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scott715I was pulling basketball revenue numbers this morning for BYU and then Utah in an earlier post, and took some time to look at all the other sports each university fields. The bottom line is that BYU has a much more balanced and sustainable overall athletic department than Utah does.
Back in 2010, the last year we were both in the MWC, BYU earned $45.5M in revenue from their athletic department. Utah earned $38.1M. Since then, both schools have benefited significantly from getting out from under the MWC revenue structure. In 2013 (last year we have data on both schools from), BYU had jumped up to $60.1M, while Utah has seen its revenue climb to $59M. Utah has published 2014 numbers of $64.6M. BYU's 2014 numbers haven't been published yet.
While Utah has seen faster growth than BYU (due to the favorable P12 TV contract), their athletic department revenue is horribly unbalanced. If the TV revenue bubble is going to burst (as evidenced by all the cost-cutting moves by ESPN), BYU will weather the changes much better than Utah.
Utah's women's teams contributed 2.25% of the total athletic department revenue (or $1.69M). BYU's women's teams, on the other hand, contributed 15.75% of BYU's overall revenue (or $9.47M).
Utah's vaunted gymnastics team is the third-largest revenue producing sport for them behind football and men's basketball. In 2013, they generated $625,000 for the athletic department. The only other sports at Utah that generate more than $100,000 a year are baseball ($162K), Women's basketball ($134K), Softball ($129K), and Women's Volleyball ($126K).
BYU's baseball generated $1.54M. W. Basketball generated $1.67M. Track & Field generated $2.75M. Our men's golf team out-earned the U's gymnastic team at $668K. BYU's gymnastics team earned $831K. Women's soccer earned $1.76M. Softball earned $1.07M. Swimming & Diving earned $1.44M. Our men's tennis team earned $635K. W. Volleyball earned $998K. Men's VB earned $894K.
Across the board, BYU's olympic sports are self-sustaining or very close to it. Across the board, Utah's olympic sports are nowhere close to being self-sustaining.
A couple of conclusions:
1. If the TV media bubble does in fact burst, BYU is well positioned to weather that storm. We're being underpaid for our current TV contract relative to what conferences are getting on a per-game basis, so it's unlikely it would affect BYU significantly. Utah (and a lot of other P5 teams with similar AD profiles) would be hurt badly because such a high percentage of their AD revenue comes from football.
2. If BYU can ever get paid P5 money (or even close to it) for football, we'll have massive growth in our revenue because football is a relatively low percentage of our overall revenue. Right now we're doing ok with our facilities and what we provide the players and fans. Our facilities are good. They're probably average when compared to P5 programs. They're not spectacular, but they're probably right in the middle of the pack when you look at all the other 65 P5 teams. Getting P5 money for football would move the needle a long ways at BYU.