Note: Updated revenue story for 2009-10.
There’s a yarn that’s been spun in the media over the past year that recently came back to life during the Damon Evans saga at UGA – in the sense of “doing a heck of a job” and “look what you just pissed away”. And it is this:
UGA is No. 2 in the nation in football revenue, trailing only Texas. A fine tale and a feather in the cap for the Bulldogs. The only thing is, that claim is horeshit.
That is not to say, of course, that the University of Georgia does not have a proud and successful football program. In my opinion, there is no finer SEC venue to be in on a sunny Saturday afternoon than Sanford Stadium. Saturday night is LSU’s, of course, but the Dawgs’ house is glorious on a fall afternoon. And UGA makes plenty of football money – it’s just that they aren’t close to No. 2 in the SEC, much less the NCAA.
The oft-cited report is simple, basic lazy journalism. The SportsBusiness Journal “examined” Equity in Athletics data to arrive at their conclusions, but the paper failed to look beyond the obvious.
Schools report revenue in four categories: football revenue, basketball revenue (men’s & women’s), other sports revenue and revenue that is “not allocated by sport/gender”. Pull down the Excel file, sort it by total football revenue and it spits out Texas No. 1, Georgia No. 2 (or for the 2008-09 year, Texas No. 1, Ohio State No. 2, Florida No. 3 and Georgia No. 4). The problem is that in most cases, “unallocated” revenue is a really big chunk of total revenue – 25% at LSU, for instance. But at Georgia, only 2% of revenue is “unallocated” – by far the smallest percentage in the SEC (the next-closest is Vandy at 8.2%).
So, obviously, UGA is allocating almost all of its revenue to specific sports, whereas most other major programs seem to leave a lot “unallocated”. Texas, for example, leaves 17.8% of its revenue “unallocated”; Ohio State 21.5%. I would hazard a guess that a lot of that “unallocated” money is conference distributions. In any case, it’s clear Georgia puts things in the “football” column that others don’t. And maybe that’s smarter accounting. But it doesn’t mean their “football revenue” ranking against other schools is accurate.
Consider – if we look only at “football revenue”, here’s how the SEC shakes out for 2008-09:
1. Florida ($66.1 million)
2. Georgia ($65.2 million)
3. Alabama ($64.6 million)
4. LSU ($61.9 million)
5. Auburn ($58.6 million)
6. South Carolina ($57.1 million)
7. Tennessee ($42.8 million)
8. Arkansas ($38.6 million)
9. Kentucky ($26.1 million)
10. Mississippi State ($18.7 million)
11. Ole Miss ($18.7 million)
12. Vandy ($18.6 million)
By this tally, South Carolina (7-6) bested Tennessee (5-7) by $15 million in football despite Tennessee drawing 223,000 more fans to its home games. And Ole Miss and Mississippi State virtually tied despite Ole Miss going 9-4 and Mississippi State going 4-8 and Oxford hosting the Egg Bowl. You might believe the Top 5 (in most any order), but the numbers just don’t make sense.
This order and these figures, however, make a lot more sense:
1. Florida ($90.1 million)
2. Alabama ($89.0 million)
3. LSU ($82.4 million)
4. Auburn ($76.2 million)
5. Georgia ($66.6 million)
6. South Carolina ($64.1 million)
7. Tennessee ($61.9 million)
8. Kentucky ($44.2 million)
9. Arkansas ($42.6 million)
10. Ole Miss ($31.0 million)
11. Mississippi State ($20.4 million)
12. Vandy ($20.2 million)
Florida (the national champion) and Alabama (12-2 with SEC title game and Sugar Bowl appearances) far outpace the rest of the conference in this tally. Georgia seems low and LSU and Auburn high for the seasons they had, but as the title of this piece indicates – I’m looking for “less wrong” than what was reported; real accuracy is elusive.
What I did to arrive at this ranking was allocate that “unallocated” revenue. And to do that I looked at what percentage of “allocated” revenue came from football and gave football that much of the “unallocated” revenue. With wide swings in “other sports” revenue contributions (from Auburn at 12.5% to Vandy at 55.6%) and the percentage of “unallocated revenue” (Georgia at 2%; Kentucky at 40.8%), there is no doubt plenty of wrongness here – especially, I suspect, with Tennessee. The Vols generate a lot of basketball revenue and have a lot of “unallocated” revenue and have to be hurt by this formula.
But this formula doesn’t say the Vols brought in $15 million less than South Carolina, nor does it suppose Ole Miss and Mississippi State were revenue equals in a very unequal year for those programs. It’s worth noting, by the way, that something is fishy about revenue reported by the Mississippi schools. The total revenue reported by Ole Miss was $41.3 million, and for MSU $36.5 million – by far the lowest figures in the SEC. With $17 million or so coming from the conference, those are hugely low numbers for programs not named Vandy ($45.6 million). Arkansas reported $64 million; Kentucky $72.1 million. Maybe SEC money goes directly to the State of Mississippi General Fund or something. But it’s odd.
In any event, it bothered me to see this inaccurate claim about UGA football revenue resurface with the Evans drama, so I figured I would set the record straight(er).
