Yes.
The football program has revenues from ticket sales and money games. We averaged 4209 home attendance in 2022 per the NCAA and even if our average ticket price was $10 (it's lower), that would mean total ticket revenue of ~$250k (42k gate x 6 home games). We played one money game against Purdue which I believe they paid out $500k. So we essentially had $750k in football program revenue. Obviously there are a couple other line items but they're not meaningful revenue streams.
According to the Knight Commission website, football had a spend of $4.17m in 2022. So $4.17m - $750k is a $3.42 million dollar deficit. So to make those numbers line up, they collect student fees and then also take school funds to make them balance out -- which is the accounting magic/balance sheet bullshit numbers you see.
Where this compounds is that Title IX requires you provide a female athletic opportunity for every male opportunity. So for every guy on the football roster, we have to fund a female scholarship athlete to balance it out. If you look at the Knight Commission graph on spending, 31% is student financial aid ($5.5m) and if you realize that football is the largest scholarship sport by a factor of 5, suddenly that deficit is even larger because you have to fund women's sports to balance it out.
We can all love football as much as we want. But it's holding back all of our other sports where additional funding could mean turning them into elite programs nationally.
