This number does not include the additional $23M the league distributed to its schools last year to mitigate COVID-impacted financial losses.In all, SEC schools got about $77 million in distribution last year.Only 53 FBS schools have a *total* athletic budget of $77 million.— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) February 10, 2022
Important to note that the SEC distribution is only about half of the athletic budget. In 2020, our athletic budget was $110M and the SEC welfare check was $53M….rounding up. (Edited to add: I think this is SEC Network and bowl money combined.)
http://cafidatabase.org/fbs/sec/mississippi-state-university#!quicktabs-tab-where_the_money-1
Pretty interesting stuff here. By contrast, The Mustard Buzzard’s budget was $25.6M. I didn’t investigate if that included 2019’s games that they collected almost $3M in checks and losses, or if it was based on the COVID limited schedule. Either way, we are talking about orders of magnitude in difference.
You have to have certain things to run an athletic program (or a business.) Everyone does. Overhead, basic facilities, etc. Everything extra is why our facilities are constantly being upgraded and why there’s a crumbling concrete monstrosity on Hwy 49 right before Hardy St. They don’t have the money to do ANYTHING. ANYWHERE. ANYTIME.
Seriously, if their athletic department won a $77M NCAA lottery, the University general fund would become about $72M richer.
