This article profiles the financial health of OSU’s wrestling program in terms of revenue generation and expenses, and trends over time.
The graphic below shows the competition-related revenues and expenses for OSU wrestling 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 meet 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.
Wrestling is the dominant sport at OSU in terms of success. OSU wrestling teams have won 21 conference championships on the mat, more than any other sport at the school and numerous individual conference championships and some national titles. While wrestling has long been a strong sport for OSU, under the direction of Coach Zalesky since FY 2007, wrestling has improved its standing both in the conference and nationally. The program has won three consecutive Pac-12 championships and five total conference championships during Zalesky’s tenure at OSU.
Trends in expenses for wrestling indicate that increased investment in the sport has taken place but expense growth has leveled off in recent years. Expenses for wrestling have increased 123% from FY 2001 through FY 2013. That increase is proportionate to the success of the program and is in the ballpark for the other three most expensive men’s programs during the same time period – football (53%), men’s basketball (133%), and baseball (184%). The average expense growth across all men’s sports was 97% compared with 107% for all women’s sports. The expense to revenue ratios have declined from 13.8:1 in FY 2001 to 1.7:1 in FY 2013 as the sport is coming closer to covering expenses in recent years. Most of the growth in revenues have taken place after Coach Zalesky was hired in FY 2007. Revenues have grown in relation to expenses and further growth is possible given the success of the program.
Football is the economic engine that drives the athletic department’s finances. Like baseball, wrestling is not a large revenue generator but has taken strides in helping to pull the train by covering a greater share of expenses and in turn, this lessens the need for subsidies from football. This improves the overall financial health of the athletic department.
The sources for this and upcoming articles include:
http://ope.ed.gov/athletics/index.aspx
http://oregonstate.edu/budget/
