Athletics: UL athletic department reveune, expenses released

Tim Buckley, The Advertiser, February 12, 2015

 

The UL athletic department had $21.29 million in revenue and $21.54 million in expenses last school year, according to figures released as part of an independent accountant’s report on the application of agreed-upon procedures that was made public this week by the Louisiana Legislative Auditor.

Figures are for the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2014.

According to an unaudited ledger of revenues and expenses attached to the auditor’s report, the UL football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball programs all broke even in the last fiscal year.

The UL football team had $8,508,602 in both operating revenue and operating expenses, the men’s basketball team had $2,179,030 and women’s basketball had $1,109,132.

The overwhelming majority of $245,529 in excess of revenues over expenses in the UL athletic department came from non-program specific costs.

For UL football, the rounded totals include — but are not limited to — $2.31 million in ticket sales, $1.5 million made in guarantees, $2.86 million in contributions, $1.05 million in direct institutional support and $293,899 in NCAA/conference distributions, with expenses including $1.59 million in athletics student aid, $335,000 in guarantees, $2.6 million in coaching salaries, $135,000 for recruiting, $1.8 million in team travel and $994,000 in game expenses.

For UL men’s basketball, the rounded totals include — but are not limited to — $331,000 in ticket sales, $250,000 in guarantees, $1.08 million in contributions, $455,000 in direct institutional support and $42,000 in NCAA/conference distributions, with expenses including $253,000 in athletics student aid, $24,000 in guarantees, $896,000 in coaching salaries, $103,000 for recruiting, $423,000 in team travel and $243,000 in game expenses.

According to the report, after various adjustments and corrections, "We obtained written representation from management as to the fair presentation of the summary schedule and agreed the amounts reported to the University’s general ledger" and "We found no exceptions as a result of these procedures."

By way of relative comparison from a similar audit report also released this week, Louisiana Tech of Conference USA had $19.28 million in revenue and $19.24 million in expenses.

UL’s athletic revenue last fiscal year, in other words, was roughly $2 million more than Louisiana Tech.

The budget and audit report from the same fiscal year for UL’s fellow Sun Belt Conference-member from Louisiana, UL Monroe, has not yet been made public.

The most-recent budget total reflects a significant increase for UL in the past decade.

According to a September 2014 release from UL, its "total athletics budget just seven years ago was $9 million."

TV DEAL UPDATE

UL athletic director Scott Farmer still has hopes of a reaching a deal with Cox Sports Television to broadcast future Ragin’ Cajun athletic events including football, basketball, baseball and softball games.

But he doesn’t expect anything to happen in time for anything to be broadcast prior the 2015-16 school year, he said this week.

UL continues to wait for a quote from CST regarding the cost of equipment to black out various small areas of the country that would make such a deal compatible with the Sun Belt Conference’s current TV contract with ESPN.

"Waiting on that, still trying to have conversations with ESPN to see if there’s any room for negotiation on their end," Farmer said. "No movement. … But I’m optimistic we’ll come up with something before next (school) year."

UL earlier this week announced a deal with KLAF to televise eight UL home baseball and eight UL home softball games, but it is unrelated to the prospective deal with CST.

TRACK DONATION

The UL track-and-field program received a $25,000 donation check this week from the Cajun Road Runners club.

Cajuns coach Lon Badeaux said about $17,000 of the donation will be used to cover the expense of 100 newly purchased hurdles.