Clemson/ACC FY 2012 USA Today Financial Data

As we move further into the Spring, I wanted to button up a couple loose items outstanding from the past year or so. One was the examination of FY '12 financial data. In keeping with the path we've previously chosen, we again will examine USA Today data. This database provides information on public universities only and can be found here. Each late- spring / early-Summer they update their database so we'll likely pick the FY '13 data when available and look at this data.

I pulled data for all schools that will be in the ACC after June '14. This gives us a better idea of how folks stack up in the "new" ACC. Unfortunately, private institutions don't generally divulge their data so info from Miami, Pitt, BC, 'Cuse, Wake, and Notre Dame were not included. We do get a look at how the defending football national champions built their war-chest and what how newcomer Louisville compares to its new conference brethren.

I'll note that charts will be used throughout the article to allow better visualization of the data. All raw data can be found in the table shown near the end of this discussion. I'll also note that each school can do its accounting / reporting as it chooses. Thus some schools include fundraising data in their AD numbers--often because the AD runs the fundraising club. Clemson does not include IPTAY numbers in its reporting for various reasons.

Revenue

It is clear the big dog in revenue generation is Florida State. The Seminoles raked in over $100 million in FY '12 revenue. Louisville pulled in nearly $88 million and both UNC and Virginia were able to report over $80 million in revenue. Clemson reported $70 million in athletic department revenue which was on par with VPI. Georgia Tech at $63 mil and NCST (under $60 mil) were the laggards in this category.

Expenses

Obviously, revenue should drive expenses. Accordingly, the FSU athletics department spent over $90 million while UNC and Louisville each shelled out over $80 million and UVa spent over $75 million. Clemson and VPI spent around $67 million and GT / NCST pulled up the rear.

Profit

Profit is simply the delta between the two items shown above. FSU was able to clear the better part of $10 million in 2012. UVa banked $5.4 million while Louisville, NCST, and VPI were all in the $3.4 - $3.7 range here. Clemson banked over $2 mil, GT right at $2, and UNC retained a half million dollars in the black.

Overall Thoughts

Florida State has been raising cheddar for some time. They make a lot of money and they spend a lot of money--which is what you have to do these days to get to the top, but they don't have the excess to spend like Clemson currently has. UNC is always going to bring in loot because of their basketball program. I have no clue what Duke's numbers are but you have to believe that they are flush with cash--or at least their basketball program is definitely flush with cash. Louisville has done a great job generating revenue. They successfully leveraged facility upgrades into revenues and are on sound financial footing. Clemson and Virginia Tech are close in earnings and spending while Tech and NC State seem to have the most trouble generating revenue and, thus, have reduced spending.

I'll also note that not having an itemized budget to pour over from each school does leave some question as to how good a comparison we have here. Clemson segregates IPTAY from the general ledgers. Some schools lump their IPTAY in with their numbers. The general information and trends, however, are interesting to view and show which schools appear to be in the best positions for athletics success.

As promised, the raw data can be seen below.