The COVID-19 pandemic led to unprecedented revenue shortfalls and many college athletics departments responded with budget cuts. So, why did Arizona State, University of Arizona have a massive increase in funding at the height of pandemic?
The stands at Arizona Stadium were empty on a cool Saturday evening in Tucson in December 2020, when the University of Arizona football team kicked off against Arizona State University in its final game of a bizarre and tumultuous season.Canceled sporting events, scant ticket sales and decreased donations from alumni and boosters during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic led to unprecedented revenue shortfalls at major college athletics departments across the country.
ASU gave its athletics department $57.9 million in institutional support in fiscal 2021 — 10 times more than it gave the year before and more than any other public university in the United States, according to the database — plus another $11.3 million in student fees. Sports economists said contributions from ASU and UA to their athletics departments likely have receded, though perhaps not to pre-pandemic levels, and cautioned the future appears precarious for the athletics finances at Arizona’s largest universities.
“Arizona State University, unlike most other universities during the pandemic, furloughed no one, laid no one off, and kept our operations advancing fully,” ASU President Michael Crow said in a written statement to The Republic. “We were able to do this while successfully managing all of our university activities, including Sun Devil Athletics, an integral part of the university’s identity and the student experience.
The reason is straightforward: Most Division I athletics departments, except for the true football powerhouses, spend more money than they generate and would run an annual operating deficit without financial support from their universities. They’re designed to spend every dollar they raise, often along with an annual subsidy.
ASU and UA have each typically given their athletics departments between $6 million to $12 million each year since at least fiscal 2010. UA’s subsidy surged to $20 million in fiscal 2019, prior to the pandemic. The ASU and UA athletics departments continued to lose money, despite collecting student fees, in aggregate right up until the pandemic, when media rights payouts, donor contributions and ticket sales plunged.
The database provides a comprehensive — but imperfect — picture of nationwide athletics subsidies in fiscal 2021 because of inconsistencies in the ways schools handled financial reporting. At least 10 Division I schools, including ASU, reported their athletics debt increased by more than $30 million in 2021, according to the Knight-Newhouse database. The Sun Devils added $39.8 million to their burden, none of which was attributed to an internal loan, according to a university spokesperson. Four schools reported more than $40 million in added debt.
For example: Northern Arizona University, the state’s only other public university, often funds as much as three-quarters of its athletics department’s budget. The school gave its athletics department $16.7 million, or 69% of its revenue, in fiscal 2020, nearly as much money as ASU and UA combined.
“Maybe a good use of that $58 million would be to provide extended health care benefits to graduate students who have eyes and teeth and children,” Stoff said. Rhoades, the UA professor, said the school’s bailout of athletics during the pandemic reveals “broken priorities.”
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