RandBall: Where’s the money? Gophers budget shortfall raises questions

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Per RandBall:

It would be nice if the Gophers athletics budget was as simple as 1-2-3, but nothing related to money and college sports is easy these days.

Instead, recent developments have showed us the financial math at the University of Minnesota broadly and the athletic department specifically is as complicated as 6-7-8.

As in: Tuition for in-state undergrads at the Twin Cities campus is going up 6.5% next season, academic programs are getting cut by 7% and the athletic department projects an $8.75 million deficit between revenues and expenses in 2025-26.

The math, as they say, is not math-ing.

The only easy part is understanding why the athletic department has such a gap. At this time last year, the Gophers’ budget presented by AD Mark Coyle was projected at around $150 million.

This year, Coyle is projecting revenues at $165.47 million and expenses at $174.22 million.

The additional revenue largely seems to come from TV and media money paid out by the Big Ten. That was pegged at about $63 million in the 2024 fiscal year while estimates have put it around $75 million for the 2025 fiscal year, a bump of $12 million.

The additional expenses are almost all from settled lawsuits that allow schools to pay their athletes. The Gophers are paying the full allowable amount, about $20.5 million, a huge new expense that accounts for about 12% of their budget.

www.startribune.com

RandBall: Where’s the money? Gophers budget shortfall raises questions

The University of Minnesota athletic department projects a nearly $9 million budget deficit this season. How to close it remains to be seen.
www.startribune.com www.startribune.com

Go Gophers!!
 

Cut a few sports like Baseball, Golf, probably some other useless ones where can’t compete in anymore or never did in first place reduces a lot of those expenses. Not even top 25 in rowing?
 

The non revenue sports should go back to playing mostly regional only to cut down on travel costs. The tennis team traveled to California to get beat by USC and UCLA. The track team traveled to invitationals in Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Florida, Oklahoma, California, California, and Louisiana.
 

Because of Title IX, Men's non-revenue sports will bear the brunt of the budget shortfalls. They'll need to be privately financed or will get axed. The problem is that you would damn near need to cut all sports besides FB, MBB and MH to balance the budget and that won't sit well with some.

www.collegefactual.com

University of Minnesota - Twin Cities Athletics Programs

What sports are offered at University of Minnesota - Twin Cities? Learn how each athletic ranks, how much revenue it brings in, the average sports aid per student athlete at UMN Twin Cities, and more.
www.collegefactual.com www.collegefactual.com
 

minnyrules11 said:
Cut a few sports like Baseball, Golf, probably some other useless ones where can’t compete in anymore or never did in first place reduces a lot of those expenses. Not even top 25 in rowing?
Click to expand...
Will be tough to cut women's sports (rowing), because of Title IX.

If the SEC and other southern conferences won't give northern teams a fair chance to be competitive in baseball by expanding the season, then I agree, we should get out of the baseball business.

Agree on golf, tennis as well. (for men's)

Here is the matrix on which schools sponsor which varsity sports: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Ten_Conference#Men's_sponsored_sports_by_school
 


I’m not sure Rand’s “report is reporting.” Was his mention of the cuts to the U’s general budget and the tuition increase just background on the financial climate? That’s not the way he wrote it. He ties that in with the athletic department budget shortfall. Surely he knows that’s a distinctly separate budget. Tough to get the “mathing to math” when you’re mashing together two different formulas.
 

GophersInIowa said:
The non revenue sports should go back to playing mostly regional only to cut down on travel costs. The tennis team traveled to California to get beat by USC and UCLA. The track team traveled to invitationals in Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Florida, Oklahoma, California, California, and Louisiana.
Click to expand...
If we're going to pick non-revenue sports to go after, then let's at least pick the sports we aren't competitive in. In the most recent track and field season (2024-2025), the University of Minnesota's men's team achieved a historic seventh-place finish at the NCAA Outdoor Championships, their best since 1948. The team also finished second at the Big Ten Championships. As for the women, they won the Big Ten Outdoor Championship, their fourth in program history and first since 2018.
 

One of the biggest money sucks at the U.is women's basketball with about a $4 million per negative margin. Unless the barn starts seeing routine capacity crowds for women's hoops, that negative margin will only grow.
 

Lol. If you are going to cut sports we shouldn't be in the Big Ten. The problem is the disconnect with alumni. Southern teams seem to love their teams more. They have no problem donating. This is embarrassing actually.
 



If handball can’t figure it out he is a moron

“The math isn’t mathing” may as well be “I’m an idiot”
 

Cut men’s baseball. They haven’t been seriously competitive for a long time, and winning the occasional big ten and never making it to Omaha isn’t being competitive on a national scale.
 

99Gopher said:
If we're going to pick non-revenue sports to go after, then let's at least pick the sports we aren't competitive in. In the most recent track and field season (2024-2025), the University of Minnesota's men's team achieved a historic seventh-place finish at the NCAA Outdoor Championships, their best since 1948. The team also finished second at the Big Ten Championships. As for the women, they won the Big Ten Outdoor Championship, their fourth in program history and first since 2018.
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Yeah I didn’t mean to pick on anyone specific, that was just the first few I looked at.
 




Spaulding!No! said:
I think the last big ten baseball nat was in. 1977. To almost everyone that is a lifetime
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Yep for all the undeserved accolades John Anderson got from the locals, he never took a team to Omaha. Most schools would not allow a coach to last for almost 40 years without achieving that of a major conference program. And as underwhelming as he was the program is trending even lower now. Time to just shut it down, the university clearly doesnt care about the program and neither does the fanbase.
 

GopherGrit said:
Will be tough to cut women's sports (rowing), because of Title IX.

If the SEC and other southern conferences won't give northern teams a fair chance to be competitive in baseball by expanding the season, then I agree, we should get out of the baseball business.

Agree on golf, tennis as well. (for men's)

Here is the matrix on which schools sponsor which varsity sports: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Ten_Conference#Men's_sponsored_sports_by_school
Click to expand...
Getting rid of women’s basketball would fix the problem. They lose like $200-300K per player, it’s absolutely ridiculous amounts of graft.

If you cut that, and then whatever men’s sports you need to keep things in balance, then I think that fixes the issue. Agree with baseball. I like Gopher Baseball but they will never be competitive.
 

I thought the total check that was going to be cut from the Big Ten was going up to $80M and then $100M+ per school per year?

Coyle & athletic dept CFO might be playing some games with that figure, though? They have like 30+ categories in the financial report that they split revenue into.
 

hello-world said:
Getting rid of women’s basketball would fix the problem. They lose like $200-300K per player, it’s absolutely ridiculous amounts of graft.

If you cut that, and then whatever men’s sports you need to keep things in balance, then I think that fixes the issue. Agree with baseball. I like Gopher Baseball but they will never be competitive.
Click to expand...

You're kidding yourself if you think women's basketball is going anywhere. Especially considering that women's basketball is actually a growing segment.
 
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maroonfive said:
Lol. If you are going to cut sports we shouldn't be in the Big Ten. The problem is the disconnect with alumni. Southern teams seem to love their teams more. They have no problem donating. This is embarrassing actually.
Click to expand...
. Kinda apples and oranges regarding some schools that historically were/are underfunded by the state so the alumni have been footing the bill for 80-100 years.
 

Cutting the actual amateur sports. This what it has come to. Getting rid of athletics that give a bunch of kids chances at attending college. All to make room for second rate professional sports.
 

stocker08 said:
You're kidding yourself if you think women's basketball is going anywhere. Especially considering that women's basketball is actually a growing segment.
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It loses so much money. It lost $4M just last year. That’s $267K per scholarship athlete. It’s an awful investment.

It costs more per player to field a women’s basketball team than most families make in a year.

Cutting women’s basketball would almost completely close the budget deficit. While having a negligible impact on the total number of scholarship athletes.

Get far more bang for buck on nearly every other program.
 
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hello-world said:
It loses so much money. It lost $4M just last year. That’s $267K per scholarship athlete. It’s an awful investment.

It costs more per player to field a women’s basketball team than most families make in a year.

Cutting women’s basketball would almost completely close the budget deficit. While having a negligible impact on the total number of scholarship athletes.

Get far more bang for buck on nearly every other program.
Click to expand...
I could be wrong, but I think a well run and competitive WBB could operate in the black at Minnesota.

These B1G women’s programs all made at least $5 million in 2023:
1. Purdue - $7.0 million
2. Rutgers - $6.8 million
3. USC - $5.7 million
7. UCLA - $5.6 million

Link:
lightwavereports.com

15 Highest Revenue-Generating Women's College Sports Programs In The U.S. | Light Wave

By CM Chaney
lightwavereports.com
 

99Gopher said:
If we're going to pick non-revenue sports to go after, then let's at least pick the sports we aren't competitive in. In the most recent track and field season (2024-2025), the University of Minnesota's men's team achieved a historic seventh-place finish at the NCAA Outdoor Championships, their best since 1948. The team also finished second at the Big Ten Championships. As for the women, they won the Big Ten Outdoor Championship, their fourth in program history and first since 2018.
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It's pretty amazing that the men did that when we don't even have a men's indoor track team. How do you get good track-and-field athletes to come to your school when you don't even compete in the indoor season?
 

WAGopher said:
I could be wrong, but I think a well run and competitive WBB could operate in the black at Minnesota.

These B1G women’s programs all made at least $5 million in 2023:
1. Purdue - $7.0 million
2. Rutgers - $6.8 million
3. USC - $5.7 million
7. UCLA - $5.6 million

Link:
lightwavereports.com

15 Highest Revenue-Generating Women's College Sports Programs In The U.S. | Light Wave

By CM Chaney
lightwavereports.com
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All of these schools doctored their financial statements to not show a loss on women's sports which is why their revenue is absurdly high.

Minnesota, to its credit, still reports accurate numbers.
 

hello-world said:
All of these schools doctored their financial statements to not show a loss on women's sports which is why their revenue is absurdly high.

Minnesota, to its credit, still reports accurate numbers.
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I’m not saying you’re wrong, but how do you know or prove their financials are doctored?
 

If they called all the revenue sports players employees. They could then maintain amateur sports separately with no NIL guardrails and possibly not be afoul of title IX
 

WAGopher said:
I’m not saying you’re wrong, but how do you know or prove their financials are doctored?
Click to expand...
Yes, unfortunately I cannot direct link to their reports because of the way the web application works, but you can access them here: https://ope.ed.gov/athletics/#/.

Navigate to University of Minnesota - Twin Cities first and you will see what a true report looks like. It will show you revenue and expenses by team under "Revenues and Expenses".

Minnesota, to its credit, also publishes its full NCAA membership financials every year and you can access them here: https://gophersports.com/sports/2018/5/21/ot-financial-reports-html

Then navigate to Rutgers - NB and you will see what a doctored report looks like. It reports revenues versus expenses as exactly equal to each other.

Now you might say, maybe they manage to that. But you'd be wrong. Because Rutgers got sued and had to publish their actual financials one year: https://rutgersaaup.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Rutgers-report-to-the-NCAA-2021.pdf

In which they show the true amount of money that their women's basketball team is losing.

Purdue is slightly different in that they doctor it to show women's athletics overall as a wash, rather than every individual program (also laughable).

It is astonishing to me that Trump hasn't gone after this, and I'm not even a Trump supporter, but whatever.
 
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hello-world said:
Yes, unfortunately I cannot direct link to their reports because of the way the web application works, but you can access them here: https://ope.ed.gov/athletics/#/.
Click to expand...
Summarizing this very long post. Every school is required to report two statements every year. One to the department of education (EADA) and one to the NCAA (NCAA Online Report). You can see all of Minnesota's here: https://gophersports.com/sports/2018/5/21/ot-financial-reports-html

The schools referenced above do not openly publish their NCAA Online Reports, but occasionally get sued into disclosing them, and they show wild differences between what they report to the government's "Equity in Athletics" program and their true financial statements submitted to the NCAA.
 

hello-world said:
It loses so much money. It lost $4M just last year. That’s $267K per scholarship athlete. It’s an awful investment.

It costs more per player to field a women’s basketball team than most families make in a year.

Cutting women’s basketball would almost completely close the budget deficit. While having a negligible impact on the total number of scholarship athletes.

Get far more bang for buck on nearly every other program.
Click to expand...

Women's basketball is growing in popularity hand over fist. The University of Minnesota is not cutting women's basketball regardless of whether you think it's an "awful investment".
 

stocker08 said:
You're kidding yourself if you think women's basketball is going anywhere. Especially considering that women's basketball is actually a growing segment.
Click to expand...
You're right that it isn't going anywhere but it runs a $4 million deficit, a number I assume will grow with presumably at least an additional scholarship and pay for play. Maybe it's a growing segment but it doesn't come close to making a profit, mirroring the WNBA. How is that issue resolved?
 

swede2 said:
You're right that it isn't going anywhere but it runs a $4 million deficit, a number I assume will grow with presumably at least an additional scholarship and pay for play. Maybe it's a growing segment but it doesn't come close to making a profit, mirroring the WNBA. How is that issue resolved?
Click to expand...

How many major D1 schools have no women's basketball program? My guess is that the number is close to zero. This isn't an issue unique to Minnesota. My guess is that the conference is already looking at ways to better monetize women's basketball through media deals. And with growing interest in the sport, who knows what things will look like in five or ten years.
 

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