Wisconsin Athletic Endowment

The Wisconsin State Journal reports that the University of Wisconsin's athletic department might generate $100 million less in revenues due to COVID-19.  Additionally, the article notes that the athletic department is also reducing costs as well.  Finally, the article states that between the athletic endowment and reserves for athletic capital expenditures, Wisconsin has $190 million in reserves.  That got me curious about the state of Wisconsin's athletic department's athletic endowment.

FBS athletic department are required to submit athletic department financial information to the NCAA using the Membership Financial Reporting System. Since FY2010, FBS athletic departments are required (NCAA bylaw 3.2.4.16(d)) to submit the fiscal year end value of athletic endowments (although this information is missing in the FY2013 and FY2014 MFRS reports for Wisconsin).

So, let's take a look at the athletic endowment for Wisconsin's athletic department.  As you can see below, Wisconsin's athletic endowment has been increasing over the last five fiscal years, with a growth rate of 108.6% and a compound annual growth rate of 15.8%.

With the expected drop in athletic department generated revenues (as well as the ability of Wisconsin's athletic department to reduces costs), the use of athletic department endowments to cushion the expected deficits seems like a reasonable use for these funds.

Rutgers Athletic Department Financial Information

Rutgers faculty union is suing the University for allegedly failing to provide athletic department financial records.  According to the lawsuit, Rutgers has had an increase in debt by over $75 million from last year.

The records the union are suing for are NOT the athletic department financial information provided below.  Rather, I wanted to show some general financial information about the athletic department at Rutgers.  Here is a snapshot of Rutgers athletic department financial information* since the 2004/2005 academic year. 

The first thing to notice is that Rutgers athletic department breaks even most of the fifteen seasons during this time period - exactly.  

While statistically, we know that this is nearly impossible, something must be going on to achieve this results, and there is - specifically that Rutgers subsidizes their athletic department a lot.

These subsidies come from three sources:  student fees, direct government funds and direct institutional support.  Here is a graph of the three sources of subsidies since the 2004/05 season.  Student fees (in nominal of thousands of dollars) has been steadily increasing, and direct institutional support typically an even larger part of the subsidy received from the athletic department, with direct government support typically a small part of the overall subsidy.

So, what would Rutgers look like without the subsidies?  Below is the total operating revenue (without the subsidies), total operating expenses and the deficit without those subsidies.

*The data comes from the NCAA Membership Financial Reporting System reports that Rutgers provides to the NCAA and were acquired from Freedom of Information Requests.