Oregon Athletic Department Annual Report

This past December the University of Oregon’s athletic department published its 2024 annual report. As the resident bean counter at ATQ I took a deep dive into the Athletic department’s numbers to see if there was anything relevant worth sharing with the loyal readers of Addicted to Quack, and found there were five things to discuss. Please note that this report covers the period of time from July 1^st 2023 to June 30^th 2024. To help contextualize that here are the seasons some of the major sports teams played during that time, which was the final season in the Pac-12 for each of them:

• Football, 2023-24 – 11-2 record after winning the Fiesta Bowl over Liberty
• Men’s Basketball, 2023-24 – PAC-12 tournament champions and advanced to the 2^nd round of the NCAA tournament
• Women’s Basketball, 2023-24 – Did not qualify for the NCAA tournament
• Baseball, 2024 – Won the Santa Barbra regional and lost to Texas A&M in the A&M super regional
• Softball, 2024 – Eliminated in the Norman regional by host and eventual national champion Oklahoma

Okay here is what I found:

1. The department operated at $24M deficiency on paper

The reason the department operated at a deficiency on paper is due to $26M in depreciation expense. For those who are not familiar with accounting, depreciation is a non-cash item. Depreciation represents the cost of an asset divided by the asset’s useful life. Sadly, the report did not have a note or schedule that provided more details on what assets the depreciation expense related to. Given the amount, my educated guess is that the depreciation relates to the cost of buildings the athletics department owns being recognized over the buildings’ useful life.

2. The department operated at $2M excess before depreciation

Given the other revenues and expenses listed in the annual report this is figure is closer to the amount of cash-in versus cash-out for the department over the year.

3. Here are the main sports operated during the 2024 fiscal year

• Football: $55M excess – $18M and 50% increase in excess versus 2023
• Men’s Basketball: $2M excess versus a $2M deficit in 2023
• Women’s Basketball: $4M deficit versus a $3M deficit in 2023
• Men’s other sports: $9M deficit versus a $8M deficit in 2023
• Women’s other sports: $15M deficit versus a $13M deficit in 2023

4. Ticket sales specifically football ticket sales increased significantly during FY24 versus FY23

Primarily due to only having 6 home games in Autzen during the 2022 season versus 7 home games during the 2023 season

5. Total contributions to the athletic department increased by $16M representing a 41% increase during FY24 versus FY23

The reason being, per the exact words of the report, “Revenues from the Pac-12 conference were significantly impaired during the reporting period [FY24] principally due to the Pac-12’s resolution of historical overpayment issues with Comcast, one time Pac-12 expenses related to the restoration of leased office space in San Francisco, and $65M settlement between the ten departing members and the Pac-12. These reductions in Pac-12 revenues resulted in increased reliance on contributions to fund departmental operations.”

Total contributions received by the athletic department for the year equaled $57M. For each affiliate, outside organization, agency, or individual on this listing whose contributions exceeded 10% of total contributions reported by the Department for the year must be separately identified and reported. One organization contributed 99.99% of the total contributions. Who is this mystery organization keeping the athletic department afloat you might ask? The generous, the loyal, the innovative; University of Oregon Foundation. If you clicked on this hoping to see how much Uncle Phil donated during the year, I apologize but this report does not specify the number.

The contributions the athletic department receives is reported by the University of Oregon as Gifts and Other Nonoperating Items on the University’s financial statements. The University’s financial statements for 2024 reported total Gifts and Other Nonoperating items as $159,430,000 with no additional details on where these gifts went to.

I also wanted to share some insights on each sport, specifically –

Football

Football had significant increases to 5 revenue streams:

1. Ticket sales – as mentioned above

2. Contributions – total football contributions increased by $15.9M

3. Conference distributions – Football bowl generated (I believe this was because during FY24 a PAC-12 team made the playoff but in FY23 this was not the case. So, thanks team up North)

4. Program sales, concessions, novelty sales, and parking

5. Football bowl revenues (I believe this is because the payout from the 2023 Fiesta Bowl is significantly higher than the payout from the 2022 Holiday Bowl, even though the Holiday Bowl had a better opponent)

Football also did have one expense increase significantly. That was Coaching Salaries, Benefits, and Bonuses Paid by the University and Related Parties. Per the direct words from the report “Negotiated pay increases for the Head Football coach and Assistant Football Coaches went into effect at the beginning of the Reporting Period and were the biggest contributing factor to the increase in this category.”

Men’s Basketball

I identified 3 significant increases in revenue for Men’s basketball as the primary reasons for the team going from a deficit to a surplus

1. Guarantees worth $450K

2. Contributions – total men’s basketball contributions increased by $2.5M

3. Conference distributions increased by $750K

Women’s Basketball and all other sports

For Women’s basketball and all other sports there were two expenses that significantly increased from FY23 to FY24 for each sport. They were:

1. Team Travel

2. Coaching Salaries, benefits, and bonuses paid by the university and related parties

I was surprised team travel increased significantly for all of these sports as none of these teams had begun Big Ten play yet during this reporting period. Therefore their must be another explanation for this increase in travel costs for these teams which has me stumped.

Coaching salaries increased significantly as well but this was due to “the NCAA’s expansion of the number of countable coaching staff members across several sports”

That is all for numbers right now. If you have any questions about the report, drop them in the comments and I will do my best to answer them.