I think athletic spending is pretty transparent as I have seen the revenue and expense breakdowns as they are publicly available. People may not like the information, but it is out there. You may not get the detail you want immediately, but it comes out over time and you can see what every coach is paid.
Earned revenues (exclude subsidies) peaked in 2011 and they are down ~$7 million/yr. through 2017, but expenses have been going up. Based on direct revenues and expenses, the men's basketball team is the only team that makes money and football and women's basketball lose money. The direct numbers can obscure the numbers because things like royalties, licensing revenues, and some NCAA distributions are not allocated to specific teams and we know most if not all of those revenues are associated with basketball and football, but they are not allocated to those sports. Student fees have declined, but institutional support has gone up.
The biggest expense of the athletic department is overhead, which is ~33% of expenditures. That piece deserves more transparency as to why is this so high?
I think Whaler linked a presentation that Benedict gave to the state legislature about the widening funding gap in the athletic department. There were some interesting tidbits that I will share. In 2014, football ticket sales were about equal to men's and women's basketball ticket sales COMBINED. Also in 2014, Broadcast, TV, Radio, and Internet Rights were $1.125 million. I think this was mostly related to the women's basketball team.
My analysis of the situation is that there are plenty of opportunities to increase revenues in the athletic department, but men's basketball has to lead which is why you have to pay a coach as much as we do because men's basketball is where you can make the most profit. Specifically, here is where you can fill the revenue/expense gap without cutting sports:
1) Winning football and men's basketball will drive higher ticket sales, donations, and sponsorships.
2) Do more guarantee games in football, men's basketball, and women's basketball.
3) Better monetize women's basketball. UConn is driving women's basketball revenues when they play on the road, but UConn is not benefiting. Maybe you do some neutral site guarantee games instead of some of the non-conference road games.
4) Drive more media revenues. I would think that the next AAC media rights deal will be better than the current one, but it won't be up to P5 standards. Take back out as much of the tier 3 inventory so that UConn can monetize it.
5) Better monetize men's soccer and men's hockey. In 2014, it appears that men's soccer ticket sales were between $60k and $70k, yet we had total attendance of 39k. (Men's soccer directed donations were $137k.)
6) Each team should have a fundraising focus. For example, in 2014, the men's golf team had donations equal to ~27% of total direct expenses and baseball had donations equal to ~21% of total direct expenses.
7) Figure out how to reduce department overhead.
