The only P-5 in worse shape than MD is Rutgers
https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/2...748374002/
Most of Rutgers University’s athletic teams have been at the bottom of the pack in the Big Ten Conference in terms of wins — and a report released Friday states that the Rutgers athletic program also ranks last or near the bottom of the 12-team conference in financial performance.
To make matters worse, the report, commissioned by the university, shows that Rutgers won’t begin to receive a full distribution of shared revenue from the Big Ten until 2027. Until then, the amounts will be a small fraction of what the other conference athletic programs receive in revenue sharing.
Among the most striking aspects of the report is that
a far larger percent of the athletic program’s revenue comes from the university and student fees, while the programs of other Big Ten and peer schools across the country are more self-sustaining, with far more revenue from such sources as ticket sales, fundraising and naming rights — a point that drew sharp criticism from the Rutgers faculty and graduate student union.
Rutgers President Robert Barchi’s “focus on athletics
is costing Rutgers students 10 to 15 times more in fees than their peers across the country,” the union said in a statement.
The union called the report “damning,” since it “reveals how much money the university is losing on athletics.”
“Their plan robs from our educational mission, gouges our students and saddles them with greater debt to subsidize a mismanaged Athletics program,” said Deepa Kumar, president of the union that represents 7,700 Rutgers faculty and graduate students who teach. "We need to restore the balance, and re-prioritize the academic mission."
Rutgers said it commissioned the report to help the university develop a “comprehensive, multi-dimensional plan to reach competitiveness in a fiscally responsible manner.”
The report “provides independent confirmation of the challenges and opportunities before us as we continue the work of transforming Rutgers Athletics into a competitive program,” Director of Athletics Pat Hobbs said in a statement. “We will digest their findings, and develop and execute an action plan to exploit every identified opportunity.”
Rutgers hired Atlanta-based College Sports Solutions to conduct the study. According to its website, the company provides collegiate athletic consulting, strategies and solutions to universities and intercollegiate conferences.
“With the student-athlete experience as a primary focus, tremendous progress has already been made under Pat Hobbs,” Rutgers University Board of Governors member Greg Brown said in a statement. “Consulting with industry leaders … in a transparent manner to quantify opportunity furthers this progress.”
The study links Rutgers’ poor athletic performance in the conference to its low athletic budget and comparatively poor athletic facilities. Its four-year winning percentage in all sports is 26 percent, putting it last in the conference.
College Sports Solutions conducted interviews with Rutgers officials, student-athletes, coaches, campus student leaders, Big ten officials and others.
Among the comments it collected:
“The biggest challenge is getting the university on board with athletics."
“We thought we were better than we are going into the Big Ten. We were naïve, but there is resistance to admitting that now.”
“The early lack of success of Rutgers teams in the Big Ten has been a surprise to donors and alumni, a substantial disappointment.”
“Rutgers football and basketball teams must have a measure of success to kindle an emotional connection between athletics and all university constituencies.”
There was also a consistent theme that Rutgers had too many sports — to compete, it can’t sustain 24 sports.
To boost the Rutgers athletic program’s success, the report makes several suggestions:
Restructure the university’s internal and external debt and its current financial arrangement with the Big Ten Conference
Make additional improvements to facilities for student-athletes
Improve ticket sales efforts
Focus more on the annual fund to boost revenue
Pursue naming rights opportunities, especially in major competitive venues
Improve equipment and apparel contracts
Consider selling alcohol at games
“The report provides an insular narrative from high-level management calling for spending more money on a failed program offering the weak premise that they could start winning, gain popular support and maybe break even in nearly another decade,” said Mark Killingsworth, a Rutgers professor of labor economics.
The report “recommends even more spending, and even more raids on student fees and the academic budget,” said Killingsworth.
The Rutgers athletic budget ranks dead last among the 12 Big Ten schools. In fact, its fiscal 2019 budget is $93 million, less than half that of Ohio State, which has the top Big Ten athletic budget at $221 million, or Michigan, which ranks second at $185 million.
The Rutgers athletic program’s revenue from all sources is also near the bottom — 10th of 12 schools. Rutgers’ fiscal 2017 athletics program revenue was $97 million, compared with top-ranking Ohio State and Michigan at $185 million each.
Rutgers also ranked last in 2017 annual gift contributions, at
$7 million, compared to Michigan and Ohio State, which generated
$38 million each.
And Rutgers ticket sales ranked 11th of 12 schools, bringing in $13 million, compared with Ohio State’s $62 million.
As a result, Rutgers must subsidize the athletic program with university funds at a higher rate than its Big Ten competitors.
Compared with other Big Ten schools and similar peer institutions, a far larger share of Rutgers revenue for athletics is generated not by the athletics program itself but through the university’s own revenue sources, including student fees.
Such non-athletic revenue sources contributed $33 million to the Rutgers athletic budget, including $12 million in student fees, which the report says “significantly exceeded that of both Big Ten and peer institutions.”
When Rutgers entered the conference in 2014, it agreed on receiving a revenue-sharing payment equal to what it would have received if it had remained in the American Athletic Conference — between $9 million and $10 million annually.
[b]In addition, the Big Ten advanced Rutgers an additional $48 million against future distributions. As a result, it won’t enjoy a full revenue-sharing disbursement from the conference until 2027, totaling $65.2 million.[/b]
In 2019, Rutgers is supposed to get $23.8 million from the Big Ten, compared with the full distribution of $50 million the other schools receive.
Staff Writer Hannan Adely contributed to this article.
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