2021 athletic revenue #s from Knight Commission. We have an $11 million revenue decline since 2016 (40% decline). Pretty extreme loss in just 5 years.



NIU revenues are over $2.5 million less than the next lowest MAC school and about $6-7 million less than the MAC average.



In 2015 we had $9.2 million in athletic fee revenue and $3.3 in university support. In 2020 it dropped to $5.8 million in athletic fee revenue and $1.8 million in university support.

Yes, athletic revenues are declining -- and that is cause for concern. But as a regular "guest"of the Knight Commission data website, I always find it necessary to look through some of the detail.

First, the "2021" data is based on the 2020-21 fiscal year, which includes the Covid-shortened, 6-game "regular" football season. Guarantees including "payday games" brought in $1,926,500 in 2019-20 (the 2019 football season), but with the short 2020 season, dropped to $188,150.

Other impacts included the drop in ticket revenue ($996,307 down to $91,024), and corporate sponsorship, advertising and licensing ($1,112,336 down to $166,047). NCAA contributions/media rights/post-season football revenue dropped from $2,959,033 to $2,419,888.

Just those items alone caused a decrease of $4,129,037 compared to 2019-20 revenues. Yes, other MAC schools did better, but each school has a different base of fans, locale, supports, etc. Our concern has to be NIU, imo.

Need to see revenues for July 2021 - June 2022, which won't be available until later.

Of course, Covid cannot be blamed for everything. Recall the 2021 season and the Wyoming game water/food/ticket gate screwups that, no doubt, caused less enthusiastic attendance at later games. And that was *after* the Covid season. Then next homer was Maine; an FCS is ok, but ... Maine? And, of course, there are ethereal considerations, i.e., the a.dept. is not exactly a font of enthusiastic contact with fans.

(07-05-2022 12:13 AM)pvk75 Wrote:  First, the "2021" data is based on the 2020-21 fiscal year, which includes the Covid-shortened, 6-game "regular" football season. Guarantees including "payday games" brought in $1,926,500 in 2019-20 (the 2019 football season), but with the short 2020 season, dropped to $188,150.

I'd say COVID shortened season might be a valid excuse but the rest of the MAC dealt with the same issue and somehow still had an average revenue of $6-7 million above our $17 million.

What were the other MAC schools doing to generate revenue that we weren't?

(07-05-2022 10:59 AM)epasnoopy Wrote:  

(07-05-2022 12:13 AM)pvk75 Wrote:  First, the "2021" data is based on the 2020-21 fiscal year, which includes the Covid-shortened, 6-game "regular" football season. Guarantees including "payday games" brought in $1,926,500 in 2019-20 (the 2019 football season), but with the short 2020 season, dropped to $188,150.

I'd say COVID shortened season might be a valid excuse but the rest of the MAC dealt with the same issue and somehow still had an average revenue of $6-7 million above our $17 million.

What were the other MAC schools doing to generate revenue that we weren't?

Good question. It's not from ticket sales or season tix, small differences there.

We are last in the MAC! I cannot believe we have sunk so low, so fast in our conference.

(07-05-2022 11:29 AM)NIUfilmmaker Wrote:  

(07-05-2022 10:59 AM)epasnoopy Wrote:  

(07-05-2022 12:13 AM)pvk75 Wrote:  First, the "2021" data is based on the 2020-21 fiscal year, which includes the Covid-shortened, 6-game "regular" football season. Guarantees including "payday games" brought in $1,926,500 in 2019-20 (the 2019 football season), but with the short 2020 season, dropped to $188,150.

I'd say COVID shortened season might be a valid excuse but the rest of the MAC dealt with the same issue and somehow still had an average revenue of $6-7 million above our $17 million.

What were the other MAC schools doing to generate revenue that we weren't?

Good question. It's not from ticket sales or season tix, small differences there.

As I said, "other MAC schools did better, but each school has a different base of fans, locale, supports, etc." None are going to be equal in terms of impacts.

Example: 2020-21 -- Miami-Ohio also had drops in paydays, etc., but they also had $11 million in student fee revenue and $12.7 million in Institutional/Government Support (i.e., university). In those two areas, NIU had $5.2 million and $6.1 million, respectively.

The difficulty is how to restore the revenue streams now.

Really discouraging to see we are at the bottom of the MAC. I suspect reduced enrollment has something to do with this. But have other MAC schools lost as many students as NIU?

(07-05-2022 08:05 PM)HuskieBowWow Wrote:  Really discouraging to see we are at the bottom of the MAC. I suspect reduced enrollment has something to do with this. But have other MAC schools lost as many students as NIU?

We should be happy as pig in sh!t that we are as competitive as we are. Resources are tight.

Doesn’t the data kind of scream that they need to cut Baseball to stay afloat?