Re: REPORT: North Dakota cutting women's hockey
The
article by Rob Port highlighting how much money the UND women’s team lost in 2015-16 made me want to find the financials for the men’s team as well. As I researched the web I found many years’ worth of the NCAA Financial reports for North Dakota and most other public DI schools from 2010 to 2014 and in some cases 2015. That set me off on doing the financials for all the hockey schools I could find the information on and it is taking a lot of time to enter the numbers and then double check them in the spreadsheet I created. I wanted to wait until all the information was entered, but the following posts made me decide to put the North Dakota information online by itself.
Given that MN womens budget is $2.3mm i would not assume that UND men pay for themselves. I am sure that their expenses ate greater in every catagory. At 11000 a game I doubt ticket prices are that high. I imagine that there is a broadcast contract too but I bet it doesn't bring in a megabuck.
They appear to do Friday/Saturday pricing, with Saturday costing more. $40 adult, $25 youth on Friday; and $49 adult, $30 youth on Saturday. On average, almost twice what Wisconsin charges for men's games.
19 regular season home games, 11000 average crowd, let's say $40 average per ticket means $8.36 million, before we start talking about concessions, and parking, etc.
Those revenues would be offset by their facility costs: at $1/year, that works out to more than a nickel per game, just for the rent.
The
workbook has four sheets: Averaged Financial Reports; Yearly Financial Reports; Reporting Categories; and Notes. The averaged and yearly financial reports sheets have the categories that any of the schools used to report hockey revenues or expenses, even if only in a single year. The yearly financial sheet shows how much North Dakota reported for each category for each fiscal year reported. The averaged financial sheet shows the average amount spent for each category that was reported, usually over all years. However, in a several cases that are noted only those years in which amounts were reported are averaged. The NCAA also split some categories into two, so the overall average revenue and expenses may not equal the averages for the individual revenue and expense categories.
Not every school reports numbers in every category, as either there is no athletic revenue or expenses in that category for hockey, or the school did not break down the spending or expenses for that category among specific teams. And sometimes a school breaks down the numbers for one year, but not another, so it’s actually a bit of a fool’s errand to try and compare a team’s revenue and expenses without also looking at the overall athletic revenue and expense. Still, I’m giving it a shot since the NCAA mandates that schools break down revenues and expenses by teams.
I have 6 years’ worth of financials for North Dakota’s men’s team and 7 years’ worth for the women’s team. Looking at the averages first shows the men’s team brought in $3.35 million per year in ticket sales, while the women brought in just $21,197 per year. Contributions are likewise skewed, with just under $79 thousand per year for the men and only $651 per year for the women. The parking, game programs, concessions and novelties are not much, a bit under $5,000 per year for the men and $761 per year for the women. In the end, ticket sales drive the men’s revenue of $3.99 million per year while the women’s revenue of $147 thousand per year is driven in a large part by the direct support of the school.
Average expenses show that in regards to scholarships the school supports the women equally with the men, but in every other category the women are supported at a lower level than the men (which is the same for other schools I have looked at with both men’s and women’s programs). The biggest surprise is that the men’s program has averaged a deficit of just over half a million dollars a year from 2010-15, with the women averaging a loss of $1.25 million a year from 2010-16.
Looking at the yearly reports shows much more information. The men’s yearly ticket sales increased from $3 to $3.6 million between 2011-15, while the women’s ticket sales tripled from 2010 to 2011, but then remained flat. The women’s team got direct sport for the school for 2010-12, but nothing in 2013-15 before getting support again in 2016. This is reflected in the women’s revenue taking a steep drop from just over $200 thousand in 2012 to just under $30 thousand in 2015. Meanwhile, the men’s revenue rose about a million dollars from 2010 to 2015, in a large part due to NCAA and conference distributions. However, moving to the NCHC also raised the men’s teams’ game day expenses, going from an average of $568 thousand per year for the last 4 seasons in the WCHA to $1.27 million for the first 2 seasons in the NCHC.
Interesting as the cost of being in the NCHC may be, the real surprise from the reports is that North Dakota does not lease the Ralph for $1 per year. For 2010, ‘11 & ‘12 the schools paid direct facilities (costs charged to intercollegiate athletics, including building and grounds maintenance, utilities, rentals fees, operating leases, equipment repair and maintenance, and debt service) payments averaging $1.68 million per year for both the men’s and women’s teams (99.6% being charged to the men). In 2013 that dropped to $43 thousand, but in 2014 it was $2.57 million charged to the men’s team.
In 2015 the NCAA split that reporting category into two: Debt Service/Leases (debt service payments (principal and interest, including internal loan programs), leases and rental fees for athletics facilities for the reporting year regardless of entity paying (athletics, institution or other)) and Direct Overhead (overhead and administrative expenses paid by or charged directly to athletics including: administrative/overhead fees charged by the institution to athletics, facilities maintenance, security, risk management, utilities, equipment repair, telephone, other administrative expenses.). The school reported just over $2.2 million under debt service/leases for the men’s team and in 2016 the school reported just under $400 thousand in debt service/leases for the women’s team (I would really like to see the men’s 2016 financials to see if some of the debt service/leases cost was shifted from the men’s team).
What this means is that in 2015 UND paid over $2.2 million to use the Ralph for the 2014-15 season and it is likely that the other payments under the old direct facilities category were also for using the Ralph. For what it’s worth, I also checked to see about basketball and volleyball payments for using the Betty and for 2010, ’11 & ’12 the school paid an average of about $100 thousand per year. Starting in 2013 there have been no payments made for either sport.
Regardless of why the school is making the payments, they have put the men’s team in the red along with the women’s team. Expenses for the men’s team have risen from $3.7 million in 2010 to $6.1 million in 2015 and along with the rising costs the team has seen increasing net losses (barring 2013). In fact, the men’s team lost $1.55 million in 2015, more than the women’s team lost.
Remember earlier when I mentioned that the men’s team forming the NCHC had raised their game day expenses? The difference between the averages I mentioned for the WCHA vs the NCHC is just under $705 thousand per year. Between the cost of using the Ralph and the increased costs of the men’s team playing in the NCHC it is unfortunate that the women’s team is taking the hit. I wonder if Rob Port would be willing to advocate for the abolishment of the men's team? After all
"let’s be honest: It would be fiscally irresponsible to run a sports program losing that much money even state coffers are flush. Our institutions of higher education are not intended to be host bodies for sports programs."
Sean
