Hoops budget: 3rd in A10

[VeniceMenace]

What do you think, reasonable, competitive?

http://www.richmond.com/sports/college/numbers-game-check-out-di-men-s-basketball-budgets-around/article_d5934091-cf4e-5cce-acbe-ef8d373db4ad.html

[Cowboy]

-just looking at the list a couple of items pop for me...VaTech outspending UVA by $1.3mil is surprising as is Bonnie being able to only spend $3.5mil, i would have figured they spend that on transportation for their teams to and from the hinterlands

-somewhat related question, do game officials get paid by SLU or the A10? 

[HoosierPal]

Interesting. Davidson is last in the A 10.  Rhody is 6th and Bonnie 11th. Davidson spends half of what we do. All three made the NCAA tourney. Outspending your competition doesn’t mean much. 

[almaman]

NCAA BB D-1 better hope Carl Icahn doesn't start raiding university BOTs. I'm guessing there is mucho wasteful spending in this arena.

[gobillsgo]

$6 mil a year and we still don’t have a way for fans to buy the damn jerseys

[Adman]

I did a bit more research to see what similar non-A10 programs are spending. If our goal is to be Xavier, Gonzaga, Villanova, and the Big East in general, I'm less interested in our A10 standings. Our men's bball budget will be an important topic in comparison with the below universities. 

Especially interesting are the Creighton and Marquette numbers. Not difficult to see the case made by Marquette when stumping for Creighton's admission into Big East. We have some work to do. On other hand, Porter Moser got a lot done with little. Here are the numbers:

Saint Louis — $5,590,746

Gonzaga --  $8,874,752

Butler -- $5,489,704

DePaul -- $5,533,811

Creighton --  $7,665,992

Georgetown -- $17,702,377

Marquette --  $11,803,633            

Seton Hall -- $6,011,447

Villanova -- $11,120,378

Xavier -- $7,835,880

Notre Dame -- $6,793,853

Loyola Chicago - $2,821,576
 

By the way, if anyone wants to research further, the data's available for all to see:

https://ope.ed.gov/athletics/#/

[Old guy]

On 4/23/2018 at 6:49 PM, HoosierPal said:

Interesting. Davidson is last in the A 10.  Rhody is 6th and Bonnie 11th. Davidson spends half of what we do. All three made the NCAA tourney. Outspending your competition doesn’t mean much. 

Well, the budget may indicate one thing, but there may be other budgets available to some of these places (like for example a separate and broad travel budget for Bonnie, available to all departments just because they are so isolated and need to spend a lot for the faculty to attend conferences, athletic games, and the like), that might equalize the actual amounts spent a bit more evenly.

[NH]

Anyone know how reliable this data is?

[JMM28]

50 minutes ago, NH said:

Anyone know how reliable this data is?

There’s a lot of noise in it. It can be significantly thrown off by buyout figures of previous coaches - and the buyout structure. 

[kshoe]

38 minutes ago, JMM28 said:

There’s a lot of noise in it. It can be significantly thrown off by buyout figures of previous coaches - and the buyout structure. 

I seem to remember the SLU data looking particularly fake in the past as it somehow had revenue exactly offsetting expenses. There is also fuzziness with how expenditures and revenues are split between sports.

[Adman]

2 hours ago, NH said:

Anyone know how reliable this data is?

Not sure. Line items aren’t broken out for Men’s b-ball, but supposed to include scholarship value, cost of staff,  recruiting, game production, travel, etc. One fuzzy area I can imagine is venue rental — school paying large rent to 3rd party for arena vs on campus “school-run” (mostly cost-free). Not sure which side SLU falls in accounting-wise with Spectra.

[Adman]

51 minutes ago, kshoe said:

I seem to remember the SLU data looking particularly fake in the past as it somehow had revenue exactly offsetting expenses. There is also fuzziness with how expenditures and revenues are split between sports.

I just checked and, yes, SLU is showing exact same revenue as costs for Men’s bball. Either must be counting SLU underwriting, donations from donors, both, counting PR/media value and/or other creative accounting. 

[ARon]

On 4/24/2018 at 9:13 PM, kshoe said:

I seem to remember the SLU data looking particularly fake in the past as it somehow had revenue exactly offsetting expenses. There is also fuzziness with how expenditures and revenues are split between sports.

I vaguely remember seeing a figure around $7 million.  Not sure if that was supposed to be just basketball or all athletics, and yes revenue somehow magically matched.

I wonder whether or not debt service on the arena is included.

[brianstl]

10 minutes ago, ARon said:

I vaguely remember seeing a figure around $7 million.  Not sure if that was supposed to be just basketball or all athletics, and yes revenue somehow magically matched.

I wonder whether or not debt service on the arena is included.

I am pretty it is as either an expense or it is revenue diverted away from the program. 

I am not sure how accurate this is, but I was told a few months back that money from the first series of bonds that were sold to finance the arena was split 50/50 between the arena and the Doisy Research Facilty.  Only revenue from Chaifetz goes to pay off that series of bonds. 

[Cowboy]

12 hours ago, brianstl said:

I am pretty it is as either an expense or it is revenue diverted away from the program. 

I am not sure how accurate this is, but I was told a few months back that money from the first series of bonds that were sold to finance the arena was split 50/50 between the arena and the Doisy Research Facilty.  Only revenue from Chaifetz goes to pay off that series of bonds. 

-I guess that is pretty good if the arena can pay for itself and another new building, if this is the case

[cheeseman]

2 hours ago, Cowboy said:

-I guess that is pretty good if the arena can pay for itself and another new building, if this is the case

As long as you don't mind having income such as the concessions and parking taken away from the BB program then OK - I just think that taking all that money away is not fair.  The concessions and parking are a big chunk of money.

[Box and Won]

How long until the bonds are retired?

[brianstl]

15 minutes ago, Box and Won said:

How long until the bonds are retired?

I am not sure. From what I took away from the conversation when this came up is that there was at least two sets of bonds issued.  The one that involved Doisy was the smaller first series issued and it was sometime before the larger series of bonds

[willie]

37 minutes ago, Box and Won said:

How long until the bonds are retired?

Almost all Muni Bonds have a 10 year call feature. The arena opened in 2008. Rates were higher then. I would expect them to be refinanced. 

[kwyjibo]

16 hours ago, brianstl said:

I am pretty it is as either an expense or it is revenue diverted away from the program. 

I am not sure how accurate this is, but I was told a few months back that money from the first series of bonds that were sold to finance the arena was split 50/50 between the arena and the Doisy Research Facilty.  Only revenue from Chaifetz goes to pay off that series of bonds. 

Capital spending or debt service is most definitely not included in this data.  This information is available at the links Adman gave above.  I wish capital spending information and debt servicing  was available (it would not be pretty--look at the Cal case it is abysmal what athletics have done to the university).

I am sure whatever little revenue Chaifetz generates would go to paying off bond debt but that is tiny part of what is being paid.  It is being paid as an institutional cost (like research facilities) by SLU.

There was a broader report of college finance a few years ago that included all of the institutional support including capital investments for NCAA D1 athletics and it was not pretty.  It basically concluded that institutional support (outside of athletic department budgets) for athletes was 3-4 times what it is for other students even at non-football schools.  The real eye opening thing I learned was how much student fees are used to fund athletics in the bulk of D-1 schools (there have been some fights about this but students do seem to accept this).  I have no idea why people think college athletics in any sense make money because the reality outside of a handful of institutions with unique revenue situations they do not.