UConn athletics department saddled with $47.2M deficit
The UConn athletic department operated at a $47.2 million deficit for the 2021 fiscal year, according to a financial statement furnished to the NCAA by the school.
The gap — covered with $42.6 million in institutional support and $4.6 million in student fees — is up from $43.5 million in 2020 and $42.3 million in 2019.
The report spans the fiscal year from July 2020 through June 2021 and reflects the financial impact of COVID-19 on the athletic department. Revenue fell from almost $76 million for the 2020 fiscal year to $58.3 million. Ticket sales alone accounted for an $8.8 million year-over-year loss of revenue.
The 2020 football season was canceled while the men’s and women’s basketball teams played a season without fans. Those three programs generated $7.9 million in ticket revenue during the 2019-20 season.
UConn’s athletic department has been running with a deficit of more than $40 million the past five years, among the highest in the country. In 2020, the school announced it would cut four sport (men’s cross country, men’s swimming and diving, men’s tennis and women’s rowing) with a mandate to reduce institutional support by 25 percent by 2023.
The women’s rowing team has
UConn also addressed its expenses by changing the rate by which athletic scholarships are calculated. Athletic student aid — or the scholarship — was a $12.9 million expense last year, down from $17.4 million in 2020.
since been reinstated following a Title IX lawsuit brought by members of the team. Under terms of the settlement, UConn will invest in the program by adding scholarships and increasing the recruiting budget.
Cost reductions associated with the elimination of the other programs is not reflected in the latest report. The school said in a statement that the level of institutional support will be reduced to $33.6 million in fiscal year 2022.
“UConn Athletics continues to work toward less reliance on institutional support and is on track to achieve a level more in line with its peers by the end of the next fiscal year,” the statement said. “Through various means, including cost-reduction measures and an increase in revenue, the level of institutional support is estimated to be reduced to $33.6 million in FY22. More importantly, Athletics will continue to provide top-quality educational and athletic opportunities to its studentathletes and an exciting, uniting experience for alumni and Husky fans worldwide.”
The absence of the 2020 football season also resulted in a loss of revenue from UConn’s contract with the collegiate marketing company Learfield, income defined in the financial report as “royalties, licensing, advertising and sponsorships.” The school received $12.2 million from Learfield for fiscal year 2020, but that number was reduced to $6.2 million in the latest report — due to the lack of a football season, the school said.
UConn also saw a decrease in conference distribution money from $3 million to $1.2 million.
But the school also saved over $1 million, the cost to use Rentschler Field in 2019. The football program’s operating expense was $17.2 million for 2019 and $10 million when the team did not play in 2020. Revenue fell from $2.3 million to $289,293 — so the gap decreased from $14.9 million in 2019 to $9.8 million in 2020.
UConn also addressed its expenses by changing the rate by which athletic scholarships are calculated. Athletic student aid — or the scholarship — was a $12.9 million expense last year, down from $17.4 million in 2020.
The cost of scholarship has long been a bone of contention for UConn administrators.
There is no standard for quantifying the cost of an athletic scholarship, so it’s difficult to compare the expense ledger from one school to another. UConn has previously logged athletic scholarships with an out-ofstate cost for tuition, leaving the athletic budget with a larger expense — even though the department is not actually funding the expense.
So the new expense figure does not add money to UConn’s athletic cash flow, but it does reflect a lower cost on the financial statement.
The school has also said the athletic program’s move from the American Athletic Conference to the Big East will save on travel. There was a $2.6 million year over year decrease in travel expenses, but that includes around $900,000 saved by the football program not competing.
But the move to the Big East has cultivated excitement among basketball fans, evidenced by the brisk sale of tickets leading up to this season. The school also school expected donations and pledges to increase upon moving to the Big East and fiscal year 2021 showed $21.4 million in gifts to athletics.
“The $47.8 million donated or pledged in FY20 and FY21 represents the highest two-year total in the history of UConn Athletics, and the $8.9 million raised in annual gifts during FY21 is the highest total since 2008,” the school said in a statement.