By Keith Sargeant and Steve Berkowitz
In order to fund a sports program that university officials say will generate close to $200 million of additional revenue in its first 12 years in the Big Ten, Rutgers subsidized the athletics department nearly a quarter of that amount last year, according to the institution’s financial report filed to the NCAA last month.
The report, obtained in response to an open-records request from USA Today Sports and Indiana University’s National Sports Journalism Center, shows that the Rutgers athletics department received nearly $47 million in subsidies from the university’s allocations fund to make up for a shortfall in the approximately $79 million athletics budget during the 2012-13 season. It’s an increase of 67.9 percent from the $27.9 million subsidy the athletics department received in 2012.
The $46,996,697 total subsidy, which includes $9,877,989 in student fees, $12,601 in government support specifically earmarked for the athletics department and $37,106,107 in direct institutional aid, is by far the most an NCAA Division I public school athletics program has received in a single year during the nearly 10 years in which USA Today Sports has examined spending and revenue data.
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