Despite not having a cash cow for a football program, IU Athletics seems to be doing okay.
Better than okay, really. At least in 2022.
IU Athletics ranked 13th nationally among more than 230 public NCAA Division I schools in total revenue for 2022. The department raked in a record $166.8 million of revenue according to a USA Today report released on Monday.
According to the report, $77.8 million of that revenue came from rights and licensing (including television contracts), $61.7 million came from contributions, $21.3 million from ticket sales, $2.7 million from school funds, and $3.3 million from other sources.
With $132.4 million of expenses, IU generated a substantial profit.
USA Today’s reporting on IU’s revenue and expenses goes back to 2005. The $166.8 million of revenue is easily the most generated by the department. The previous high was $127.8 million in 2019.
Television rights have generated substantial growth for IU, with the Big Ten Network and national deals both padding their pockets. Prior to 2017, IU never received more than $50 million in rights and licensing revenue, but the numbers has increased every year since and should continue to swell under the Big Ten’s latest media rights arrangement that takes effect this fall.
The growth in IU Athletics revenue does appear to come with a word of caution. There was a substantial uptick in donor contributions in 2022 — more than $30 million greater than any prior year. If that figure dropped to 2019 levels, IU’s total revenue would fall to around 30th nationally.
But as it stands, IU is doing quite well considering football generally leads the way from a revenue standpoint.
The 12 schools in front of Indiana in 2022 are most of the titans of college football, including Ohio State, Texas, Alabama, Michigan, and Georgia as the top-five, in that order. Ohio State generated $251.6 million of revenue to lead the way.
USA Today says the data is “based on the revenue and expense reports collected from more than 230 public schools in the NCAA’s Division I that have an obligation to release the data (the NCAA does not release the data publicly). The others are private or are covered under a state exemption.”
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