the financial state of WBB comes from the annual NCAA Athletic Programs Report on Revenues & Expenses released in August 2010. (The report can be found as a [URL="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBIQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncaapublications.com%2Fproductdownloads%2FREV_EXP_2010.pdf&rct=j&q=REV_EXP_2010.pdf&ei=tkirTPLZGoOesQPOgImqAw&usg=AFQjCNEXUjlnRpz0FoPo_gct9Zu_QPuFsg&cad=rja"][COLOR="Blue"]pdf file at this link[/COLOR][/URL].) While the NCAA report does not give school-by-school data (it only provides overall counts and percentiles), this report is known to be much more reliable than the Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act survey that is often cited in the media (the EADA data is discussed in [URL="http://bearinsider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=34029"][COLOR="Blue"]this other thread[/COLOR][/URL]).

I haven't seen much media discussion of the NCAA report as it pertains to WBB, so here are a few highlights (note that the report uses football classifications to categorize the schools):


1. Of the 120 WBB programs in the Football Bowl Subdivision, NONE made a profit, with the median loss being $1,557,000. So UConn, Tennessee, Stanford and any other big-time WBB program you can think of (as well as longtime attendance leaders such as Texas Tech and New Mexico) all failed to turn a profit.

2. Of the 123 WBB programs in the Football Championship Subdivision, only TWO made a profit, with the average gain being $136,000. (The money makers are not identified by name.) 121 lost money, with the median loss being $745,000.

3. Of the remaining 97 WBB programs in the category "Division I without football" (i.e. Division I-AAA), NONE made a profit, with the median loss being $1,003,000.


As I said in the other thread, I don't dispute the fact that Cal WBB is racking up some big losses (like its FBS brethren), and while the alleged $2.25 million loss reported in the EADA data is very likely exaggerated, it isn't off by multiples either. Even if it were closer to the average $1.56 million loss in the FBS, that would still be a staggering loss with a big impact on the rest of the athletic department and the school.

But the NCAA report shows that Cal WBB's financial woes aren't just a Cal phenomenon but symptomatic of a bigger financial problem in a sport that can't grow fast enough to match its increasing expenses (note the report shows the average WBB losses steadily INCREASING every year). And of course WBB exists in an overall college athletics world of an ever-shrinking number of schools that can make money from sports and increasing deficits for everyone else. While the Chancellor's Committee on Intercollegiate Athletics urged him to take a leadership role in cutting spending, it's impossible to imagine Cal being the first major program in many years to single out WBB and to say that the ever-increasing expenses in that program are simply no longer worth its intangible benefits and its very real monetary losses.

To date there's been very little pushback nationwide (or NCAA leadership) to limit WBB expenses, and head coaches' salaries continue to rise (with the median salary now at $308,000 for FBS programs, $131,000 for FCS programs, and $145,000 for Division I-AAA). Until that pushback comes, look for large WBB deficits to continue.


Some more minutiae and definition of terms:

1. The NCAA collects the financial data for their annual report at the same time as the EADA survey, but asks additional questions and more importantly corrects many of the obvious errors in the EADA data.

2. The NCAA makes one important distinction from the EADA which makes it easier to glean profitability. The NCAA report mostly talks about "generated revenues", or revenue earned by the activities of that one program. This corresponds to most fans' ideas of what should be counted as WBB revenue: gate receipts, ads and concessions, media contracts, private donations and so on. The EADA data (even if it could be trusted) defines revenue more broadly and counts external sources such as institutional support and at some schools, re-directed balances from the athletic department's money-makers such as football. I don't think you should count a WBB program as "profitable" if it relies on such outside sources or mere accounting to balance and even exceed its losses. So when the NCAA says a program is profitable, it means that the program's GENERATED revenues exceeded overall expenses.

3, The Football Bowl Subdivision includes 5 of the 6 major WBB conferences, as well as the top fan-supported WBB programs in the 6th major the Big East such as UConn and Rutgers (as well as Notre Dame, which is included in the FBS as a football independent). It also includes 5 WBB mid-major conferences including the Mountain West (which actually had better average attendance than the Pac-10 in the 2008-09 season). Here's a sobering thought: That median head coach's salary in the FBS includes the lower salaries in these 5 mid-majors, so the average major conference WBB head coach is likely averaging a lot more than $308,000.

4. The Football Championship Subdivision is too difficult to define in WBB terms, since the football and WBB conference memberships and strengths really begin to diverge at this level, but it does notably include the Missouri Valley Conference, number 8 in average WBB attendance just behind the Pac-10.

5. The NCAA category "Division I without football" (also known as Division I-AAA) includes everyone else and again is too hard to define in terms of WBB. But this category does include a few well-known programs with established fan support such as Old Dominion.

6. As I said, the NCAA report does not give school-by-school data, but if I had to make an educated guess I would say that Missouri State (number 19 in WBB attendance and number 2 in profitability using the unreliable EADA data) is one of the two money-makers, since they have a long history of enthusiastic fan support. I can't guess the other money-maker, as there are too many candidates which might have eked out a profit that season. (By the way, the number 1 team in WBB profitability in the EADA data was Texas Southern from the SWAC, with an alleged profit of $931,010. Since they averaged only 472 fans a game in 2008-09, and the NCAA data shows that a generated profit remotely close to that amount did not exist that season, I'm going to chalk that up to bizarre internal accounting or yet another of EADA's data bloopers.)

last year I noticed that University of Nebraska was averaging 4,000 fans a year and losing money.

There are programs that don't have a 4,000 seat gym. Like /St. Mary's men's team. I would imagine if they turned a profit it would have to do with donations.

Well again, most sports offered by colleges do lose money. I don't think they were established to "earn" money. There are less tangible benefits that come to schools when they offer quality athletic programs including women's basketball. We have to begin to measure our athletic programs in other ways than purely whether they produce income or not.

Granted in difficult economic times it's a discussion worth having, but I wanted to offer this up.

At any rate, here's an interesting article discussing the situation at UNC (similar to ours) that you might find worth a gander: http://www.dailytarheel.com/index.php/article/2010/04/thrust_into_the_world_of_revenue_sports_unc_womens_basketball_in_unique_position

And another article, slightly older on the topic: http://www.statesman.com/sports/growing-deficits-in-womens-programs-straining-budgets-514843.html

CalWBBFan;390429 said:

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We have to begin to measure our athletic programs in other ways than purely whether they produce income or not.

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Non-revenue sports are ALREADY being judged that way. Every year that a non-revenue program is allowed to continue without new restrictions or budget cuts is an acknowledgment (explicit or not) that the program provides intangible benefits that match or outweigh the costs. And that status quo (not withstanding the recent shakeup at Cal) is what has allowed WBB deficits to not only remain but steadily increase.

WBB programs may not have been established to make money or to be even remotely self-sustaining, but if they are continuing to require large and ever-increasing subsidies, then schools should at least be wondering whether they are also getting similarly increasing intangible benefits with such a small number of participants per school. It's hard to imagine the vast majority of schools answering in the affirmative, so eventually someone will wake up and push back.

It may seem that I'm just repeating what's already been covered in previous articles but I'm not. Those school-by-school figures cited in both of the articles that you linked may make for provocative copy but they are not accurate and as I already said the reported "revenues" for a WBB program would not match most people's definition of revenue. So the picture for women's basketball is even worse than generally portrayed in the media (even though Cal WBB's loss may be LESS than reported). That's why I emphasized the NCAA report, because it provides the more accurate numbers.

That Austin Statesman article in particular is a great example of how poorly and lazily the media has covered the issue of finances in WBB. The author's explanation of why Baylor WBB (as well as its MBB program) shows a net of $0 is "The revenues listed for Baylor, a private school, may include subsidies from the university", implying that the figures for the other schools that show losses do not include such subsidies. WRONG. The figures provided for ALL schools public and private can include institutional subsidies, hardly a "revenue" item if one is trying to measure self-sustainability.

The article has fun listing the biggest money-losers, but do you wonder why the author doesn't list the biggest money-makers, or at least those who came the closest to breakeven? It's because such a list would show how ridiculous, misleading, and outright erroneous the school-by-school numbers are. Here are the top 10 money-makers according to the EADA numbers for 2008-09:

Rank Team (Conf) ( Revenue - Expenses = Net)

1. Texas Southern (SWAC) ( 1,539,000 - 607,990 = 931,010 )
2. Missouri St. (MVC) ( 1,705,842 - 1,321,442 = 384,400 )
3. Gonzaga (WCC) ( 1,523,727 - 1,276,718 = 247,009 )
4. Sacramento St. (BSky) ( 877,259 - 689,109 = 188,150 )
5. Hartford (AE) ( 1,589,603 - 1,424,191 = 165,412 )
6. Prairie View (SWAC) ( 598,497 - 451,923 = 146,574 )
7. St Bonaventure (A10) ( 1,200,665 - 1,066,988 = 133,677 )
8. Coppin St. (MidE) ( 924,790 - 793,150 = 131,640 )
9. Longwood (Ind) ( 919,760 - 804,389 = 115,371 )
10. Penn (Ivy) ( 674,574 - 563,346 = 111,228 )

I've already talked about how ridiculous the Texas Southern numbers are, and how plausible the Missouri State profit might be. And WBB fans might want to believe that top mid-majors such as Gonzaga and Hartford have somehow found the road to self-sustainability even with modest attendance numbers (e.g. maybe their success has attracted strong donorship). But does anyone believe that perennial doormat Sacramento State (average attendance 255) made almost $200,000 that season? The EADA survey lists not 10 but a total of 39 WBB programs that supposedly made money, a list dominated by low-attendance schools, while the NCAA report more accurately dismisses the notion that such a large number of self-sustaining programs could exist.

The EADA survey also lists 126 WBB programs (including Baylor) that broke even, with revenues exactly matching expenses (I'm including Denver and Butler, where rounding gave them a nominal profit of $1). I don't care if these schools have an accounting philosophy that makes all individual sports appear to have a balanced budget, but when more than a third of all schools in a survey effectively obscures the financial state of its WBB program, and when we don't know which of the remaining schools included subsidies (and in what amounts), it renders any school-by-school comparisons largely meaningless.

WayneBear;391048 said:

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Non-revenue sports are ALREADY being judged that way. Every year that a non-revenue program is allowed to continue without new restrictions or budget cuts is an acknowledgment (explicit or not) that the program provides intangible benefits that match or outweigh the costs. And that status quo (not withstanding the recent shakeup at Cal) is what has allowed WBB deficits to not only remain but steadily increase.

WBB programs may not have been established to make money or to be even remotely self-sustaining, but if they are continuing to require large and ever-increasing subsidies, then schools should at least be wondering whether they are also getting similarly increasing intangible benefits with such a small number of participants per school. It's hard to imagine the vast majority of schools answering in the affirmative, so eventually someone will wake up and push back.

It may seem that I'm just repeating what's already been covered in previous articles but I'm not. Those school-by-school figures cited in both of the articles that you linked may make for provocative copy but they are not accurate and as I already said the reported "revenues" for a WBB program would not match most people's definition of revenue. So the picture for women's basketball is even worse than generally portrayed in the media (even though Cal WBB's loss may be LESS than reported). That's why I emphasized the NCAA report, because it provides the more accurate numbers.

That Austin Statesman article in particular is a great example of how poorly and lazily the media has covered the issue of finances in WBB. The author's explanation of why Baylor WBB (as well as its MBB program) shows a net of $0 is "The revenues listed for Baylor, a private school, may include subsidies from the university", implying that the figures for the other schools that show losses do not include such subsidies. WRONG. The figures provided for ALL schools public and private can include institutional subsidies, hardly a "revenue" item if one is trying to measure self-sustainability.

The article has fun listing the biggest money-losers, but do you wonder why the author doesn't list the biggest money-makers, or at least those who came the closest to breakeven? It's because such a list would show how ridiculous, misleading, and outright erroneous the school-by-school numbers are. Here are the top 10 money-makers according to the EADA numbers for 2008-09:

Rank Team (Conf) ( Revenue - Expenses = Net)

1. Texas Southern (SWAC) ( 1,539,000 - 607,990 = 931,010 )
2. Missouri St. (MVC) ( 1,705,842 - 1,321,442 = 384,400 )
3. Gonzaga (WCC) ( 1,523,727 - 1,276,718 = 247,009 )
4. Sacramento St. (BSky) ( 877,259 - 689,109 = 188,150 )
5. Hartford (AE) ( 1,589,603 - 1,424,191 = 165,412 )
6. Prairie View (SWAC) ( 598,497 - 451,923 = 146,574 )
7. St Bonaventure (A10) ( 1,200,665 - 1,066,988 = 133,677 )
8. Coppin St. (MidE) ( 924,790 - 793,150 = 131,640 )
9. Longwood (Ind) ( 919,760 - 804,389 = 115,371 )
10. Penn (Ivy) ( 674,574 - 563,346 = 111,228 )

I've already talked about how ridiculous the Texas Southern numbers are, and how plausible the Missouri State profit might be. And WBB fans might want to believe that top mid-majors such as Gonzaga and Hartford have somehow found the road to self-sustainability even with modest attendance numbers (e.g. maybe their success has attracted strong donorship). But does anyone believe that perennial doormat Sacramento State (average attendance 255) made almost $200,000 that season? The EADA survey lists not 10 but a total of 39 WBB programs that supposedly made money, a list dominated by low-attendance schools, while the NCAA report more accurately dismisses the notion that such a large number of self-sustaining programs could exist.

The EADA survey also lists 126 WBB programs (including Baylor) that broke even, with revenues exactly matching expenses (I'm including Denver and Butler, where rounding gave them a nominal profit of $1). I don't care if these schools have an accounting philosophy that makes all individual sports appear to have a balanced budget, but when more than a third of all schools in a survey effectively obscures the financial state of its WBB program, and when we don't know which of the remaining schools included subsidies (and in what amounts), it renders any school-by-school comparisons largely meaningless.

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If you start allocating AD department costs (medical, facilities, staff, etc.) on the basis of roster numbers, no large teams make money other than football or MBB. Also, how do you allocate general donations? Lots of problems here.