What Gives?

[VromanFan]

And here is a story that's been cited before. Missouri State was forced to drop 5 varsity sports a couple years ago, because they were losing too much money and they couldn't get enough revenues from the University's general funds (taxpayer funds) to bail them out. This article states that in 2005, Missouri State's intercollegiate athletics budget was about $11.1 million, with about $5.1 million coming from the university's general fund ???‚¬??? an increase of $600,000 from the year before.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/other/2005-12-16-missouri-state_x.htm

Here is a list of all the Div I schools in 2006 and their athletic budgets. Bradley ranks #229 out of 331 with a budget around $8.2 million. Note that the figures for the top 120 schools are all multiple times the budget of Bradley's, and they are almost all the state schools.
http://www.midmajority.com/info.php?a=schools-budget

Here is the MVC alone, and Bradley is 9th out of 10 schools, competing with schools that have millions of dollars more to spend. It is amazing that the MVC is able to compete with the big state schools, and equally amazing that Bradley can stay competetive in the MVC against the state schools that have far more resources and dollars.--
http://www.midmajority.com/info.php?a=schools-budget&c=VALLEY

I feel you DC but those numbers are a bit misleading...we don't have football which inflates many of those budgets. So what I'm saying is that sport by sport our funding wouldn't be 229 in the country. And actually other than men's basketball and men's soccer we don't compete very well with anyone else...unless stuff has changed with the other sports while I haven't been looking.

Also I believe we have the bare minimum of sports teams to remain eligible in Division 1.

 

[Da Coach]

But Vroman fan, there is a good reason Bradley doesn't have football. It's because is would cost a bunch of money, and it would not generate any significant revenue. Bradley's financial picture would be far worse if the athletic department had to support football, not better. The budget for the entire department would be about the same (because football would raise only minimal revenue), but basketball's share would drop significantly.

The midmajority site does have stats for the basketball budget for every division 1 school.
Virtually every school with budgets ahead of Bradley also have bigger basketball budgets, so their larger budget is not just because they have football to share the money.
Note that Wichita State's athletic budget is #1 in the MVC and is $5 1/2 million more than Bradley's.
And Wichita State does not have football.
I am sure Bradley could do wonders with an extra 5 1/2 million bucks a year.

My point is still valid-- that the small, private school is at a severe disadvantage when it comes to raising money and supporting their sports. When a state school like Illinois graduates many thousands of students a year (all of them had their tuition and costs subsidized by taxpayer's money for 4 or more years), that produces many more grads who support the schools programs compared with the 1500 or less students that Bradley graduates each year. If you check the list of colleges and endowments, the large state-supported schools dominate the higher end of that list. Those huge endowments, made possible by the many more grads who received their education with taxpayer support, enable those big schools to build and maintain sports facilities that smaller schools like Bradley could only dream of.

 

[BU1999]

BU does well for what it has and for its size

 

[Average Joe]

why don't you provide us some links to this type of stuff for the state of Illinois?

If this type of thing is as prevalent as you say it is, you shouldn't have any problem any problems coming up with links and articles concerning our state....

cpacmel...here are the figures for Illinois, read 'em and weep.

The public universities have to make their financial data public, and here it is for Illinois State.

FOR Illinois State:
Total cost in Athletic Dept (budget) = $9,514,664
(includes unitemized, miscellaneous "Other Operating Costs" of $1,748,290 !!)

Where it comes from:
Ticket Sales: $811,439
Student Fees: $4,600,000 (wow the students really get hit hard!)
Contributions: $753,030
Direct Instutional Support: $1,026,274 (money from general funds of unievrsity to help balance budget)
NCAA/conference distribution: $900,064 (thank you Bradley Univ. for getting to the Sweet Sixteen!!)
Media revenue: $53,132
Concessions, parking, etc.:$140,613
Ads & sponsors: $391,791
Camps: $120,171
"Other":$166,700

So the total amount that constitutes self funded dollars is $811,439 + $900,064 + $53,132 + $140,613 + $391,791 +$120,171 = $2,417,210
out of a total athletic budget of $9,514,664,.

So the "self-funding" at ISU actually only pays for 25% of the athletic budget.
The other 75% comes from the general university funds, the students fees and tuition, and from the tax payers through other means!
http://www2.indystar.com/NCAA_financial_reports/revenue_stat/show?school_id=119



How about at U of I??
Well, in short....total operating budget in athletic dept= $47,915,540
Amount that come from "self-funded" sources= $30 million, or only about 65% of the total budget...far from being self funded!!
http://www2.indystar.com/NCAA_financial_reports/revenue_stat/show?school_id=54

The numbers don't lie...feel free to look up any other public university in Illinois and it's the same across the board, they compete with Bradley using gobs of taxpayers' dollars, that were never intended to help keep the athletic departments solvent or competetive.

At Bradley NO TAX or STATE funds are used to float the athletic dept.!
NONE.....this is the truth!

Wow, check out SIU on that seach site,
their total athletic budget is over $11 million and they do so poorly on football, that they rely on $3.5 million from student (tuition) fees and almost $4 million from "Institutional Support" (money from the general revenue fund of the university.)

So anyone who claims the recent tuition hike isn't to help cover the huge increase in Chris Lowery's salary, which is closing in on 10% of the entire university athletic budget, is foolish.
http://www.bradleyfans.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=7177