I’ve shown you which SEC schools are making the most from football, but which athletic departments are making the most from donor contributions?

School Contributions % of Total Revenue 1 University of Florida $39,350,660.00 34% 2 Louisiana State University $38,255,521.00 34% 3 University of Alabama $33,739,056.00 26% 4 Auburn University $29,731,122.00 32% 5 University of Tennessee $27,936,952.00 24% 6 University of Georgia $27,354,228.00 30% 7 University of South Carolina $23,987,283.00 30% 8 University of Kentucky $13,161,669.00 17% 9 University of Arkansas $13,124,754.00 17% 10 University of Mississippi $5,375,438.00 12% 11 Mississippi State University $0.00 0%

Note that Vanderbilt’s numbers are not available because it is a private institution and not subject to open records requests.

I’m guessing one of the first things you noticed was Mississippi State not showing any contributions for the 2009-2010 school year. I spoke with Steve Corhern, the Assistant AD for Business Operations at Mississippi State University, and asked why they had shown contributions in past years but not in 2009-2010. Turns out it’s good news: the athletic department didn’t need the money! Contributions come into the athletic department at Mississippi State through the booster club, the Bulldog Club. For 2009-2010, he athletic department did not need a distribution from the Bulldog Club because their SEC distribution was larger than in the past due to increased television money and covered their needs. The 2009 season marked the beginning of a new 15-year $2.25 billion contract with ESPN and a new 15-year $825 million deal with CBS.

My only question for Mississippi State fans is whether you really see this is as good news. Are you excited the athletic department didn’t need to dip into booster funds, or do you wish they had in order to spend more on certain areas?

Aside from Mississippi State, the most interesting part of these numbers is the percentage of total athletic department revenue for which they account. As you can see, at nearly half the schools 30% or more of their athletic department revenue comes from donor contributions.

How does winning championships in football and basketball improve donor contributions? Florida received $29,851,297 in donations during the 2005-2006 school year before going on to win two national titles in basketball in 2006 and 2007 and two national championships in football in 2006 and 2008. Although less than their 2009-2010 total shown above, donations accounted for roughly the same percentage of revenue in both sets of data. The impressive part of these numbers is raising nearly $10 million more from 2005-2006 to 2009-2010 in the face of a recession.

How important are these donations to athletic department survival? Take a look at how the contributions might play a part in the total athletic department profit (as reported by each school to the Department of Education):

Univ. of Alabama $43,997,335.00 Univ. of Georgia $11,716,208.00 Univ. of Florida $11,280,031.00 Louisiana State Univ. $7,668,809.00 Univ. of Arkansas $6,270,715.00 Vanderbilt Univ. $4,189,329.00 Univ. of Tennessee $4,058,980.00 Univ. of Kentucky $3,444,386.00 Mississippi State Univ. $1,862,405.00 Auburn Univ. $1,702,657.00 Univ. of South Carolina $1,696,725.00 Univ. of Mississippi $0.00

The three schools who received the most in donor contributions finish in the top four in terms of total athletic department profit.

I think the real question here is this: how much do donor contributions drive the success of a school?

As a side note, the total athletic department profit reported to the Department of Education is very close to the same as that shown upon review of the documents obtained through public records request.

In the future, I’ll also be taking a look at which schools rely on student fees to supplement their athletic department revenue.

*Numbers were obtained from open records requests and reflect the 2009-2010 school year.

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