Revenue

[60sdog]

Anyone have any idea why we were last in the SEC in revenue, and by a wide margin?

 

[Rog.sixpack]

Because the other SEC schools made a lot more money than us.

 

[coach66]

Actually we were #4 in profitability if I remember correctly. Which ain't bad.

nm

 

[60sdog]

Because the other SEC schools made a lot more money than us.

A smart-*** reply. Real mature.

 

[tenureplan]

Makes sense - we have almost half of the sports schools like Georgia have

nm

 

[57stratdawg]

Oregon's revenue increased over $80Million from 2013 to 2014? All in 'Contributions'. Someone must have written a hell of a check.

http://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/finances/

 

[Rog.sixpack]

You thought someone here was going to spell out the income statement of our AD?

C'mon man.

Not to mention I would imagine these numbers derive from an FOIA on the most recent complete fiscal year which would be June 2013 through July 2014, thus not including any of our new premium seating at Davis Wade.

If I'm wrong about the timeframe please let me know, because I doubt we'd publish revenue numbers for the unfinished FY of 2014/15

 

[engie]

Still our numbers from last year which have been publicly available for 11 months now. This year's data isn't updated in most of the SEC until July 1. This doesn't show any of our new revenue streams.

 

[57stratdawg]

I hear you, but we're a non-profit organization. We shouldn't be too concerned with our bottom line. Every dollar we didn't spend is a dollar we didn't utilize.

I think we've banked about $15Million over the last 3 years. No point in us sitting on gigantic cash reserves.

 

[Rog.sixpack]

 

[engie]

I mostly agree with you and would totally agree if I felt like we were in left field uninvested in something like we have been in the past with defensive coordinator salaries, etc... But I really don't feel that way right now. Most of the things I've flipped out about in the past have been addressed to my satisfaction now.

I'm OK with a certain amount of cash reserve for the day when the bubble inevitably bursts. Alot of teams around the league have found themselves in an endless spiral of increasing debt -- and if anything goes off the tracks(Tennessee football the past few years), it can put an incredible strain on the rest of the athletics dept. If the bubble bursts, the team with the bigger cash reserves will reshuffle toward the top.

So, I guess, in sum. Don't take any shortcuts -- but there's no need to go stupidly extravagant either. If we end up with a surplus, so be it. That way, when we decide we need to do something with the Hump, east side of DWS, etc -- it can happen in a bigger hurry in the future.

 

[karlchilders.sixpack]

+1

And there will be a rainy day.

 

[johnson86-1]

I hear you, but we're a non-profit organization. We shouldn't be too concerned with our bottom line. Every dollar we didn't spend is a dollar we didn't utilize.

I think we've banked about $15Million over the last 3 years. No point in us sitting on gigantic cash reserves.

$15M isn't exactly a gigantic cash reserve when you look at the athletic department's annual spending and total debt. As long as we don't skimp on football or basketball while we're well positioned to make a good run, I'm all for sitting on a gigantic cash reserve. We absolutely should not pick up debt service on the expectation that current revenues (and revenue growth) will continue indefinitely.

 

[fishwater99]

I am sure our crappy basketball team didn't help much this past year.
2015 and 2016 should be much better.

 

[57stratdawg]

That's $15Million over the last 3 years alone. OM has put back about 1/3 over the same timeframe.

 

[coach66]

I think we are being good stewards of our profits and sticking back cash

is always a good idea as others have pointed out there will be a day when you are glad you have it. I think it is pretty useless to compare us to any other SEC programs except Ole Miss and I think they are focusing more on selling and we are focusing more on retained earnings, sound familiar*. My boss keeps telling me we are gonna sell our way out of our problems and I keep saying what about the margins? He sez to hell with the margins just sell, the margins will take care of themselves. So far our sales continue to increase, our margins continue to decrease, and our profitability percent has been falling for the past five years.

 

[johnson86-1]

That's $15Million over the last 3 years alone. OM has put back about 1/3 over the same timeframe.

I understand that and it still doesn't seem like a lot of money. We have a $40M baseball stadium planned and I believe are in the middle of expansions/upgrades in a couple of non-revenue sports. I'm assuming we have plenty of debt associated with Davis Wade. I'm assuming we have plenty of debt associated with the basketball practice facility. The Hump is not exactly top of the line as a basketball venue. We are not going to run out of places to spend money in the next few years if we are sitting on $50M in cash.

Besides that, where exactly do you want us to put money right now? We pay very competitively in baseball, basketball, and football. Outside of maybe bumping up FB assistant salaries, where do you think they are failing to spend money that would bring a positive return?

 

[57stratdawg]

I work in corporate financing. Most people have no clue how many additional units an organization has to sell to have the same impact on the bottom line as shaving 1/3 of their warehouse cost.

 

[patdog]

The Hump is not exactly top of the line as a basketball venue.

We're going to reach the point pretty soon where we are going to have to either do a major renovation of the Hump (not like the half-*** one we did 15 years ago) or build a new coliseum.

 

[DancingRabbit]

I think bumping up our FB recruiting budget a little might be a good idea.

Not necessarily by a huge amount, but if Dan wants a bigger travel budget to maximize his time and his staff's time then do it. Other than that, I think we're spending the money we need to spend.

I understand that and it still doesn't seem like a lot of money. We have a $40M baseball stadium planned and I believe are in the middle of expansions/upgrades in a couple of non-revenue sports. I'm assuming we have plenty of debt associated with Davis Wade. I'm assuming we have plenty of debt associated with the basketball practice facility. The Hump is not exactly top of the line as a basketball venue. We are not going to run out of places to spend money in the next few years if we are sitting on $50M in cash.

Besides that, where exactly do you want us to put money right now? We pay very competitively in baseball, basketball, and football. Outside of maybe bumping up FB assistant salaries, where do you think they are failing to spend money that would bring a positive return?

 

[maroonmania]

I hear you, but we're a non-profit organization. We shouldn't be too concerned with our bottom line. Every dollar we didn't spend is a dollar we didn't utilize.

I think we've banked about $15Million over the last 3 years. No point in us sitting on gigantic cash reserves.

If we've banked that kind of money then it would seem we shouldn't have any problem building the new baseball stadium.

 

[57stratdawg]

It is alot of money. There's no point in us carrying around 40% of our annual operating expenses in cash.

You don't think it matters that Ole Miss spent almost $20,000,000 more on college athletics than us last year?

 

[57stratdawg]

I don't think money is any issue at all with the new baseball stadium.

 

[MedDawg]

.

.

 

[patdog]

I agree. Reported numbers from one school to another seem wildly inconsistent.

 

[MedDawg]

We're going to reach the point pretty soon where we are going to have to either do a major renovation of the Hump (not like the half-*** one we did 15 years ago) or build a new coliseum.

"The Shrump that Ben Built"

 

[johnson86-1]

It is alot of money. There's no point in us carrying around 40% of our annual operating expenses in cash.

You don't think it matters that Ole Miss spent almost $20,000,000 more on college athletics than us last year?

Not really. What sport do you think they're leaving us in? We're both in good shape for football, but ours was better and I don't see anything obvious to say we're on a worse trend than them. Obviously money spent usually doesn't have an immediate impact, so if you can come up with an area we are skimping that will hurt us in 3 or 4 years, I'd be open to hearing what it is; but I just don't know where it would be. Basketball we sucked but we spent the money to address the situation. Even with the success they've had the past two years, would you rather be in our position or theres for the next two years? Baseball we sucked but we just committed to spend $40M on our facility. As in football, I'm open to ideas on where we are skimping that hurt us (and obviously our baseball performance makes it much more believable that we're skimping), but I just don't know where it is.

40% of annual operating expenses in cash (is it really in cash or cash equivalents? or does it mostly get sent to the foundation or somewhere equivalent and invested for the future? I have no clue, just seems like with our smaller endowment, we might use the fat years to beef it up) might seem crazy for a lot of businesses, but as I've said, we have a ton of capital expenses coming up (and always will). More importantly, an athletic department is not a normal business. A ton of the revenue is essentially people choosing to give money. You have to strike while the iron is hot. You can't just say, I'll come back and ask in a few years when we have more pressing needs for the money; it might not be there. And obviously it's backwards to choose to spend money primarily based on how much cash you have rather than an analysis of your needs and potential return on investment.

If I really felt like we just needed to spend money right now and paying down debt wasn't an option, I think I'd spend money trying to make football more affordable for younger fans or at the least further distinguishing the game experience from the TV experience. I'm worried we're pricing a lot of younger fans and families out (or at least making it much easier on them to sit at home and watch tv), which is sort of the equivalent of eating your seed corn. But at the same time, we're basically selling out and other schools (and professional teams) seem to be able to maintain a fanbase of people that have never set foot on campus, much less had season tickets, so maybe that really isn't that big of a deal.

 

[Sandman.sixpack]

Revenue has nothing to do with how many sports we have, because there is no revenue in Rifelry or Swimming, etc. Revenue is almost entirely from football, basketball and baseball.
Revenue also has nothing to do with how much we put back or save.
Revenue is ticket sales, brand licensing and TV (ESPN) money.
If we are actually last in the league, then it means we are the lowest in attendance or our ticket prices are lower. I don't think we are the lowest in attendance in the big three sports (Vandy).
On the other side of things....if we've banked about $15 million, it looks like to me we'd reduce our debt with it.

 

[coach66]

I would bet you are right on that, too much math*

nm

 

[tenureplan]

No kidding genius...I was referring to the profitability side of things. We lack the profit killing sports other schools have.