Just six Division I athletic programs supported themselves and turned a profit from outside revenue in 2014, the most recent year for which data was available, according to a survey released Monday.
At the vast majority of the 201 programs surveyed — including Rutgers and New Jersey Institute of Technology — revenue from ticket sales, donations and television contracts didn’t come close to covering overall athletic budgets, according to an analysis by the Chronicle of Higher Education in consort with the Huffington Post. Mandatory student fees were used as support in many cases.
New Jersey’s two Division I programs were singled out as being particularly needy: Rutgers, which last year entered the vaunted Big Ten Athletic Conference, was cited for spending $172 million over the five-year period between 2010 to 2014 to underwrite intercollegiate sports, more than any other college in the country during that time.
NJIT, which has no football team, received the highest percentage of school support in the nation for its programs, a subsidy of 91 percent of the $13-million athletic budget in 2014.
The analysis was based on financial reports provided to the NCAA over the five years and obtained through public records requests by the news organizations. It found that in that time period public universities pumped $10.3 billion in mandatory student fees and other support into their sports programs in an arms race that continues despite concerns over rising tuition and fees.
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