We’ve learned that only football and men’s basketball at OSU consistently bring in more revenues than expenses, and therefore, the sports generate a “profit”. Baseball currently supplies 3% of all department revenues and accounts for 3.5% of total expenses. This article profiles the financial health of the baseball program and trends in the program over time. Future articles will present similar profiles for other OSU sports programs.
The graphic below shows the competition-related revenues and expenses for OSU’s baseball program from FY 2001 to FY 2013. The revenues charted below include ticket sales, media revenue, etc., but not donations as they are a part of non-competition revenues. Expenses shown below include game costs, travel, staff salaries, etc., but not facility construction or construction debt costs. As a reminder, OSU’s fiscal year begins on July 1st and ends on June 30th, thus FY 2001 started on July 1st 2000 and ended on June 30th 2001. The other important years to note for reference purposes are FY 2005 (Pac-10 championship, Omaha appearance), FY 2006 (first national championship), FY 2007 (second national championship), and FY 2009 (completion of Goss expansion).
Prior to 2005, baseball revenues were very low. OSU won the Pac-10 championship in 2005 and earned a trip to Omaha driving a large increase in attendance and revenues for the program. Revenues resulting from attendance can be impacted by weather conditions, while normally cool and wet in the area, cooler and wetter than normal springs have been the norm in several of the recent years. The effect of the Pac-12 media contract on baseball revenues will be better understood after this year.
Baseball expenses have risen 184% from FY 2001 to FY 2013, more than for any sport at OSU on a percentage basis. But expenses didn’t rise appreciably until 2005 and the big increase in expenses came in FY 2007, the year of the second national championship. The baseball program earned the increased expenditures through excellent play on the field. The baseball program once had a ratio of expenses to revenues of 13:1 but is now near covering expenses through revenues because of the huge increases in revenue growth tied to programmatic success. In fact, baseball joined football and men’s basketball in FY 2010 as the only sports to generate a “profit” as revenues exceeded expenses in that one year.
The graphic below shows attendance per game at Goss since it was built in 1999 and the winning percentage of the OSU baseball team. Attendance climbed with winning but the upside to attendance growth was limited initially with the size of Goss in the mid-2000s. Renovation and expansion of the stadium in the late 2000s has led to further increases in attendance. The expensive stadium expansion fees have doubled the price of a season ticket and together with the poor economy of the late 2000s have put a bit of a damper on the growth in attendance observed prior to 2008. Nevertheless, the winning product on the field has mostly overcome this high price barrier.
While baseball will never be a large revenue generator for OSU sports because of the limitations of the size of the stadium and early spring weather conditions, baseball helps the overall financial picture of the athletic department by being nearly self-supporting and not requiring a large infusion of money from the football program as is the case for the vast majority of college baseball programs. Moreover, because of the elite success of baseball, it is a sport that garners national headlines and accolades, and that helps boost the morale of the fan base and increases the likelihood of continued support for other sports at OSU.
The sources for this and upcoming articles include:
http://ope.ed.gov/athletics/index.aspx
http://oregonstate.edu/budget/
