Ohio State's $109 Million Budget!

[Ponymon]

The primary article of this Friday's Weekend Journal Section of the Wall Street Journal is entitled "Inside College Sports' Biggest Money Machine". Ohio State's athletic budget is the largest in the nation and the biggest in the history of college sports. (Texas, by the way, is #2 at $107.6 million.) The school spends about $110,000 on each of its 980 athletes, which is triple the amount the university spends per undergraduate on education. The budget allots $65,000 in private jet time or roughly 11 hours, to men's basketball coach Thad Matta for recruiting trips over 200 miles-and a further 15 hours of jet time for the coach's personal travel. A recently complete $19.5 million renovation of the football team's practice facility added a player's only entrance, a lounge that has six flat-panel TVs, three video-game systems, and a juice bar. (The players race to this lounge after practice, according to one of the players.) The football and men's basketball programs at OSU are the only sports there that turn a profit. Last season, Ohio State's football program generated $57 million in revenue. The sum included a $4.75 million payment from the NCAA for advancing to the national championship and $31.65 million in ticket sales from home games at Ohio State's 105,000 seat stadium. Team expenses, which include nearly $2 million for meals and travel, as well as debt payments to cover stadium renovations, subtracted about $21 million. The football team returns approximately $36 million to the University's coffers and the basketball team chips in another $9 million. (The University of Florida made $34 million last year on their national championship team.) Other items of interest in the article are the 225 hours of private jet time allotted to football coach Jim Tressel for recruiting trips and the $152,585 spent by Texas on snacks like Gatorade and PowerBars. For the complete article pickup today's Friday WSJ or go to WSJ.com.