UConn In a $42 Million Hole
The Story: The athletic department released its budgetary performance yesterday as the school had to fill a $42 million budget with a university subsidy. The direct institutional support is one of the highest in the nation, if not the highest.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: The deficit will be a problem for the school going forward as basic revenue over expenses runs $42 million in the red. UConn’s athletic budget is $84 million a year, which is the largest of the non-Power 5 programs. The school brings in approximately $42 million in revenue a year. UConn isn’t a business and we do have to keep in mind that the goal of the athletic department isn’t to turn a profit or even operate with no subsidy. The school spends $17 million in institutional aid a year (technically, it has to pay for the scholarships) and about $18 million in coaches’ salaries. Because of some of the accounting, the deficit number isn’t as eye-opening as it seems. That said, the athletic department hasn’t been hitting its revenue targets in recent years and is going to remain challenged to do so for the near term. The subsidy in 2011 was $15 million, but the move to the AAC has seen expenses explode and revenue tank. That is why UConn is leaving for the Big East, not nostalgia.
THE NUMBERS: Per the Hartford Courant, the football program brought in a paltry $3.3 million in revenue and $16.6 million in expenses for a deficit of $13.3 million. Men’s basketball is losing nearly $4 million a year and women’s basketball is losing $3.5 million. Now, those numbers include costs of scholarships and don’t account for revenue from royalties, licensing, advertising and sponsorships, which brought in $11.2 million.
TICKET SALES DECLINING: The football team’s ticket revenue dropped 20 percent in 2019 while men’s basketball dropped 3 percent, meaning there was no Dan Hurley hire bump. The women’s basketball team’s ticket revenue is down an astounding 17 percent. Those are all concerning metrics as the school has to rent the XL Center and Rentschler Field from the state, and doesn’t receive parking or concession revenue from games played in the Hartford area. The non-big three sports for UConn cost $25.8 million and brought in only $2.8 million in revenue with only $615,000 in ticket sales. That number includes men’s hockey, which has struggled in attendance in Hockey East, and men’s and women’s soccer, which played home games away from campus as a new stadium is built. Also, baseball is selling season tickets as it enters a new stadium in Storrs this spring and will begin to bring in more ticket revenue as a result.
EFFECT OF MOVE TO BIG EAST: It is going to be a big expense for the school, which had to forfeit $3 million of AAC revenue as a result of moving out of the AAC. UConn has to pay $17 million to exit AAC and $3.5 million to enter the Big East. Those expenses are going to crush the short-term balance sheet.
BENEDICT IN THE SPOTLIGHT: The budget is a Dave Benedict problem. We see the bright red, but what was it against targets? How much is the athletic department missing on its budget? Just as coaches are responsible for wins and losses, it is the job of the athletic director to manage the budget. A structural deficit is always going to be in the budget, but we are assuming the athletic department is not hitting its revenue targets. How far off is it from its goals and what’s being done to get to those targets? That’s the question we have to ask.
OUR THOUGHTS: UConn has already started to trim expenses under the hood as administrative salaries were cut and we all know the football team’s coaches’ salary pool is challenged and well below what other major athletic departments pay. The Huskies are hoping to get better ticket sales in the Big East and develop an attractive home schedule for football as an independent. UConn is also actively seeking out buy games, such as Clemson in 2021, that will fetch north of a million dollars. UConn is also playing a one-off at UCF for more than $1 million and will try to negotiate a TV deal for football. Inevitably, we will hear about cutting football as a magic bullet, but that doesn’t solve the structural deficit and would have repercussions in alumni donations and reduce the power and brand of the athletic department.
BOTTOM LINE: If the deficit concerns you — and it should — buy tickets to games. Watch the games on television. The only way the Huskies are going to get out of the deficit is to grow their customer base and season-ticket base and negotiate more revenue-friendly deals for stadiums. UConn’s predicament is a revenue problem, and cutting isn’t going to make anyone who watches the athletic program happy with the end result.
Morning Reads
WOMEN AT UCF: The Huskies will play at UCF tonight hoping to learn from Tuesday’s scare. (Hearst Connecticut Media)
LIVING DANGEROUSLY: Crystal Dangerfield made sure the Huskies escaped against Memphis. Will she need to do it again against Central Florida? (Journal Inquirer)
NO MORE TENNESSEE GAME? UConn is playing Tennessee soon and the least enthusiastic participant in the game appears to be Geno Auriemma. (Hartford Courant)
CAN WILSON SUSTAIN? Sid Wilson had a welcome-back-to-civilization game against Wichita State. Can he do it again? (The UConn Blog)
