UConn spends $58 million per year on athletics including over $6 million in direct university
support with these funds being directed towards Title IX compliance, scholarships and other
expenses. This level of institutional support is about average when compared to other peer
universities, or slightly less than average. For example, Cincinnati contributed $13 million in direct
institutional support in FY10 while Rutgers, UMass and Maryland contributed $18 million, $11
million and $4 million respectively
The finding that UConn’s athletics subsidy is “about average” relative to Big East peers is contrary
to a recent analysis by USA Today which found UConn’s subsidy to be the 2nd highest among
universities in BCS conferences. However, the USA Today analysis included both student fees
and direct institutional support. UConn’s athletics department uses student fees to fund student
recreational services and intramural sports – activities that are not always run by athletics
departments at peer universities.
However, several universities provide less than $2 million in direct institutional support including
some of UConn’s peers in the Big East such as South Florida, West Virginia and Louisville and
other peers such as Kansas. This suggests there is an opportunity to decrease institutional
support to the athletics department through decreasing expenditure or increasing external
revenues. In addition, among the six BCS conferences, the Big East has the highest average
direct institutional support among public universities at $6.4 million. This may be driven by a
number of factors including average media contracts and travel expenses.
UConn’s athletics program has achieved unprecedented success over recent seasons, with the
football team winning the Big East conference in 2010, women’s basketball team winning the
NCAA National Championship in 2009 and 2010 while breaking the NCAA record for consecutive
victories in 2011 and the men’s basketball team winning the NCAA National Championship in
2011. What’s more, UConn has recently signed a media contract with IMG guaranteeing $80
million over 10 years along with an apparel sponsorship contract with Nike worth over $45 million
over 10 years. These revenues are on-par with or above those of public peer institutions.
Of the options available to UConn to reduce direct institutional support, we recommend focusing
on improving revenues for the program, primarily through increasing ticket receipts for football
and basketball programs. In addition, the University should look for opportunities to reduce
costs of existing programs.
Based on analysis of ticket demand and pricing, we estimate that pricing initiatives could increase
ticket revenue by up to $2 million.
Inflation-adjusted ticket prices for football and men’s and women’s basketball games have
declined over the last 5 years with football prices and men’s basketball prices significantly
lagging many peers. What’s more, the football program currently sells out roughly one half of
all home games in the 38,000 seat Rentschler Field and the basketball program also sells out
a significant number of home games suggesting periodic demand that exceeds fixed supply.
UConn should, like many college athletics programs, institute variable ticket pricing with
higher prices for popular games and lower prices for less popular games. In addition, we would recommend increasing prices for sections of football season tickets that demonstrate strong
demand patterns. Further, we also recommend that the Athletics department partner with the
Business School to have an on-going review of the supply, demand, and pricing strategy for
tickets as part of a student intern program or special project.
The department should also closely examine the costs associated with existing programs. For
instance, UConn’s $10.0 million expenditure in scholarships, $12.5 million on coaching salaries
and $6.4 million in team travel are the most among public Big East programs37. It is possible that
these are the costs associated with maintaining such a successful athletics program. Others
may question the value of such expenditures to the core mission of the University. It was not
within the scope of this review to determine the potential negative impact on the success of
the athletics program based on reductions in these areas or to quantify the benefit of athletics
success to the University (e.g. in student recruiting, alumni relations and community support).
However, given the needs and priorities of the University, the administration should examine
these costs and associated benefits in greater detail.
Should the University decide that the $6 million subsidy to athletics is not in the strategic interest
of the institution, the University could consider eliminating some or all of the subsidy to provide
incentives for the athletics department to increase its revenues or decrease its costs.
