We know how Gotham sizes up to Windy City on the flat track, but what about at the bank?

By digging through (publicly available) tax documents, I tried to stack some of the top leagues against each other to see how they match up. (Make your bets now)

Here are some overall observations I had after spending hours weeding through the numbers (which are from 2011 — the last available data. Things may have changed since then.):

-Few leagues are 501c3s

What frustrated me most was how little data is publicly available on this. Only about 50 leagues in the nation have ever filed 990s (nonprofit tax forms). Of those, 28* sound like WFTDA leagues. The others are juniors, renegade and rec leagues. Many of the 28 are leagues you’ve never heard of (Oh hey, Cowboy Capital Rollergirls.) Only about seven division one WFDTA leagues filed these forms in 2011.

-Most of the top leagues are profitable

Start with some good news: Six of the eight leagues I looked at were profitable — some were very profitable, earning 116 percent of what they spent in a year.

-We don’t get grants

Of the leagues I looked at, one of them got a grant and it was for about $4,000. That’s not enough. Together, these same eight leagues brought in about $2.4 million in one year. That means that 0.16% of these nonprofits’ revenues were from grants. That’s embarrassing, frankly. It’s likely because of these leagues, only one had a paid employee (the same league that got the grant). Grant writing is a lot of work for a volunteer, which might be the reason the community got so few in 2011.

-We don’t invest

There were some really cute budget lines of “investments.” One said that a league invested $12 and earned $2 on that investment in 2011 — I have just got to assume that they bought a few extra rolls of tape and that tape prices then went up. But seriously: With assets into the $325,000 range — why is the derby community not investing this money? Most finance-types would tell you that savings account interest doesn’t even keep up with inflation nowadays. We’re losing money by stashing it.

-There is no standard

The goal of this post is to show the derby community how some leagues do it. I chose the top-ranked leagues because, by the nature of it, they are typically older leagues and likely more profitable. What I found is some leagues spend a lot of their funds to support their travel team. Others use it to put on huge bouts for their home teams. Some fundraise a ton, others don’t list any money under “fundraising.” We know this sport is young and growing and I think few leagues would tell you they know the “right” way to support the sport. But I would wager the diversity here is massive. I would suspect if you took eight non-derby nonprofits that were in the same trade, their 990s would look similar to each other. Not so much here. Everyone is doing their own thing.

-Workshops can be fruitful

The best example of this, by far, is Rocky Mountain Rollergirls. Here are their impressive** stats:

-Junior derby programs cost them $4,743 but brought in $12,250 (+$7,507).

-Their bootcamps cost them $4,678 to run and brought in $39,305 (+$34,627!).

Grand total is more than $42,000 of bank. Other leagues also found workshops, rec leagues and other training opportunities lucrative, to lesser extents.

-Gotham doesn’t have the highest rent/mortgage

This surprised me, anyway. Windy and Bay Area pay more, it seems.

-WFTDA is (seemingly***) doing great.

With earnings of more than $400,000 in a year, the WFTDA seems to be healthy. I’m glad it’s now offering me free TV.

A note before we get started: The data I have is limited. For one thing, I can only compare 501c3 nonprofits, so although I hoped to compare the top 12 ranked leagues, some of them are not nonprofits (Oly, Rat, Angel and Minnesota). Also, different leagues fill out the forms in different ways, so some leagues separate every item down to how many t-shirts they sold (Gotham), and some leagues just lump all revenues together (Bay Area). Leagues like Rose keep their junior and rec programs under their one league, but leagues like Texas created separate nonprofits for those programs. Because of all of these huge discrepancies, we can only draw wide inferences from what these numbers mean. But it’s fun. So here it is:

So, who earned the most?

I’d say WFTDA, with $411,032. But, as for leagues:

Rose City Rollers $77,490

Windy City Rollers $73,857

Texas Rollergirls $28,121

Gotham Girls Roller Derby $2,896

Denver Roller Dolls $657

B.ay A.rea D.erby Girls -$3,024****

Rocky Mountain Rollergirls -$17,060

Who spent the most?

Rose City Rollers $490,271

Denver Roller Dolls $367,769

Windy City Rollers $361,262

Gotham Girls Roller Derby $341,859

WFTDA $285,653

Rocky Mountain Rollergirls $246,502

Texas Rollergirls $115,871

B.ay A.rea D.erby Girls $29,740

Fattest piggy bank:

WFTDA $415,824

Windy City Rollers $326,903

Rose City Rollers $205,112

Texas Rollergirls $144,771

Gotham Girls Roller Derby $135,774

Denver Roller Dolls $74,794

B.ay A.rea D.erby Girls $53,215

Rocky Mountain Rollergirls $17,916

Rent:

Windy City Rollers $161,898

B.ay A.rea D.erby Girls $137,102

Gotham Girls Roller Derby $121,640

Rose City Rollers $62,690

Rocky Mountain Rollergirls $61,056

Denver Roller Dolls $33,000

Texas Rollergirls $18,090

Dues taken in:

Rose City Rollers $71,002

B.ay A.rea D.erby Girls $61,233

Denver Roller Dolls $53,164

Windy City Rollers $43,668

WFTDA $38,750

Gotham Girls Roller Derby $35,920

Texas Rollergirls $11,782

Travel costs:

WFTDA $50,177

Windy City Rollers $46,097

Texas Rollergirls $38,109

B.ay A.rea D.erby Girls $35,000 (approximate)

Rocky Mountain Rollergirls $31,733

Gotham Girls Roller Derby $23,051

Rose City Rollers $20,627

Most volunteers:

WFTDA 1,300

Rocky Mountain Rollergirls 150

Rose City Rollers 150

Gotham Girls Roller Derby 100

Texas Rollergirls 100

Windy City Rollers 100

*WTF

**Although Rocky Mountain KILLED IT with those workshops, they were in the hole more than anyone that year. I’ve requested an interview with the league and so far they have been busy and need more time to get me the information on why their fundraisers were so successful and how they still ended up in the hole. If/when they reply, I’ll add the info.

***That’s not an ominous “seemingly” I just don’t have last year’s data or this year’s data to confirm.

****Bay Area was in the red because of expensive venue rental for their bouts, according to the league’s finance director. Also, they were robbed at gun point that year. Bay Area’s accountant filed the league’s 990 a bit differently than other leagues; for instance, their rent is more than $100,000 but they only list their total overall expenses in the $20,000 range.

General note: Sometimes I say I examined seven leagues, sometimes eight because Philly’s data from 2009 was useful, but they haven’t filed 990s since then. I asked them if they are still a 501c3 and they are.