It’s no secret that football drives the bus in Division I athletics, but the University of Colorado almost requires a fleet.
Data from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Postsecondary Education for the school year 2004-05 reveals that among Big 12 schools, Colorado’s athletic department depended most on football. According to the data, CU received 61.6 percent of its total athletic department revenue ($35.9 million) from football ($22.1 million) in that period. Texas A&M ranked next with 60 percent of its revenue produced by its football program.
When all non-operating revenue for Buffaloes football is included in the ledger, including money from the scholarship fund, suites, club and box seats, booster club contributions and other gifts, Colorado likely leads the conference in its dependence upon football by a wide margin, CU associate athletic director David Plati said. The percentage has held relatively steady at about 75 percent of all revenues coming from football for several years, Plati said.
That is expected to be the lopsided situation again this school year in part because men’s and women’s basketball, which are moneymakers at most Big 12 schools, lose money at CU.
CU’s projected 2005-06 revenues for football are $26.9 million, while the total budget for the athletic department is expected to increase only slightly to $36.0 million.
“Mike Bohn said it best when he told coaches of our other sports, ‘That’s your budget running up and down the (football) field,”‘ Plati said of CU’s new athletic director.
Colorado competes in 17 NCAA-sanctioned sports: nine women’s and eight men’s. Of those, admission is charged in only four: football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball and women’s volleyball.
Football is the only moneymaker at CU. Men’s basketball is projected to lose $347,715 for the current fiscal year ending June 30 with women’s basketball projected to lose $2.3 million. Colorado drew an average of 4,209 fans per home game in men’s basketball last season, ranking it 11th in the Big 12. In women’s basketball, CU’s attendance average of 2,195 ranked 10th among Big 12 programs last season.
Texas Tech, by comparison, garnered a combined $12.4 million in revenue last season from its highly successful men’s and women’s basketball teams.
Kansas is the only Big 12 school that last year earned more from its men’s basketball program ($9.1 million) than from its football program ($5.7 million).
The $627,947 in revenues produced last year by the CU women’s basketball program ranked higher than six Big 12 teams. But it paled in comparison to the women’s hoops programs of Texas Tech ($4.0 million), Texas ($2.3 million) and reigning national champion Baylor ($2.1 million).
Colorado’s 2004-05 revenues from men’s basketball ($3.2 million) topped only those of Nebraska ($2.1 million) and Baylor ($1.7 million), according to U.S. Department of Education data.
“Football makes most of the money at 90 percent of the institutions around the country,” Plati said. “The more money you bring in from football, the more you can give to other sports and make improvements in facilities. That happens everywhere.”
CU’s projected budget for the 2005-06 athletic year includes an $8.26 million profit from football. That would almost cover the projected $8.35 loss anticipated from all sports.
Tom Kensler can be reached at 303-820-5456 or tkensler@denverpost.com.
