I am withholding all donations until Pitt's Offensive Coordinator brings back the "Sutherland Scythe" offense.
Hard to say "Pitt is so cheap!" with these new salary rankings
- Thread starter MarshallGoldberg
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On athletics? Definitely not. Usually like 5-15 million lost a year and also that doesn't even include the $7 million shortfall to fully fund scholarships. That before COVID. Then with COVID, Pitt has declined to give an estimate:
In an August letter to season-ticket holders, Penn State athletic director Sandy Barbour said the department’s revenue losses “will be in the high eight figures.” Pitt declined to provide even a rough estimate of projected financial losses.
Unless things took a turn after Lyke took over the department, then no Pitt is not losing money on Athletics. All of my information expired with the new administration, but Pitt had been making substantial payments to the University for years. Now that Athletics are bringing in nearly $100 million in annual revenue I find it hard to believe that spending has increased that much in recent years to reverse course.
Can you show me one budget or even one newspaper article saying Pitt athletics made a surplus that it paid to the university??
Sorry , but counting the cost of attending Pitt for athletes isn’t what they charge the non athlete . Adding 13 bb and 90 Fb players to the student population cost them absolutely nothing . Think they need to hire 5 additional instructors for an additional 103 students ?
Academic support for these ” students “ adds cost , but that’s the price of keeping them eligible. Room and board is a real cost , I’ll give you that .
All non revenue athletes are another matter , but bb and Fb pays for those other sports . Funding those non revenue sports is a choice the university makes in conjunction with ACC requirements.
Crying poor , but paying over 4 million for PN and 3+ million for JC doesn’t get them any sympathy from me .
They want more revenue , how about doing what it takes to win , any additional costs will be minimal compared to their returns .
No because you know as well as I do that Pitt keeps that information private and all of their public reporting is vague (increasingly so under Lyke) and shows that the athletic department breaks exactly even every year for the past 15 years. I know from personal conversations with a relative that was in the previous administration, but hey they could have been lying that the transition to the ACC was a financial windfall for the department and creative accounting makes it appear that the department is cash neutral. I imagine much of that is in facility lease payments made to the university which is what many universities use, but we never went into specifics.
You don't have to believe me. It definitely makes more sense that I am full of shit and that Pitt, like the other 95% of Universities that claim annual 7-figure losses, continues to spend increasingly large sums on athletic departments and athletic facilities because they're hemorrhaging money.
They want more revenue , how about doing what it takes to win , any additional costs will be minimal compared to their returns .
I think if there was a big box you could throw money into and wins would come out the other side, we would be using that box. As I said earlier, wins (especially within your peers, like within a conference) are finite resources. We spent big on our coaches -- more than most other ACC teams! -- it's up to them to win now. If they won't, Lyke has shown some willingness to fire.
You don't have to believe me. It definitely makes more sense that I am full of shit and that Pitt, like the other 95% of Universities that claim annual 7-figure losses, continues to spend increasingly large sums on athletic departments and athletic facilities because they're hemorrhaging money.
I don't think you're trying to be dishonest or anything, I just assume the university is willing to lose some money on athletics because of the social and advertising benefits to the school, and because some donors may be willing to donate money to academics and athletics because they love sports.
I think if there was a big box you could throw money into and wins would come out the other side, we would be using that box. As I said earlier, wins (especially within your peers, like within a conference) are finite resources. We spent big on our coaches -- more than most other ACC teams! -- it's up to them to win now. If they won't, Lyke has shown some willingness to fire.
You don't have to believe me. It definitely makes more sense that I am full of shit and that Pitt, like the other 95% of Universities that claim annual 7-figure losses, continues to spend increasingly large sums on athletic departments and athletic facilities because they're hemorrhaging money.
I don't think you're trying to be dishonest or anything, I just assume the university is willing to lose some money on athletics because of the social and advertising benefits to the school, and because some donors may be willing to donate money to academics and athletics because they love sports.
We don’t return money to the general fund. You’re correct though that the accounting of the scholarship fund as full tuition for each athlete that gets one is probably disingenuous because you can argue that’s not really an expense.
Not in sports. And the General Fund is where all the tuition/state/Federal funds end up. then it gets sent to the AD.
Exactly - “lack of potential revenue generated” isn’t the same thing as a “cost.” To be honest, Pitt would probably have just as many non-athlete freshmen enrollees if they didn’t have an athletic department as they enroll now.
The room and board, book stipend, and cost of living stipend are all real expenses - and haven’t gotten cheaper - and the same with all of the athletic department tutors and other academic support stuff. But the actual tuition scholarship is a paper move.
I believe that people need to give to Pitt athletics with NO STRINGS ATTACHED.
Of course, everyone will choose what to do their own $$$$$. It’s a completely personal decision. But anyone that contributes nothing tangible to Pitt athletics is really just a spectator and has no influence at all, IMO.
Except that scholarships are an actual expense, charged to the athletic department.
Each academic unit has a budget to pay for things, like, professors, lecturers, TAs, and office & lab space, and administrative staff. Those don't magically appear out of paper shuffling.
There are accounting practices that have to be maintained. This idea that there is some magical slight of hand to cram in the equivalent of 250+ athletic scholarships...that's like $7 million in tution... because it doesn't cost money to throw extra students into an existing class is patently false. Resources have to come from somewhere.
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Pitt athletics has been subsidized by the university's general operations to the tune of millions per year. Before the ACC, in the range of $10-15m per year. I believe that has come down some with the new ACC revenue, but athletics is still subsidized.
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This thread makes me wonder how many of these posters have ever actually worked for a real company. No internal expenses in a company are ever quoted at cost. There are always layers of administrative costs, operating costs, insurance costs, etc. If those costs aren't passed back to the AD, then those individual departments are essentially operating at a loss (even if the loss is small). It ends up being more accurate and transparent to transfer the advertised tuition costs and have the actual cost variance held by the General Fund.
There's also different tax liabilities and asset depreciation and stuff depending on where you are allocating your costs.
right, we account the cost at 100% of full tuition. I can see how people argue that’s not really accurate. Pitt doesn’t discount heavily but the average student doesn’t pay 100% so I get it.
That said, we operate heavily in the red. Heavily.
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Where is that filed?
Found it once but could never track it down again. Think they took about $8M from the general fund when I saw it, was right before we got the full ACC money and had fully funded the non-revenue sports so have been curious to see where things are now with the full allotment of scholarships.
Well students from Pennsylvania are discounted with in-state tuition, a discount, btw, that is not completely covered by Pennsylvania's annual appropriations to the university.
Not including athletes, 48% of total full-time undergrads last year received need aid or non-need based scholarship/grants (including athletics). The other 52% are paying full freight.
Finanicial reports broken down by units used to be available with the State's Snyder reports. They're not posted anymore.
You can still get the Snyder reports but they don't give information on the Athletic Department. The NCAA membership financial report would have the information detailing student fees, direct & indirect institutional support, transfers back to the University, lease fees, etc. Pitt doesn't make that report public.
