Wednesday, February 21, 2007

It's Big Business

The 2000's are becoming known for the ballooning budgets of collegiate athletic programs.

Kyle Whelliston, at his blog, The Mid-Majority, has lists of every Division I athletic program, in order of student enrollment (total, undergraduate & graduate), athletic budget, and a lot of other information on all 338 Division I schools. It is quite interesting.

Some interesting facts, from the 2005-2006 school year:

Largest school: The Ohio State University, with 50,995 students. Minnesota and Texas were close behind, with both having an enrollment over 50,000.
Smallest school: Centenary, 1,040 students.

Largest school with no football program: Long Beach State, 33,479
Largest school in Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA): UC-Davis, 29,210
Largest school not in BCS conference: Central Florida, 42,465

Smallest school in BCS conference: Wake Forest, 6,504
Smallest school with football program-Bowl Subdivision: Tulsa, 4,174
Smallest school with football program-Championship Subdivision: Wofford, 1,177

Largest athletic expense: Ohio State, $101,804,848
Largest athletic expense, non-BCS conference: TCU, $37,111,424
Largest athletic expense, Championship Subdivision: James Madison, $23,024,778
Largest athletic expense, non-football school: St. John's, $24,363,808

Smallest athletic expense: Wofford, $2,240,193
Smallest athletic expense, Bowl Subdivision: Louisiana-Monroe, $7,191,179
Smallest athletic expense, BCS conference: South Florida, $24,340,060
Smallest athletic expense, non-football school: St. Francis, N.Y., $3,054,035

This begs this question, among others: What is Wofford doing in Division I?

4 comments:

Zee said...

Riff Ram Bah Zoo!

John said...

Ya gotta spend money to make money!

TCU's spending with the big boys! Well, some of them. Baylor, Kansas State, Iowa State, Ole Miss, and Mississippi State, to name a few, spent less money than TCU.

Plane trips to San Diego and Las Vegas aren't cheap, either. Sure beats going to Huntington and Hattiesburg, though. And, the players would rather do that than ride a bus to Tulsa. :-)

Anonymous said...

What's Wofford doing in D-I: winning football games. Just ask Georgia Southern

John said...

Wofford is actually getting a lot of bang for the buck. The Terriers went 7-4 this year in football, and 5-2 in the Southern Conference.