Dollars and Sense: Let's make loads of money!

While google'ing around for something unrelated, I ran into this February 2006 post from Tom Farrey of ESPN the Magazine discussing financial and legal matters involving former student-athletes of football and basketball, scholarship caps, profits and class action lawsuits.

And let me tell you, show these revenue to profit ratio to wall street and main street and they will go crazy. Imagine if your corporation had $18.5 million of revenue and $13.1 million of profit. That would send the stock off the roof! And that would spark about ten thousand investigations on the business practices of the company :)

Those numbers are those of the most profitable basketball program in the country in 2004-2005 according to data from the US Dept of Education. And which program is that? PitinoVille (Louisville went to the Final 4 that season). About half a million behind is the Silver Fox at Arizona (historical meltdown vs Illinois in the Elite 8), with national champions North Carolina at #3. Among the top 10 programs listed, NC State is running the tightest ship, the difference between revenue and profit is just $2.4 million. On the other side, Kentucky has the highest difference, $5.7 million difference between revenue and profit, with Louisville at $5.4m and UNC at $4.8m (I was tempted to calculate percentages but got sidetracked). Yet these numbers would still be off the charts on Wall Street.

The most profitable football program is Texas with $38.7m in profits out vs $53.2m of revenue. Michigan is running the tightest ship, with a difference of only $10.7m between profit and revenue. On the other side, the big spender is clearly Ohio State with a difference of $25 million. But once again, these numbers would be off the hook on Wall Street.