Clemson / SCar Financial Comparison--FY '11 (Part I)

Over the past few years we've emphasized the importance of finances and budgets as they pertain to athletic success. Today, we begin the first part of our examination of such items and compare our Tigers to the in-state rival South Carolina Gamecocks. The numbers we discuss will show some detail but, unfortunately, are not as granular as the comprehensive budget analysis performed on Clemson's AD budget performed by Dr. B earlier. Extensive granularity can be found for our Tigers in his assessment performed back in the Spring. We obtained that information directly from Katie Hill, Clemson's Chief Finanical Officer in the AD, and do not have a copy of the Gamecock Club's budget or the SC AD NCAA Agreed Upon Procedures format budget. If we get those for FY11, we'll revise this in Part 3.

The data used in the first two parts of this series were gathered from ope.ed.gov and USA Today. THIS post just examines the Dept. of Education data. I'll point out a few things about this data. First and foremost, all information gathered is for Fiscal Year 2011 (FY '11). This fiscal year began on July 1, 2010 and ended on June 30, 2011. Because Fiscal Year 2012 just ended on June 30, 2012, FY11 is the most recent information currently available for these schools. The ACC was under its previous TV contract during this time. Second, there are some discrepancies between the two data sources. These differences are accounting differences and/or are associated with the way that the data sources categorize different expense/revenue streams. Ultimate granularity comes with the official school documents. Interpretation for presentation (as the two data sources seem to have done) explain away some of the differences. I'll try and point these out when they arise below.

This analysis is important for several reasons. First off, Clemson plays Carolina in all virtually all fielded sports annually. Second, these are the two biggest sporting programs in the state. As such, the two schools compete for many of the same resources including recruits on a year in, year out basis. The use of cash affects both of these items.

We'll begin with both school's revenues and expenses as provided by ope.ed.gov, which further separates between women's and men's teams.

Revenues looked like this:

Now, before going further, there are some quirks to mention. SC is lumping their women's revenues into the "gender non-specific" category. This is an accounting quirk that several schools do, but not Clemson. A superficial examination of the numbers would show that Clemson makes millions more on women's sports than does SC, when in fact they would be comparable. Likewise, you would assume they are killing it in the non-specific category, and they are doing well, but not as big as the figures show. We chose to not explore the women's sports financials further because they aren't the ones bringing in the cash (most of you dont care about women's sports either).

Note also that the revenue categories are not broken out as nicely by the Dept. of Education website. Some is done by USA Today, but not to the extent of a AUP report.

Expenses as shown here:

The differences between the two tables are staggering. South Carolina pulled in and spent $20+ million over Clemson in FY '11. South Carolina brought in over $13 million in football over our Tigers and spent $4.5 million more than Clemson on football. Overall, around $22 million was the revenue and expense deficit Clemson faced in Fiscal Year '11 compared to the Gamecocks.

We need to also look at the line by line statistics that lead to the numbers shown above. Again we rely on ope.ed. We'll again begin with Clemson:

The quick explanation of the above table goes like this: Lines 1, 2, & 3 above show coaches' salaries; 4 student aid (IPTAY money transferred in just for scholarships); 5 recruiting costs; 6 gameday operating costs; 7 sums items mentioned above; 8 is the total expenses specifically slotted for the teams' expenditures; 9 breaks out the miscellaneous costs allocated to the teams; 10 shows costs that are not pigeonholed for specific teams; 11 gives the total expenses; 12 shows revenues attributed to specific teams; 13 shows miscellaneous revenue (not associated with specific teams); 14 shows total revenue (attributed to specific teams and general cash influxes); 15 illustrates profits from funds attributed to teams; 16 shows overall profits when all cash inflows and outflows (misc. and pigeonholed combined) are accounted.

Some of these coaching expenses look a little light to me and likely were hidden with some miscellaneous costs. The USA Today data will paint a different picture for some of these items, and we'll get to those numbers in the next installment.

Here are Carolina's numbers. Again, I question how some of these numbers were categorized but won't question the overall values.

As you can imagine, the delta numbers (below) again largely favor South Carolina.

Clemson did appear to spend quite a bit more on coaches, gameday expenses, and scholarships. However, Carolina crushed it in in monetary generating areas. In terms of profits, these numbers show USC outgaining Clemson by well over $500K.

Overall, the data above show one thing: South Carolina makes more money and spends more money than Clemson-a lot more money. And, as we'll show soon, this financial gap is growing at a rising rate...