Alabama athletic department makes profit despite COVID-19 concerns

Despite concerns about their budget under COVID-19, the Alabama Crimson Tide athletics department generated a profit for the school through 2021. Athletics director Greg Byrne sent an email to boosters in Sep. 2020 stating that their department could post a deficit for the year near $75 million.

A report released on Monday detailed that the athletics department finished their fiscal year with a profit of nearly $10 million.

Alabama’s athletics department posts profit

The final numbers for Alabama’s previous fiscal year are in and they showed a shocking result for the COVID-19 impacted year. UA athletics made $179.8 million in revenue while spending only $170.2 million in expenses. This gave Alabama’s athletics department a $9.6 million dollar profit, far exceeding their projected $75 million deficit.

Revenue did fall by nearly $9.5 million from the previous year overall. Alabama’s fiscal year numbers cover July 2020 through June 2021 during the peak of reduced-capacity games. Bryant-Denny Stadium used only 20% of its seating for the 2020 season, resulting in an 81% drop in athletics ticket revenue during the period.

Alabama’s ability to remain in the black on their ledgers is a direct result of the SEC financial aid that the conference provided during the 2020 season. The SEC distributed $23 million to each institution to assist with pandemic-related shorts to their programs. The financial aid came after the league estimated an average loss of $45 million for each school during the pandemic.

Despite exceeding the original estimations of major losses, Alabama would not have finished the fiscal year with a profit without the SEC financial aid.

The report detailing Alabama’s financial reports also detailed how wide-spread the impact of COVID-19 has been on schools. South Carolina and Tennessee also finished with a profit for the year, with a $4.8 million and $757,598 profit respectively.

Other schools detailed in the report were not as fortunate as the SEC. Utah from the Pac-12 Conference reported a $31 million deficit for their year, while the University of Connecticut posted a deficit of $47.2 million. Rutgers of the Big Ten was the most shocking deficit of the report, posting a $73.3 million deficit after spending $118.4 million on athletics during their 2021 fiscal year.