Football makes a lot of money. Where does it all go?

For my Civic Issues Blog this week, I have chosen to focus on the amount of money college sports generate for their university, which sport generates the most money, and how the money is used by the university. As I stated in my previous blog post, the topic of my paradigm shift paper was football as a big business. In that paper I focused a portion of it on the big business of college football and how it works. I will be using aspects of that paper, seeing as though football on college campuses is often the most recognizable thing associated with a university. To start off, I would like to provide the statistics for our very own university. As stated by Business Insider in 2016, Penn State generated a three year average of $66 million in football revenue. After football was men’s basketball, which generated an average $10.7 million over three years. Coming in third was women’s basketball, which had a much smaller average of $0.9 million over three years. On a list with twenty-four other schools, Penn State came in tenth place. All of the schools on the list had football as the top revenue generator among the sports teams on their campus. Football is easily the most easily recognized sports when it comes to collegiate athletics. For example, In 2016 at the University of Texas, which was the school that generated the most money from athletics ($182 million), 70% of that revenue comes from football. The gap between football and the other sports is absolutely astonishing. The average school generates $31.9 million in football revenue each year, while the next 35 sports generate $31.7 million combined. In 2018, Texas A&M dethroned Texas for the top spot of revenue generators. But the question is, where does the money go?In some cases, the revenue goes towards building better facilities. For example, the Clemson Tigers recently opened a brand-new $55 million facility exclusively for their football players. Of course, their team did win the National Championship twice in the past three years, but this is often where the issue arises.

Should collegiate football players be receiving more perks and benefits because their sport generates the most public interest and the most revenue? Should revenue be allocated to other sport facilities and other student athletes? Many argue that just because football players generate the most amount of money, it does not mean that they should be treated any differently than the other student athletes on campus. However, others argue the exact opposite. Others just have a general curiosity about revenue in college athletics: Where does all the money go?

In the case of the University of Michigan, many of the money profited from football goes to support other student athletes. To be exact, roughly 800 athletes. A lot of the money does go to about two dozen other sports teams. Although that revenue is not being used to build these teams $55 million facilities, some of the money is allocated towards these other teams. A lot of the debate surrounding revenue comes about with the general public awareness of college football. It is the most recognizable, most watched, and most sought after in terms of tickets. The average college football ticket is often altered to meet the public interest in the matchup, making college football a business tactic for many universities. People may argue that universities should not treat their athletes and their athletics as a business, seeing as though the main focus of these universities should be academics. The Issue will always be there when it comes to college football, and it will only get worse as more generations attend college and the public interest increases with the technology.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrissmith/2018/09/11/college-footballs-most-valuable-teams/#22c95e036c64

https://www.businessinsider.com/college-sports-football-revenue-2017-10

https://smartycents.com/articles/college-football-revenue/

https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-clemsons-football-facility-2017-10

https://www.businessinsider.com/schools-most-revenue-college-sports-2016-10

One thought on “Football makes a lot of money. Where does it all go?

  1. It’s me again! I think your blog this week was really awesome because I have kind of always wondered where all the money that big sports like football bring into other schools, but more specifically our own. I actually found an article that detailed how much money Penn State makes from certain areas. Ticket sales were obviously the highest, bringing in about $35.5 million in 2017 and they came from various sports like football, men’s hockey, men’s basketball, and wrestling. Women’s sports, however, only brought in $427,472 combined which is stark in comparison to the $31.7 million in revenue from football ticket sales.

    But Penn State gets a lot of money from elsewhere, too. A lot of the things in this article I, as a student, often fail to think about. Media rights, royalties, conference distributions, concessions sales, and bowl revenues all contribute about $103 million to the school. I have never given too much thought to any of these things, but that is just an astronomical amount of money. I was (somewhat) surprised to learn that the biggest expense in atheltics is paying the coaches. James Franklin made $4.8 million in 2017 which ranks him fifth among the largest coaching salaries in the Big Ten. With salaries and benefits among other administrators and staff, the University sets aside $25.5 million in compensation. $20 million also goes to athletic scholarships and student aid for athletes each year.

    Thank you for writing about such an interesting topic! I have learned and researched more about Penn State football than I think I ever have, and I can honestly say that I have benefitted from that. The amount of money that our own school makes each year is so insanely huge that knowing where exactly it goes to is something everyone who goes here should know about.

    https://www.centredaily.com/sports/college/penn-state-university/article204119879.html

    https://www.pennlive.com/pennstatefootball/index.ssf/2018/10/where_does_penn_states_james_f.html

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