Evin Demirel: SEC Athletic Revenues – Winners and Losers

It’s no secret SEC football means big money.

And, by extension, big winners.

Nine of the SEC’s 13 public university athletic programs make enough money from media rights contracts, ticket sales, donations and other non-subsidy sources to be self-sufficient, according to a new USA Today report. Four programs – Missouri, Mississippi State, Georgia and Mississippi – don’t.
Not surprisingly, Mississippi, Missouri and Mississippi State rank near the bottom of winning percentage among all current SEC programs in 1992-2012. The correlation, of course, isn’t direct. But it cannot be denied.

Even self-sufficient SEC programs still accept money in the form of student fees, school or state support. As USA Today reports, LSU was the conference’s only public university to not receive a subsidy in the 2011-12 school year. Arkansas received nearly $2 million worth of subsidies, which ranks as the SEC’s 10th-highest total.

A ranking of SEC schools by total revenue generated from athletics follows (periods are used in numbers of this chart instead of commas. All numbers are whole dollar figures, no change included):

Here’s a detailed, year-by-year breakdown of the revenue and expenditures for all 228 Division I athletic programs.

Notes:
Subsidy = School funds and/or Student fees
Generated Revenue = Total Revenue minus Subsidy
Difference = Generated Revenue – Total Operating Expense

Below is each SEC school’s football winning percentage since the 1992 season.