Forbes listed Marquette as the 15th most valuable NCAA team in it’s most recent rankings today. The data was based on the 2013-’14 filings to the U.S. Department of Education, which are available to the public here.
Having seen that, I wanted to delve a little further into the data, as this was the first time the data includes revenue from the Big East TV contract with FOX Sports. Here is a quick table with all of the available data since 2003.
It looks good on the surface. Revenue is up over $1 million, and overall profit is up 19 percent, to $6.6 million. Now, before anyone go take a victory lap, it is important to note that the accounting measures used by each school are not uniform, which makes it difficult to measure across institutions, or even across years. We only see top-line numbers, which means we only see what the institution wants us to see.
It is also important to note that the 2013-14 filings still might include some excess revenue from the Big East breakup, so we can’t yet declare the current Big East better financially than the old one.
Without more detail, there isn’t much analysis to be done. It’s a quick overview that generates simple articles like this and not much else.
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