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https://www.ksl.com/?sid=43182346&nid=635&title=a-very-pleasant-surprise-utah-athletics-generates-79m-in-latest-fiscal-year

I saw this story referenced on certain other sites that I use to get my UTE-centric news.

I thought some here might be interested in the facts. I rarely ever use any media source, particularly a Mormon source (Deseret News, KSL), as being authoritative on any subject at all.  However, in this instance, respective to public information regulations, I doubt even KSL could +++++ this up.

The bottom line here is that UTAH had projected for the just completed fiscal year an athletics budget of $68mm, and a break even year.  When I began paying some attention to this type of thing, approximately 13 years ago, UTAH had an annual budget in the high-20's to low-30's. This number gradually increased during UTAH 's time in the MWC until in the final year here, the budget was around $49-50mm. As mentioned, the projected revenue number for last year was $68mm.  The actual number was $79mm.

One can draw whatever relative conclusions that suits their trolling needs, but the reality is that, for Utah - at least, PAC money has been a boon. Will we ever catch up to Alabama, Ohio state, Michigan, Florida? Not in my lifetime. We have, however, doubled both our athletic budget  and our endowment fund in six short years. Silver lining thing, I guess.

"If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, are you still a moron?"

"Give me a Sandwich and a Douchebag and there's nothing I can't do!"

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12 minutes ago, East Coast Aztec said:

How many cigarettes did you smoke after this post?  Or did you just fall asleep?  :D

Truth is it's own reward. Troll on.

"If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, are you still a moron?"

"Give me a Sandwich and a Douchebag and there's nothing I can't do!"

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Guest #1Stunner

I can see that my original post about the PAC12 "Money Problems" caused the first poster a lot of confusion, and now I feel obligated to respond.

OK...OK..... to clarify, my post was not about overall, athletics budgets, but merely a re-post of an informative Jon Wilner article, which showed that the PAC12 is falling far behind the other conferences with the payout of TV money.

To repeat, Mr. Wilner stated the real concern that the SEC / B1G are becoming "Tier 1" P5 schools, and the ACC/PAC12/BIG12 are becoming "Tier 2"----looking at their TV payouts.

 

His article showed the following TV payouts:

Fiscal year 2015 school distributions (all figures confirmed) (TV)

SEC: $32.7 million
Big Ten: $32.4 million
Pac-12: $25.1 million

Fiscal year 2016 school distributions (TV)

SEC: $40 million (confirmed)
Big Ten: $35 million (approximate)
Pac-12: $27 million (approximate)

Fiscal year 2017-18 school distributions (TV)

Big Ten: $45 million (estimate)
SEC: $43 million (estimate)
Pac-12: $31 million (estimate)

 

 

So, the SEC / B1G are on board to receive 12-14 Million more than other P5 conferences.........From the TV portion of their payout (only part of their athletics budget).

 

Now, the link to the Mormon News article (KSL) posted by Mr. Sexington, which he said he doesn't trust, only confirms what Mr. Wilner has said.  From the KSL article:

Per KSL, Utah received a little more than $23.9 million altogether from the Pac-12 TV payout during the 2015-16 fiscal year, Smith said.

That means that Utah got ~$3 Million less than the $27 Million that our friend, Jon Wilner was predicting (he said $27M).   The concern expressed by Mr. Wilner is that the PAC12 TV payout is significantly behind other conferences.   Being behind and trying to keep up with TV money has been the sole reason for conference expansion / contraction.   Maryland, for example, left the ACC, its long time home, for the B1G, because it needed the TV cash

NOW...Of course, total athletics budget is a different thing....following TV money, schools are free to increase their athetlics budgets in other ways.   In order to create a $79M athletics budget, after its $23.9M TV payout, Utah only had to come up with $55M additional dollars to make their 2016 budget (79 - 23.9 = 55.1), 

To the credit of the Amazing Utah fanbase, and according to the KSL article, the school came up with the $55M by charging their students higher student fees, allocating money form the university over to the athletics department, raising ticket prices for football and basketball, licensing fees deal for of Utah gear (smart idea), and charging higher for concessions at games.  Of course, any school, including the other P5 and G5 schools, could do these same things.  But a real credit to the Ute fans for being willing to bear this cost (might have less money to spend at local coffee shops, though)  

https://www.ksl.com/?sid=43182346&nid=635&title=a-very-pleasant-surprise-utah-athletics-generates-79m-in-latest-fiscal-year

 

But, all that said, the original point still remains.  The PAC12 is falling far behind in TV payouts.   It probably doesn't matter for a lower tiered P5 like Utah, that is "just thrilled to be in the presence of the blue bloods".   But true blue bloods, like a USC, or a UCLA might notice that they aren't getting paid nearly as much as a school like Michigan or Nebraska.   Or a school like an Arizona might start getting wandering eyes.    Who knows?     Maybe nothing happens...   But Jon Wilner's article has a point.  The PAC12 has a money problem, unless their fans continue to bear a much higher cost.  And it appears that the B1G and SEC are pretty competitive in football and basketball.  ACC is too, though, even with a lower payout.

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There's no doubt that U of Utah hit the lotto.  But Utah is sort of an exception in this madness going from a solid conference to one of the elite and all that entails.  I mean, the Washington State's and the Oregon State's have no way of keeping up. It's just no sustainable for them in small markets.

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Guest #1Stunner
Just now, NevadaFan said:

There's no doubt that U of Utah hit the lotto.  But Utah is sort of an exception in this madness going from a solid conference to one of the elite and all that entails.  I mean, the Washington State's and the Oregon State's have no way of keeping up. It's just no sustainable for them in small markets.

Washington State, Cal, and even Washington's fans are not as good as Ute fans, and apparently are unwilling to bear the cost of trying to keep their athletics budgets competitive.  Those schools, with their lower PAC12 TV payout, now have major budget problems, and have to figure out how to come up with extra money outside of the TV deal.

http://www.seattletimes.com/sports/wsu-cougar-football/wsu-athletic-department-closes-2015-with-13-million-budget-deficit/

http://www.seattletimes.com/sports/uw-huskies/uw-athletic-department-projects-budget-deficit-of-14-million-for-2016-fiscal-year/

http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/10/04/college-hotline-on-cals-22-million-hole-ias-future-not-naming-names-revenue-comps-reckless-spending-and-more/

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Just now, #1Stunner said:

Washington State, Cal, and even Washington's fans are not as good as Ute fans, and apparently are unwilling to bear the cost of trying to keep their athletics budgets competitive.  Those schools, with their lower PAC12 TV payout, now have major budget problems, and have to figure out how to come up with extra money outside of the TV deal.

http://www.seattletimes.com/sports/wsu-cougar-football/wsu-athletic-department-closes-2015-with-13-million-budget-deficit/

http://www.seattletimes.com/sports/uw-huskies/uw-athletic-department-projects-budget-deficit-of-14-million-for-2016-fiscal-year/

http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/10/04/college-hotline-on-cals-22-million-hole-ias-future-not-naming-names-revenue-comps-reckless-spending-and-more/

They do have major budget problems and it's only getting worse. That's pretty obvious.

It's no wonder BYU doesn't want any part of that mess! The horror!

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Guest #1Stunner
2 minutes ago, NevadaFan said:

They do have major budget problems and it's only getting worse. That's pretty obvious.

It's no wonder BYU doesn't want any part of that mess! The horror!

Its too bad that the Mormon Church doesn't write BYU a blank check for college athletics.  The leadership won't do it, unfortunately.  They view athletics as a fun distraction, and that academics is really the focus.  Recently increased the endowment of the school to $1.6B, which is cool, I guess.  But if I were in charge, I'd lower the endowment to 600M, and give $1B to the sports teams (to buy recruits new cars, like how Alabama does).

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2 hours ago, Chad Sexington said:

https://www.ksl.com/?sid=43182346&nid=635&title=a-very-pleasant-surprise-utah-athletics-generates-79m-in-latest-fiscal-year

I saw this story referenced on certain other sites that I use to get my UTE-centric news.

I thought some here might be interested in the facts. I rarely ever use any media source, particularly a Mormon source (Deseret News, KSL), as being authoritative on any subject at all.  However, in this instance, respective to public information regulations, I doubt even KSL could +++++ this up.

The bottom line here is that UTAH had projected for the just completed fiscal year an athletics budget of $68mm, and a break even year.  When I began paying some attention to this type of thing, approximately 13 years ago, UTAH had an annual budget in the high-20's to low-30's. This number gradually increased during UTAH 's time in the MWC until in the final year here, the budget was around $49-50mm. As mentioned, the projected revenue number for last year was $68mm.  The actual number was $79mm.

One can draw whatever relative conclusions that suits their trolling needs, but the reality is that, for Utah - at least, PAC money has been a boon. Will we ever catch up to Alabama, Ohio state, Michigan, Florida? Not in my lifetime. We have, however, doubled both our athletic budget  and our endowment fund in six short years. Silver lining thing, I guess.

This is the first time in 10 years that I have seen you spell Utah in mixed case.

3rd paragraph.

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10 minutes ago, #1Stunner said:

Its too bad that the Mormon Church doesn't write BYU a blank check for college athletics.  The leadership won't do it, unfortunately.  They view athletics as a fun distraction, and that academics is really the focus.  Recently increased the endowment of the school to $1.6B, which is cool, I guess.  But if I were in charge, I'd lower the endowment to 600M, and give $1B to the sports teams (to buy recruits new cars, like how Alabama does).

I was in Utah this week... some kind fellow (bartender) told me that the Church (one of its financial arms) has dumped $100s of millions (billions?) to build a mall in downtown SLC -- an on a "main street" project in Ogden among others. Wondering why it won't float some serious $$$ to BYU, home of the churches best and brightest!

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1 minute ago, NevadaFan said:

I was in Utah this week... some kind fellow (bartender) told me that the Church (one of its financial arms) has dumped $100s of millions (billions?) to build a mall in downtown SLC -- an on a "main street" project in Ogden among others. Wondering why it won't float some serious $$$ to BYU, home of the churches best and brightest!

Only monies obtained from the tithing of Utah State alumni is allocated for BYU Athletics.

This directive comes straight from the prophet.

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Guest #1Stunner
1 minute ago, RogueStout said:

Only monies obtained from the tithing of Utah State alumni is allocated for BYU Athletics.

This directive comes straight from the prophet.

This is true.  Every BYU student gets their tuition ~70% subsidized by Church tithing, almost exclusively from Utah State alums.

This is why typical tuition in the WCC (private schools), at a school like Gonzaga, is around $40,000 per year, and at BYU it is around $6,000 per year.

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Guest #1Stunner
12 minutes ago, NevadaFan said:

I was in Utah this week... some kind fellow (bartender) told me that the Church (one of its financial arms) has dumped $100s of millions (billions?) to build a mall in downtown SLC -- an on a "main street" project in Ogden among others. Wondering why it won't float some serious $$$ to BYU, home of the churches best and brightest!

You heard correctly.

The Mormon Church has 2 "branches".  The Church Branch (collecting tithing, and paying for church operations and buildings), and the Business Branch (separately run, no tithing, business ventures).  The Business Branch pays taxes.

The mall is called the City Creek Center, and was a major shopping, condominium, and office space development, designed to revitalize downtown SLC, and provide retail shopping places for Ute grads to work.  The Church spent about $5 Billion on the project.  ( Utah Property Management Associates, a real estate arm of the church, manages portions of City Creek Center. According to Spencer P. Eccles, of the Utah Governor's Office of Economic Development, the mall cost the church an estimated $2 billion. It is one part of a $5 billion church-funded revamping of downtown, according to LDS Church-owned KSL. )

The Church Business Branch also owns the State of Florida. http://www.reuters.com/article/usa-florida-mormons-idUSL2N0IT2AZ20131108

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The thing to remember about the Pac 12 is that it is the next most academically prestigious college athletic conference to the Ivy League in the US, especially the California based schools.  Cal has some budget concerns relating to debt service on their new stadium and how to assure that the nearly 30 different sports teams they sponsor are financially viable, but none of that affected the hiring process of their new coach.  It's a distortion to say Cal has major budget problems apart from some specific sports.

No administrator of a Pac 12 university is getting exorcised about football tv revenue.  Yes, there is a rivalry with the Big Ten but thats just as much an academic rivalry as a sports rivalry.  The SEC hopes that athletic success will compensate for their academic standing, but that's putting the cart before the horse.  Hopefully Utah will join the American Association of Universities soon, which would make the Pac 12 3/4s members of the AAU.

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55 minutes ago, #1Stunner said:

I can see that my original post about the PAC12 "Money Problems" caused the first poster a lot of confusion, and now I feel obligated to respond.

OK...OK..... to clarify, my post was not about overall, athletics budgets, but merely a re-post of an informative Jon Wilner article, which showed that the PAC12 is falling far behind the other conferences with the payout of TV money.

To repeat, Mr. Wilner stated the real concern that the SEC / B1G are becoming "Tier 1" P5 schools, and the ACC/PAC12/BIG12 are becoming "Tier 2"----looking at their TV payouts.

 

His article showed the following TV payouts:

Fiscal year 2015 school distributions (all figures confirmed) (TV)

SEC: $32.7 million
Big Ten: $32.4 million
Pac-12: $25.1 million

Fiscal year 2016 school distributions (TV)

SEC: $40 million (confirmed)
Big Ten: $35 million (approximate)
Pac-12: $27 million (approximate)

Fiscal year 2017-18 school distributions (TV)

Big Ten: $45 million (estimate)
SEC: $43 million (estimate)
Pac-12: $31 million (estimate)

 

 

So, the SEC / B1G are on board to receive 12-14 Million more than other P5 conferences.........From the TV portion of their payout (only part of their athletics budget).

 

Now, the link to the Mormon News article (KSL) posted by Mr. Sexington, which he said he doesn't trust, only confirms what Mr. Wilner has said.  From the KSL article:

Per KSL, Utah received a little more than $23.9 million altogether from the Pac-12 TV payout during the 2015-16 fiscal year, Smith said.

That means that Utah got ~$3 Million less than the $27 Million that our friend, Jon Wilner was predicting (he said $27M).   The concern expressed by Mr. Wilner is that the PAC12 TV payout is significantly behind other conferences.   Being behind and trying to keep up with TV money has been the sole reason for conference expansion / contraction.   Maryland, for example, left the ACC, its long time home, for the B1G, because it needed the TV cash

NOW...Of course, total athletics budget is a different thing....following TV money, schools are free to increase their athetlics budgets in other ways.   In order to create a $79M athletics budget, after its $23.9M TV payout, Utah only had to come up with $55M additional dollars to make their 2016 budget (79 - 23.9 = 55.1), 

To the credit of the Amazing Utah fanbase, and according to the KSL article, the school came up with the $55M by charging their students higher student fees, allocating money form the university over to the athletics department, raising ticket prices for football and basketball, licensing fees deal for of Utah gear (smart idea), and charging higher for concessions at games.  Of course, any school, including the other P5 and G5 schools, could do these same things.  But a real credit to the Ute fans for being willing to bear this cost (might have less money to spend at local coffee shops, though)  

https://www.ksl.com/?sid=43182346&nid=635&title=a-very-pleasant-surprise-utah-athletics-generates-79m-in-latest-fiscal-year

 

But, all that said, the original point still remains.  The PAC12 is falling far behind in TV payouts.   It probably doesn't matter for a lower tiered P5 like Utah, that is "just thrilled to be in the presence of the blue bloods".   But true blue bloods, like a USC, or a UCLA might notice that they aren't getting paid nearly as much as a school like Michigan or Nebraska.   Or a school like an Arizona might start getting wandering eyes.    Who knows?     Maybe nothing happens...   But Jon Wilner's article has a point.  The PAC12 has a money problem, unless their fans continue to bear a much higher cost.  And it appears that the B1G and SEC are pretty competitive in football and basketball.  ACC is too, though, even with a lower payout.

 your figures are wrong, you are comparing the wrong years.

This is from Wilner's article: 

"All in all, we’ll estimate $27 million per school in FY16 net distributions ...The Pac-12 won’t make its FY16 financial information available until May. (It operates on a 10-month lag.)"

The 23.9 million payout was short of the 25.1 million for FY2015 based on the figures received last June (not the FY2016 estimate which is $27m.  So it's short $1.2 million vs. $3.1 million. 

  

The PAC-12 is clearly falling behind, but based on the simple rules of supply and demand, shouldn't they be?  We've discussed ad nauseam the popularity of West Coast football compared to the rest of the country.  Direct TV access would help, but it's not going to shrink the gap that much.  It's a concern, but back when it was the PAC-10 revenues were significantly smaller than the SEC and B1G so it's not a new development.

 

 

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Guest #1Stunner
5 minutes ago, Del Scorcho said:

 your figures are wrong, you are comparing the wrong years.

This is from Wilner's article: 

"All in all, we’ll estimate $27 million per school in FY16 net distributions ...The Pac-12 won’t make its FY16 financial information available until May. (It operates on a 10-month lag.)"

The 23.9 million payout was short of the 25.1 million for FY2015 based on the figures received last June (not the FY2016 estimate which is $27m.  So it's short $1.2 million vs. $3.1 million. 

  

The PAC-12 is clearly falling behind, but based on the simple rules of supply and demand, shouldn't they be?  We've discussed ad nauseam the popularity of West Coast football compared to the rest of the country.  Direct TV access would help, but it's not going to shrink the gap that much.  It's a concern, but back when it was the PAC-10 revenues were significantly smaller than the SEC and B1G so it's not a new development.

 

 

If I got the PAC12 TV numbers wrong by a million or two, thanks for correcting me.

Back to the TV Money discussion, I think the main thing to take from it is that it might convince the PAC12 (who is traditionally very against expansion) to expand by 2 more teams to try and keep up.  Probably into Texas.

The top targets would probably be Texas and TCU.  Maybe Texas and Houston.  But if they stay status quo, I agree, West Coast Football just doesn't have the fan interest to keep up with the SEC and B1G.  Schools like USC will be a financial disadvantage to schools like Alabama and Michigan.

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20 minutes ago, Bruininthebay said:

The thing to remember about the Pac 12 is that it is the next most academically prestigious college athletic conference to the Ivy League in the US, especially the California based schools.  Cal has some budget concerns relating to debt service on their new stadium and how to assure that the nearly 30 different sports teams they sponsor are financially viable, but none of that affected the hiring process of their new coach.  It's a distortion to say Cal has major budget problems apart from some specific sports.

No administrator of a Pac 12 university is getting exorcised about football tv revenue.  Yes, there is a rivalry with the Big Ten but thats just as much an academic rivalry as a sports rivalry.  The SEC hopes that athletic success will compensate for their academic standing, but that's putting the cart before the horse.  Hopefully Utah will join the American Association of Universities soon, which would make the Pac 12 3/4s members of the AAU.

the last I heard was that Utah was no longer interested in pursuing AAU membership.  They felt the rewards weren't worth the cost or effort.  That was a few years ago, maybe that's changed?

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14 minutes ago, #1Stunner said:

If I got the PAC12 TV numbers wrong by a million or two, thanks for correcting me.

Back to the TV Money discussion, I think the main thing to take from it is that it might convince the PAC12 (who is traditionally very against expansion) to expand by 2 more teams to try and keep up.  Probably into Texas.

The top targets would probably be Texas and TCU.  Maybe Texas and Houston.  But if they stay status quo, I agree, West Coast Football just doesn't have the fan interest to keep up with the SEC and B1G.  Schools like USC will be a financial disadvantage to schools like Alabama and Michigan.

 

I'm sure USC and UCLA feel that they deserve more than a Utah, Arizona or WSU and they probably do.  If it means giving them a Boise St. type deal in the future, I'm all for it versus risk of losing those schools.  It's an every changing environment for sure.  Utah is still in the just happy to be here stage and if it means that Utah gets 85% of what USC gets, sign us up.

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36 minutes ago, #1Stunner said:

Back to the TV Money discussion, I think the main thing to take from it is that it might convince the PAC12 (who is traditionally very against expansion) to expand by 2 more teams to try and keep up.  Probably into Texas.

The economic case for expansion is that it drives better rights fees from broadcast partners, particularly the rights to a championship game between conference divisions.  The Pac 12's championship game in particular has failed to find a niche like the east coast conference championship games do - it gets pre-empted on Saturday or is played Friday night before the big games are played on Saturday.  The downside of expansion is dividing the overall revenue in a share of 14 or 12 rather than 10.

As we've discussed, the Pac 12 is not moving on the same trajectory as the top 2 conferences in FBS.  If rights fees aren't how you capitalise on expansion, then you have to look at other options.  Personally, i think a 1959 style dissolution and reformation where we go back to a round robin football and basketball schedule is a more likely consequence of any economic distress among Pac 12 members.  However, there are no poor sisters in the Pac 12 and thus not much economic anxiety.  I'm pretty certain the round robin schedule is fondly remembered by all and I'm also pretty certain that many people still call it the Pac 10, so if a change was made we'd wish Oregon State and Washington State the best of luck in their future athletic endeavors.

The original MWC had a great idea in an airport to make the smallest, best conference they could.  The biggest upside economically is to split the revenue the fewest ways while still having schools that networks are interested in broadcasting..  The Pac 12 is much more likely to follow the airport meeting example and reform the Pac 10 than add two more mouths to feed and be a bastardized Pac 14 with Central time zone schools.

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