EDIT: I included all announced realignment changes in the below analysis. So Texas and OU are in SEC; Houston, Cinnancianti, and UCF are in the Big 12 (no BYU because it is non-public) and the CUSA, Sun Belt, and AAC are also updated.

In thinking about conference realignment and the amounts schools have invested (or depending on your view wasted) in their athletic programs, I started digging a bit more into how schools in each conference fund their athletic departments. I’m sure someone has already done something like this (and probably better than I have), but I thought I would share my results.

I started with the Knight Commission database (College Athletics Database (knightnewhousedata.org)). This was really interesting information. I used the 2019 year to avoid COVID impacts. To supplement this data, I also inputted the student fee amounts uncovered by NBC news (Hidden figures: College students may be paying thousands in athletic fees and not know it (nbcnews.com)). This data was for 2018, so it is not perfectly aligned, but I’m guessing it is close enough for this analysis. SIDE NOTE: I find it ridiculous that NBC had to use FOIA requests to get this information, students should know how much they are paying for their athletic programs.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Because this data comes from the Knight Commission and FOIA requests, it only covers public schools. As such I didn’t bother with the Big East and many conferences have at least one member without data (and some have several missing, like the ACC and AAC).

From there I calculated the percentage of each funding source by school, and then by conference. In addition, as you’ll see below, I combined the percentages from “institutional/government support” and “student fees” to come up with a total percent coming from students. I understand that some of this money might be coming straight from the state government, however I’m estimating if that money was not spent on sports, it would likely be spent on student education.

Finally, I added in the student fee amounts paid from the NBC article. In addition to averaging those fees by conference, I backed into an amount I’m calling “Estimated cost to students.” I created this dollar figure by dividing the average student fee amount, by the percentage of funding from student fees, and then multiplying that number by my “total percent coming from students.” Not perfect for many reasons (i.e. maybe student fees are only paid by undergrads and institutional support comes from everyone), but I think still accurate enough to be useful.

Here are the results by conference:



A few interesting observations:

1. The Big 10 is heavily skewed by Rutgers and Maryland. If you took them out of the equation, the total percent coming from students would drop from 5.47% to 1.71% (those two schools average over 25% from students).

2. The Big 12 is heavily skewed by UCF, Cincinnati, and Houston. If you took them out of the equation, the total percent coming from students would drop from 18.29% to 1.85% (those three schools average over 50% from students).

3. The data also shows that 15 schools had no amount reported from students. On the other end of the spectrum, when calculating the estimated cost to students I found 16 schools that had a estimated cost of over $1,500 a year ($6,000 if a student graduated in 4 years). I’ve pasted these results below:

UCF, Houston, and Cinci will move closer to the B12 average once they are being paid via B12's media rights.

(06-01-2022 05:14 PM)AztecEmpire Wrote:  UCF, Houston, and Cinci will move closer to the B12 average once they are being paid via B12's media rights.

I think that is true, but assuming the media deal is lower, the average cost paid by the students may have to increase at all the other schools, raising the average a bit from where it is now.