The USA Today has released the 2012 edition of their annual study of the finances of the Athletics Departments at public Universities in the United States, and it’s no surprise that the top of the list has a strong swimming presence.
The list: Click here for fun with numbers.
Out of the top 20 schools on the list in terms of total revenue, only three are without both a men’s and a women’s swim team, and in two of those cases (#9 Oklahoma and #17 Oregon) they have neither. The other school is #14 Arkansas, who has only a women’s team.
Overwhelmingly, the SEC dominates the list. With the inclusion of new member Texas A&M, they have 10 out of the top 20 highest earners in the country. At the top of the heap is the University of Texas (for those curious about why the Longhorns are willing to shell out $400 to give championship rings for individual swims – see their $17 million annual surplus).
So here’s why this is notable for swimming. We are in a constant battle at the college level with football. Swimming wants more of the football money. Instead, perhaps we should be working with football, rooting for the success and popularity of college football to grow. The teams at the top of the list generally have both men’s and women’s swim teams, and spend a lot of money on them. They also overwhelmingly have long, successful football traditions.
Why do assistants at schools like Auburn and Texas pay so well? Because they have hugely successful football programs that give them a lot of flexibility to attract and pay top talent.
Here’s an exercise. Don’t look at the list. Write down the best swimming facilities/complexes you can think of (excluding private schools like Stanford). Add to it the list of big-name programs that are about to build new facilities. Compare it to the schools with the most revenue.
My Lists, off the top of my head, in no particular order:
Tennessee
Texas
Texas A&M
Missouri
Auburn
Ohio State
Michigan
Minnesota
Iowa
Minnesota
Georgia Tech (Olympic caveat)
Georgia
New Facilities Coming:
Alabama
Penn State
The conclusion: when football succeeds, they take care of their own. It’s not a perfect match, but those teams almost all bring in huge revenues, and it’s almost entirely because of football (and to a lesser extent basketball).
There are cases where poor football has sunk the ship as well. Maryland, for example, has had a couple of awful football years, and they decided to stop funding their swim team (after sinking more money into the program). But imagine if the sport of college football grew to the point where even the bad teams were making $70 million in revenue. Imagine what would happen for the non-revenue sports then.
It seems to me not that Athletics Departments don’t recognize the value of swimming; it seems as though they recognize it in cases where they can afford to recognize it. Not every Athletic Department does it right – Nebraska’s $1.7 million annual surplus probably doesn’t justify cutting their men’s swim team – but we must give credit where it’s due. Football in many cases certainly seems to be less of a culprit for swimming programs being cut than Title IX, the rising costs of facilities, or a lack of attendance at college meets.
If we follow the same design that college athletics are currently molding, the NCAA will be left with 2 men’s sports:
Football and Basketball
Apparently no other sports can produce revenue, which people have been misguided to believe is a profit.
These numbers become increasingly misleading each year. How many University’s are NCAA affiliates across all levels?? Take that number and then add into account this fact, depending on the year, there are only between 15 and 25 PROFITABLE Athletic Departments. That is the first issue. Lots of research has been done to directly associate football success with long lasting profitability, but there is nothing significant saying USF will be profitable because of a successful football team in 2006. USF is not Notre Dame, they are not even the University of Minnesota. But, those institutions do turn a profit, particularly Notre Dame for how they structured a deal with the BCS where they don’t even need to be in a bowl… Read more »
I have not seen any official announcements that Penn State and Alabama are going to build new aquatic facilities.
Penn State has been talking about a new facility for years.
Please correct me if I am wrong…….
I couldn’t get any confirmation from Alabama – the current aquatics facility takes up a spot in the football complex though, so it wouldn’t surprise me either.
Penn State – I’ve spoken to their coaches, who said a firm has been chosen and it’s ready to go. But haven’t seen a release there either.
I disagree with almost everything in this article. It is easy to conclude that football success helps swimming but football success is difficult to achieve. The real problem is the “haves” (such as Texas) and the “have nots” (the majority of colleges). How difficult is it to become a football school if you aren’t one already? If you have to compete in the Big12 or SEC (etc.) how much money do you need to be good? A lot. The old SWC had many swim teams. But as it became more and more difficult to compete with Texas, schools had to allocate disproportionate amounts of money to compete. Title IX was/is a factor, but it would be less of one if… Read more »
amen, dan. I once argued with a football coach about why his practice players were apparently more important than swimming’s high achievers. essentially his argument was “uhh, but, herp, derp, duh… but football makes all the money!”
that was right after I had given a presentation to a class in my masters program showing how very few football programs actually do make any money.
Arizona caught my eye on this list as “accomplishing the most with the least.” With a budget just within the top 50, they seem to run counter to that correlation of big football = big budgets = top 20 swim programs.
With respect to private schools you can fill in Stanford’s budget on the list at just about $90M. I’d guess USC’s budget is in that same range, maybe more. Stanford is a weird one in that they are a fairly small school (undergraduate population of 7000) but they field teams in just about every NCAA sport (35 teams). Their football income is not on par with the others in the top 20 (instead they do benefit from an enormous… Read more »
The one facility that really surprises me is LSU. Les Miles knows swimming first hand as his daughter is a national caliber swimmer. With the money the athletic department has, how have they not upgraded their natatorium?
Anyone else find it interesting that Louisville has a higher revenue than Kentucky?
SwimCoach – RE: Louisville/Kentucky…I was very surprised. Though, I guess Louisville football has been more routinely good than Kentucky? Maybe a wealthier alumni base? Lousiville is a bigger city than Kentucky?? Just guesses.
When you click the plus and see the breakdown…Kentucky blows Louisville away on licensing/rights (SEC effect). Lousville gets a lot more from the university, so that counts for a lot. Looks like the Cardinals also got a huge increase in donations in 2011 – Kentucky was well ahead the years before.
Plus, they got Papa John’s money!!
Even with all of your guesses, I’m still surprised. SEC teams make a lot of money being in the SEC. I think each SEC school made 20+ million from bowl games alone (and I may be wrong, but I’m pretty sure Kentucky didn’t have any bowl game expenses).
Re: LSU facilities. They are indeed horrible and the program is really coming along with Dave Geyer at the helm. LSU should be embarrassed, I know I am and my daughter swims at the club program there. Perhaps some of the reason Les Miles’ daugther left and went to the Bolles School last year to swim and go to school.
Viking,
I agree with some of what you have said. We can not rely on football success to save swimming. There are only a select few schools that can pull in money like Texas.
I do take issue with the following: “As it is, all swim coaches can do is plead their case why we shouldn’t be one of the teams cut when the scissors come out cutting to bring the department down to the minimum.”
We need to build the case long before we see the scissors. Programs need to make sure that their swimmers are the upstanding of student citizens. There is no room for swimmers causing trouble on campus (and coaches ie. Marshall.) We need… Read more »
I’m not sure that anyone rationally is rooting against football or blames financially successful football for the demise of a growing number of men’s swim programs and yes, logically if a department is profitable administration could afford to “generously” support non-revenue (i.e. money losing) sports. It’s usually financially strapped Div I athletic departments that place zero sum games based on revenue contribution that eliminate men’s non-revenue programs.
As a counter argument, note that men’s swimming thrives best in an environment where football is practically speaking a non-revenue sport, namely, Div 3……AND they seem to have no problem with meeting Title IX compliance. So perhaps we should root for the total elimination of athletic scholarships, freeing up more aid money… Read more »