[NU Sports] NU's football bang for the buck ...

[Jonathan Hodges]

I believe in the second article when they mention "net revenue" they mean
"profit."  So, NU profited by $8.22M from the football program.  Note,
though, that this money is used by the athletic department to pay for the
"non-revenue" sports (i.e. everything except for football and men's
basketball) and the athletic department basically runs a $0 net operation
(noting that some other schools have required dipping into the general
university funds to operate the athletic department).

BTW, this page details the athletic financial revenues and expenses for most
public schools (obviously NU is not included) and can give one a better idea
of where the money is flowing from and to:
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/ncaa-finances.htm

And for further reading there is the Knight Commission report on athletics
financial integrity that was released this year:
http://www.knightcommission.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=503&Itemid=166

Here are revenues and expenses by conference (through 2002 only):
http://www.ncaa.org/wps/wcm/connect/89061c804e0dac129f5aff1ad6fc8b25/2003D1aConfReport.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CACHEID=89061c804e0dac129f5aff1ad6fc8b25

And here are aggregate revenues and expenses for ALL of the NCAA:
http://www.ncaapublications.com/productdownloads/RE09.pdf


In any case I think this goes to show that Northwestern is willing to
increase its expenses to be competitive in the Big Ten (although, as noted
earlier, some of the additional expenses were due to making a bowl, which
were mostly if not completely offset by the portion of the bowl payout that
Northwestern received).  NU gave Fitz a pay raise last offseason (in the
form of a contract extension) and has upped the amount going to assistant
coaches (which has allowed NU to bring in some highly respected
coordinators, like Hankwitz).  Also, I am sure that some of the money has
been going into recruiting travel and related expenses and that has shown
through Fitz's tenure as head coach with quality recruits coming in, leading
to a deeper team on the field.

Jonathan

On Wed, Jun 30, 2010 at 8:27 AM, <MHRJGScott at aol.com> wrote:

> does this mean we lose $7.5 million a year on football, or am I missing
> something?
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