[CTcard]

Bowling Green alumni trying to save baseball from being cut.

Bowling Green decided to cut its baseball program amid budget cuts forced by the pandemic. Then the fundraising began.

https://www.si.com/college/2020/06/01/bo...ege-sports

They seem to have adopted the Cal approach to fundraising.

If anyone is interested ...

USA Today annually publishes summaries of the NCAA mandated financial disclosures for athletic departments. These are acquired through FOI requests, and thus include only public universities.
https://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/finances/

In the last report available, Bowling Green appears to be broadly similar to other Group of Five departments, though generally on a smaller scale. They have the smallest AD budget of the MAC schools, and the smallest percentage university subsidy. [To see Ball State's more detailed finances, click on their name in the list above.]

Though they operate a nominally balanced budget (as does most every AD), 57% of their athletic operating expenses are derived from the rest of the university (not generated by athletics or giving). Most of that support appears to come from direct fees on students - around $13 million or $550-$650 per student depending on how they include grad students.


Cal is an interesting case. After much publicity for financial mismanagement and a mess with their stadium refurbishment, they have made substantial changes - at least to how they report their AD budget.
In the most recent year available (2018), Cal reports $0 net support from the rest of the university. I am a little confused how they get there as they also report $8 million in student fees + direct university support + "other" income. These categories can be offset by payments from the AD back to the rest of the university, which presumably they do in some manner. However, they also are unique in having given up on officially reporting a balanced AD budget. They report an AD deficit of $19.3 million, which seems to be the largest in the country by over $10 million (most are nominally balanced, a few of the big places report a small surplus).

To Cal's credit, they have lowered the student fee contribution to the NCAA sports program from about $3.2 million in 2009 to only $444,374 in 2018, direct school fund transfers have dropped from $10 million in 2010 to $4.8 million in 2018, and the curious "other" category dropped from $16.7 million in 2016 to only $2.8 million in 2018.
Still, balancing those numbers with the now official budget deficit its difficult to tell from the USA Today numbers if Cal has made serious improvements or merely shuffled accounting lines. 

Perhaps also of interest, Cal's income from Rights/Licensing (mostly TV) went from $18 million in 2008 to $55 million in 2018. A period where I guess the Pac 12 has fallen behind the other Power 5 Conferences.

[CTcard]

Bowling Green alumni trying to save baseball from being cut.

Bowling Green decided to cut its baseball program amid budget cuts forced by the pandemic. Then the fundraising began.

https://www.si.com/college/2020/06/01/bo...ege-sports

They seem to have adopted the Cal approach to fundraising.

If anyone is interested ...

USA Today annually publishes summaries of the NCAA mandated financial disclosures for athletic departments. These are acquired through FOI requests, and thus include only public universities.
https://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/finances/

In the last report available, Bowling Green appears to be broadly similar to other Group of Five departments, though generally on a smaller scale. They have the smallest AD budget of the MAC schools, and the smallest percentage university subsidy. [To see Ball State's more detailed finances, click on their name in the list above.]

Though they operate a nominally balanced budget (as does most every AD), 57% of their athletic operating expenses are derived from the rest of the university (not generated by athletics or giving). Most of that support appears to come from direct fees on students - around $13 million or $550-$650 per student depending on how they include grad students.


Cal is an interesting case. After much publicity for financial mismanagement and a mess with their stadium refurbishment, they have made substantial changes - at least to how they report their AD budget.
In the most recent year available (2018), Cal reports $0 net support from the rest of the university. I am a little confused how they get there as they also report $8 million in student fees + direct university support + "other" income. These categories can be offset by payments from the AD back to the rest of the university, which presumably they do in some manner. However, they also are unique in having given up on officially reporting a balanced AD budget. They report an AD deficit of $19.3 million, which seems to be the largest in the country by over $10 million (most are nominally balanced, a few of the big places report a small surplus).

To Cal's credit, they have lowered the student fee contribution to the NCAA sports program from about $3.2 million in 2009 to only $444,374 in 2018, direct school fund transfers have dropped from $10 million in 2010 to $4.8 million in 2018, and the curious "other" category dropped from $16.7 million in 2016 to only $2.8 million in 2018.
Still, balancing those numbers with the now official budget deficit its difficult to tell from the USA Today numbers if Cal has made serious improvements or merely shuffled accounting lines. 

Perhaps also of interest, Cal's income from Rights/Licensing (mostly TV) went from $18 million in 2008 to $55 million in 2018. A period where I guess the Pac 12 has fallen behind the other Power 5 Conferences.