There wasn’t an NCAA Tournament in 2020. UK athletics still turned a profit.
The University of Kentucky athletics department’s revenue was down slightly in fiscal year 2020, but it still turned a profit despite the latter part of the period coinciding with the first wave of shutdowns and other responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.
UK athletics generated $146,150,480 in the last fiscal year, which spanned from July 1, 2019, through June 30, 2020, according to documents filed with the NCAA and obtained by the Herald-Leader through an open records request. That amount was down 2.84% from the $150,435,842 generated in the 2019 fiscal year (July 1, 2018-June 30, 2019).
View the NCAA financial reports obtained for this story.
That drop in revenue was offset by a slightly higher dip in expenses. UK reported $140,578,623 in total expenses for fiscal year 2020, down 3% from the previous year. All together, Kentucky’s athletics department generated $5,571,857 in profit, slightly up from fiscal year 2019 (a 0.4% increase from $5,549,596).
Football ticket sales in particular contributed to a 5% rise in overall ticket sales. Kentucky football ticket sales were up 10% ($15,341,757 from $13,937,802) and men’s basketball ticket sales increased 3.5% ($22,430,140 from $21,664,972). Football bowl revenue distributed from the conference was up 11% ($8,102,040 from $7,240,572).
The NCAA’s decision to cancel its marquee men’s basketball tournament was the biggest factor in a 50% decline in revenue for that organization in fiscal year 2020, USA Today reported last week. Its distribution to schools across the membership was down 59.7%; Kentucky’s portion was down 62%, from $3.3 million to $1.2 million and was its second-highest year-over-year decline in any revenue category.
UK’s steepest drop in a revenue category came “other operating revenue,” which saw an 88.3% dip from $9.5 million to $1.1 million in fiscal year 2020. UK told the Herald-Leader that $7.9 million of that revenue loss was the result of an account procedure — a “reversal of prior year expense accruals,” spokesperson Tony Neely said — while the remaining drop was attributable to the sales of preseason travel packages to the Bahamas in fiscal year 2019; an equivalent trip did not occur in fiscal year 2020.
Expenses tied to recruiting (35.3%), team travel (27%) and marketing/promotions (26.3%) declined considerably. Football’s recruiting expenses declined by 39.4% while men’s basketball recruiting was down 35.6%. Not having a postseason resulted in a 33.2% decline in basketball’s team travel expenses, from $2.8 million in fiscal year 2019 to $1.9 million last year.
UK also spent about a million fewer dollars on marketing in fiscal year 2020 ($2.4 million) than in 2019 ($3.3 million).
Contributions provided to and used by the athletics department, the entirety of which were categorized as non-program specific, rose 10.5% to nearly $26 million from $23.1 million in fiscal year 2019.
Media rights revenue increased by 4.1% to $53.6 million. Sales from programs, novelty items, parking and concessions were up 7.9%.
Note: Due to how NCAA records expenses and revenue, two separate amounts that UK transferred back to the university — $1.6 million for non-athletic scholarships and $3.7 million for the Jacobs Science Building — are not technically recorded as expenses but are tracked by the athletic department. With those transfers reflected as expenses, UK athletics’ profit was $189,744.
Around the state
UK wasn’t the only athletics department in the state to turn a profit, though it was arguably the only self-sufficient program in the last fiscal year.
Louisville reported a profit of $2,037,089 in fiscal year 2020. Its revenue was up 0.7%, to $140,867,112 from $139,955,824, while its expenses were down 8.1% (a 96.6% drop in severance payments owed to former football coach Bobby Petrino and his staff, from $16,999,251 to $576,137, accounted for the bulk of that drop).
That figure is somewhat misleading, however, as U of L’s athletics department received $4.5 million in combined direct and indirect institutional support (the former represents funds directly allocated from the university for the purpose of athletics, while the latter addresses the value of services provided by the the school that aren’t charged to the athletics department).
Indirect institutional support most of the time is also charted as an equal expense, so the figure that really matters is direct institutional support. Louisville received $1.7 million in direct support from the university, without which its profit would have been only about $300,000. The athletics department also collected $900,272 in student fees that it did not transfer back to the school (Kentucky collected $1,388 that was later transferred back).
Every other public Division I program in Kentucky, without institutional support, would have operated in the red in fiscal year 2020. Instead they broke even (Eastern Kentucky, Western Kentucky), suffered a minor loss (Morehead State, Northern Kentucky) or, in the case of Murray State, came out ahead by nearly $400,000.
WKU’s athletics department received $14.8 million in support, $13.5 million of it direct, to lead among the other five schools for which the Herald-Leader was able to obtain records.
Eastern Kentucky athletics received $13.8 million in institutional support ($12.5 million direct), followed by Northern Kentucky’s $12.6 million ($9.7 million direct). Murray State was next at $10.2 million ($7.2 million) while Morehead State was given $8.6 million ($7.3 million direct) by the university.
EKU, Morehead and NKU did not collect student fees in fiscal year 2020. WKU collected $3.2 million in fees and transferred $1.7 million in revenue back to the university. Murray State collected $3.1 million in student fees and transferred $933,128 back to the school.
This story was originally published February 1, 2021 at 7:00 AM.
