Here are two interesting links for all you number jockeys like myself who want to compare research expenditures to athletic revenue:
http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf10311/pdf/nsf10311.pdf
How much revenue did your favorite Football Bowl Subdivision school take in in 2007-08? This chart will tell you – College Gridiron 365 Blog – Orlando Sentinel
Research dollars per school are pages 63 through 85 in the pdf. These are both Fiscal Year 2008.
I'm a big dork so I compiled a spreadsheet of all BCS universities comparing their research expenditures versus their athletic revenue. While this is not a perfect system to determining the importance of athletics within each university (research dollars are skewed towards universities with Engineering and Medicine programs and does not necessarily correspond to the importance and quality of educating students), I feel like it gives a pretty good overview. Here are the breakdowns by conference (all numbers are in millions with research followed by athletics and then an index of how times more research dollars than athletics dollars):
PAC 10 (4776 v 590 for 8.1)
Big Ten (6322 v 841 for 7.5)
ACC (4067 v 649 for 6.3)
Big East (2094 v 365 for 5.7)
Big 12 (3218 v 797 for 4.0)
SEC (2889 v 853 for 3.4)
Is it any surprise that the Big 12 is disbanding? Also, their number is skewed by the fact that I included Baylor's College of Medicine (which is in Houston) into the numbers. If you include only Baylor main campus in Waco the numbers are even more stark at 2797 total research with an index of 3.5. Many SEC schools will never really care about research and academics (especially the SEC West) so they exist as an outlier. Also, the Big East is aided by a few universities that bring home the bacon (Pitt, Cincy & Rutgers make up over 60% of the research expenditures in the Big East).
It is also interesting to look at the combination of these two huge revenue sources for universities. Is it any wonder than the Big Ten and PAC 10 are running the expansion show when they clearly make so much more money from these two sources than all the other conferences?
So how do the individual Big Ten Members hold up?
Wisconsin (882 v 93 for 9.5)
Michigan (876 v 99 for 8.8)
Ohio State (703 v 118 for 6.0)
Penn State (701 v 92 for 7.6)
Minnesota (683 v 64 for 10.7)
Illinois (501 v 57 for 8.8)
Northwestern (484 v 42 for 11.5)
Purdue (430 v 62 for 6.9)
Indiana (412 v 55 for 7.5)
Michigan State (357 v 78 for 4.6)
Iowa (293 v 81 for 3.6)
How about expansion candidates?
Notre Dame (97 v 83 for 1.2)
Nebraska (230 v 75 for 3.1)
Missouri (245 v 49 for 5.0)
Rutgers (323 v 50 for 6.5)
Maryland (395 v 54 for 7.3)
Kansas (215 v 86 for 2.5)
Syracuse (38 v 45 for 0.8)
Pitt (596 v 40 for 14.9)
UCONN (226 v 55 for 4.1)
Vanderbilt (200 v 46 for 4.3)
Georgia Tech (522 v 47 for 11.1)
Virginia (258 v 65 for 4.0)
Virginia Tech (373 v 56 for 6.7)
I think it is interesting to see the serious candidates have significant research components to their university. Obviously this doesn't mean everything since West Virginia ($140 million) and Cincinnati ($344 million) both have more research dollars than Notre Dame while both at considered Tier 3 universities academically. I do think it is significant and something the Big Ten Presidents are considering. Does adding a school like Georgia Tech accomplish expansion south and getting the BTN on basic cable in Atlanta while still allowing for research collaborations (Engineering, Medicine, Science, etc.) that would greatly increase revenue from both athletics as well as research? Maybe this type of data will give poster insight into why GT or Maryland are gaining steam as candidates while others like Syracuse have been falling behind.
http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf10311/pdf/nsf10311.pdf
How much revenue did your favorite Football Bowl Subdivision school take in in 2007-08? This chart will tell you – College Gridiron 365 Blog – Orlando Sentinel
Research dollars per school are pages 63 through 85 in the pdf. These are both Fiscal Year 2008.
I'm a big dork so I compiled a spreadsheet of all BCS universities comparing their research expenditures versus their athletic revenue. While this is not a perfect system to determining the importance of athletics within each university (research dollars are skewed towards universities with Engineering and Medicine programs and does not necessarily correspond to the importance and quality of educating students), I feel like it gives a pretty good overview. Here are the breakdowns by conference (all numbers are in millions with research followed by athletics and then an index of how times more research dollars than athletics dollars):
PAC 10 (4776 v 590 for 8.1)
Big Ten (6322 v 841 for 7.5)
ACC (4067 v 649 for 6.3)
Big East (2094 v 365 for 5.7)
Big 12 (3218 v 797 for 4.0)
SEC (2889 v 853 for 3.4)
Is it any surprise that the Big 12 is disbanding? Also, their number is skewed by the fact that I included Baylor's College of Medicine (which is in Houston) into the numbers. If you include only Baylor main campus in Waco the numbers are even more stark at 2797 total research with an index of 3.5. Many SEC schools will never really care about research and academics (especially the SEC West) so they exist as an outlier. Also, the Big East is aided by a few universities that bring home the bacon (Pitt, Cincy & Rutgers make up over 60% of the research expenditures in the Big East).
It is also interesting to look at the combination of these two huge revenue sources for universities. Is it any wonder than the Big Ten and PAC 10 are running the expansion show when they clearly make so much more money from these two sources than all the other conferences?
So how do the individual Big Ten Members hold up?
Wisconsin (882 v 93 for 9.5)
Michigan (876 v 99 for 8.8)
Ohio State (703 v 118 for 6.0)
Penn State (701 v 92 for 7.6)
Minnesota (683 v 64 for 10.7)
Illinois (501 v 57 for 8.8)
Northwestern (484 v 42 for 11.5)
Purdue (430 v 62 for 6.9)
Indiana (412 v 55 for 7.5)
Michigan State (357 v 78 for 4.6)
Iowa (293 v 81 for 3.6)
How about expansion candidates?
Notre Dame (97 v 83 for 1.2)
Nebraska (230 v 75 for 3.1)
Missouri (245 v 49 for 5.0)
Rutgers (323 v 50 for 6.5)
Maryland (395 v 54 for 7.3)
Kansas (215 v 86 for 2.5)
Syracuse (38 v 45 for 0.8)
Pitt (596 v 40 for 14.9)
UCONN (226 v 55 for 4.1)
Vanderbilt (200 v 46 for 4.3)
Georgia Tech (522 v 47 for 11.1)
Virginia (258 v 65 for 4.0)
Virginia Tech (373 v 56 for 6.7)
I think it is interesting to see the serious candidates have significant research components to their university. Obviously this doesn't mean everything since West Virginia ($140 million) and Cincinnati ($344 million) both have more research dollars than Notre Dame while both at considered Tier 3 universities academically. I do think it is significant and something the Big Ten Presidents are considering. Does adding a school like Georgia Tech accomplish expansion south and getting the BTN on basic cable in Atlanta while still allowing for research collaborations (Engineering, Medicine, Science, etc.) that would greatly increase revenue from both athletics as well as research? Maybe this type of data will give poster insight into why GT or Maryland are gaining steam as candidates while others like Syracuse have been falling behind.
