I hope Paco isn't mad that I plagiarized his post from the free board. I apologize to him.
- USAToday has published new revenue, expense, and subsidy information for public universities for FY '14. That is 2013-14 sports season, our first in the ACC (and Maryland's last), and the last for Rutgers and Louisville in the AAC.
Pitt is not included in this report because it is operationally private and not subject to open records requests (although Penn State provided their information).
For FY'14, according to the state's Synder report, Pitt's athletic department had $49,234,695 in revenue on $57,023,655 in expenses, meaning a $7,788,960 subsidization to make up the difference provided from the university's general operations. That is a 13.66% subsidy of the overall budget.
Compared to the 53 public Power 5 universities (including Rutgers & Louisville) in the USAToday report Pitt would therefore be ranked the following out of 54 total universities.
In annual athletic revenue Pitt would rank #54 with $49.2 million(dead last among current Power 5 schools that USAToday has numbers for). Pitt generates over $5 million less than the next lowest revenue generator, Washington State. Let that sink in.
In total athletic budget, Pitt ranked #52 at $57 million, ahead of only Mississippi State and Utah.
In total athletic department subsidization, at $7.8 million, Pitt would rank #15, between Arizona and Louisville. Rutgers (at $36.3 million) was over twice as much as second place Maryland ($18.1 million). You are looking at major reasons why there is major strife between academics and athletics at Rutgers, and why UMD was such easy pickens for the Big Ten.
In % subsidy of the total athletic budget, Pitt would rank #9 with a 13.66% subsidy. That is just ahead of Arizona State and behind UVA. Again, Rutgers led the way with a massive 47.41% subsidy, followed by Maryland at 24.68%.
You can't get around the terrible revenue generation of Pitt's athletic department. People need to heed Coach Narduzzi's call for support, or the athletic department will continue to struggle.
