The University’s athletic programs have the lowest expenses, and one of the lowest budgets, in all the Mid-American Conference. Due to this, the athletic department needs to find new ways to get revenue.
These new sources of revenue are important because of the limited amount of money the University has to spread around to all the sports. Jason Knavel, the Assistant Athletic Director for Athletic Communication, talked about the amount of money the University gives to sports.
“We rank fifth in the MAC in revenue generated by the athletic department itself,” he said. “The largest difference comes in student fees. So based off of the reports from USA Today, the most recent report…that tabulated all the numbers, we (Bowling Green State University) were fifth in terms of generating revenue in the MAC with $8.9 million.”
The University is actually generating more revenue than other MAC schools that spend and receive more money. However, Knavel talked about why the University isn’t succeeding as well as the other schools in as many areas.
“The big difference is we receive $12.9 million in subsidies from the University, where if you look at other schools: Eastern Michigan received $27.3 million, Western Michigan received $25.8 million, Buffalo $24.3, Miami $23.8… The biggest thing is living within our means and managing with what we are getting, because we are getting a lot, but that’s where the difference comes, in terms of revenue.”
Because of the dichotomy between the amount of money the University receives compared to other MAC schools, they need to find different ways to make money. Knavel talked about some of these different ways to get revenue.
“We’re always looking for ways to maximize your sponsorship deal,” he said. “We just re-upped with Nike a couple years ago, so that’s not something that necessarily is on the forefront right now. We moved from Adidas to Nike a couple years ago as a way to try to generate more revenue stream. Those are things we’re always looking for: ticket sales, marketing, always looking at what’s the right amount to be charging for tickets, parking, concessions, merchandising.”
Bob Moosbrugger, Athletic Director for the University, talked to BG News sports editor Zane Miller previously about the athletic funding, and the difficulty of finding funding.
“While we have the lowest institutional support in the MAC, I don’t think that’s going to grow anytime soon,” Moosbrugger said. “We have to go out as an external staff … as I told in our staff meetings. We’re all fundraisers, we’re all ticket sellers and we’re all NCAA compliance folks, so it’s on us to sell the product out into the community and get fans into our stands to help raise money for this department. That’s the only way we’re going to stabilize our finances.”
Even though the University doesn’t have as much money to spend as other schools, according to the Department of Education and Massey Composite, as well as SB Nation, the University is one of the best at over-performing the spending it does have in the football program. Other than schools like Arkansas State, Nevada Boise State, the University is one of the most efficient. SB Nation wrote that the University has an average Massey ranking of 77.4, but 109.1 in average spending. Their average difference is 31.7, which is one of the best in the country.
