Louisville basketball made more money last year than 3 NBA Teams

[kobe_vs_jordan]

Didnt know they were making money like this

And the athletes can't get a check...

not every NCAA sports make money
where do you think those get their money from?

It's amazing how many people on here don't realize this. Because of title IX you have to have a female athletic scholarship for every male one, and i would be surprised if any female sport doesn't lose money, on top of that most male sports lose money as well. Football and men's basketball are the only two that usually make money and they are used to fund the rest of the athletic dept.

I highly doubt NCAA is losing money running college sports. I'm sure they can figure out what to do with their billion dollars in revenue. The real crime is NCAA profits off tv revenue, schools profits off donations, while the players can't sell their likeness without being disqualified from college sports. The only gateway to most pro sports.

[magicman1978]

According to that article, the total revenue of the top 20 college programs, minus alumni donations, is around $400M a year. the Cavaliers generated $302M in revenue last year. It looks like the Louisville basketball program generates around $24M in revenue from alumni donations. Without that, the basketball program would have been in the red. Based on Title IX, the profit needs to be distributed across the entire athletic program, so there's no money there that can be used to pay players. And we're talking about very few schools that are turning a profit with their basketball program.

[Metallikid]

Strip the NCAA of every possible way they can make money. F U C K 'EM.

And then when college tuition doubles in a lot of these schools and there are no more scholarships or nice facilities for any college athletes of any sport, what then?

All cause a few future millionaires had to play basketball without getting paid for six months?

Doubles? It's already astronomical. The system is already corrupted and a joke. The NCAA isn't what's been keeping good universities running; the ludicrous tuition already does that.

[qm22]

Its all profit when you don't have to pay players lol

lol if you think major college athletic programs aren't paying players.

Well, that isn't included in the OP's point as when they are paid it won't show on the books. The OP appears to refer to an outsiders estimate of their profits without access to actual accounting. At least I assume so, because the information is mostly not public.

So, if it comes from Forbes like most of these posts usually do, it's probably wrong. They were way off on NBA franchise values before, and it would be in their nature to ignore the fact that under the table expenses happen.

In cases some cases I've heard about getting money to players it came from donations of alumni.

All of these factors probably overstate the value of the basketball program due it's abnormal circumstances compared to normal businesses. So it seems the unlinked article from the OP is misleading, but it catches more attention to point out their profitability this way.

[ratul]

So, couldn’t they pay these guys like 100k to play and still make a killing? Or use the profits to reduce tuition fees? Considering they are a not for profit? Geezus. The whole college system is a joke.

[koningcosmo]

profit numbers dont tell anything. There is alot an accountant can do to reduce profit, even make it a loss for tax benefits. If they did not make a lot of profit that can also just mean they invested alot, or made reservations for costs to come. This will lower your profit but it wont lower your liquid assets.

For OKC and CAVS its obvious that luxury tax killed there profit not sure for Charlotte.

[FinnTheHuman]

Didnt know they were making money like this

And the athletes can't get a check...

not every NCAA sports make money
where do you think those get their money from?

Exactly. People seem to forget that universities like U of Louisville are non-profit institutions and that money is going toward a lot of good things for their students and the community - like funding other non-revenue sports, building facilities, various programs, etc.

People act like there are fat cat billionaires at the top of these colleges/the NCAA collecting all the cash and riding around on their yachts while the school and its students get nothing - the NCAA is like a giant booster organization - I think people would have a lot less problems with this stuff if they’d think of it that way.

B-b-but that’s communism and communism is bad mkay?

[GWVan]

But they need that money for the other minor sports so that Hollywood stars can bribe their children into college.

[jefe]

The corruption that is the NCAA boggles the mind. That said, this stat tells only a fraction of the profit story. Louisville basketball is ultimately just a department of the public institution that is the University of Louisville. Although it functions analogously to an NBA team, it is not itself an asset. The Louisville basketball program might be abstractly valued at some amount but that valuation is only academic. The Cavs, Thunder and Hornets are each billion dollar assets that owned by proprietors and could be sold at any moment or retained and continue to appreciate in value. Dan Gilbert bought the Cavs in 2005 for under $400 million and the franchise is now valued at over $1 billion. This is the real secret of the wealth that is created by the NBA. The CBA splits the "basketball related income" of the league between the players and owners, but the value of the franchises belong to the owners alone. Franchise value, like all of the rest of the value of the league, is ultimately generated by the players and they see absolutely none of it.

It should also be borne in mind that NBA franchise payrolls are rather cyclical and OKC plus Cleveland were in a high spending phase of the cycle. Cleveland has been spending big on its roster to fuel its LeBron led teams but now that LeBron is gone that spending can be curtailed, perhaps not next year because they're carrying one final year on several large contracts but the following year it could drop by $30 million.

Franchise valuations mean absolutely nothing until a franchise is actually sold.

[udfa]

The corruption that is the NCAA boggles the mind. That said, this stat tells only a fraction of the profit story. Louisville basketball is ultimately just a department of the public institution that is the University of Louisville. Although it functions analogously to an NBA team, it is not itself an asset. The Louisville basketball program might be abstractly valued at some amount but that valuation is only academic. The Cavs, Thunder and Hornets are each billion dollar assets that owned by proprietors and could be sold at any moment or retained and continue to appreciate in value. Dan Gilbert bought the Cavs in 2005 for under $400 million and the franchise is now valued at over $1 billion. This is the real secret of the wealth that is created by the NBA. The CBA splits the "basketball related income" of the league between the players and owners, but the value of the franchises belong to the owners alone. Franchise value, like all of the rest of the value of the league, is ultimately generated by the players and they see absolutely none of it.

It should also be borne in mind that NBA franchise payrolls are rather cyclical and OKC plus Cleveland were in a high spending phase of the cycle. Cleveland has been spending big on its roster to fuel its LeBron led teams but now that LeBron is gone that spending can be curtailed, perhaps not next year because they're carrying one final year on several large contracts but the following year it could drop by $30 million.

Franchise valuations mean absolutely nothing until a franchise is actually sold.

The same could be said of any asset's financial valuation.