The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic were not fully reflected in the University of Kentucky athletics department’s 2020 fiscal year report submitted to the NCAA last January. They were in the 2021 edition, obtained from the university by the Herald-Leader through an open records request this month.
UK Athletics, which for at least two decades has been self-sustaining, would not have turned a profit in fiscal year 2021 if not for direct support from the university. UK directed $6,585,570 toward the athletics department in the last fiscal year — July 1, 2020, through June 30, 2021.
Kentucky’s athletic department had been self-sufficient — receiving no direct support from UK — since at least 2002, the first year that Athletics Director Mitch Barnhart took over, university spokesperson Tony Neely said. Neely, who’s worked at the school since 1994, believes the athletic department was able to operate independently from the school prior to Barnhart’s tenure but was unable to identify the exact last time that it received direct financial support from the university.
According to a 2017 USA Today report, only 22 public schools that fielded Division I programs during the 2015-16 school year met the NCAA’s benchmark for financial self-sustainability (i.e., the athletic department at least generated the same amount of revenue as its expenses). UK Athletics technically generated a profit in the 2021 fiscal year — $539,018 — but would have been in the red for the first time in decades if not for assistance from the school. UK Athletics anticipates moving back into the black in the next fiscal year.
“The university provided a number of its revenue-producing units — such as housing, dining, parking, the Singletary Center, Education Abroad and athletics — with one-time dollars last year to deal with pandemic-related revenue shortfalls,” Neely told the Herald-Leader. “Athletics has been a self-supporting unit for many years. We expect this to be a one-year situation.”
Kentucky’s entire athletic department generated $5.6 million in total excess in the 2020 fiscal year. Its $539,018 total in fiscal year 2021 represented a 90.4 percent decrease. Without the influx of revenue from the university, UK would have reported an overall loss of $6.04 million (a 207.52 percent decrease from fiscal year 2020).
Total revenues for the athletic department were down 16.9 percent (from $146.2 million in fiscal year 2020 to $121.5 million in 2021) while expenses were down 13.9 percent (from $140.6 million in 2020 to $120.9 in 2021).
Football and men’s basketball
Kentucky’s two profitable sports teams in most fiscal years are the football and men’s basketball programs. Both suffered substantial revenue decreases in the 2021 fiscal year, but the blow to men’s hoops was much more drastic.
The football team was only program on campus that generated more revenue than its expenses, finishing with a shade over $5 million in profit. That was a 65.2-percent decrease from its fiscal year 2020 excess ($14.6 million) and 54.1 percent lower than its excess ($11.08 million) in fiscal year 2019, the last that did not include any months that occurred within the COVID-19 pandemic.
Football brought in $29.7 million in fiscal year 2021 while accumulating $24.7 million in expenses, a decrease of 33.2 percent in revenue and a 17.5 percent decline in expenses. Its total revenues from the 2020 fiscal year (which included its full 2019 season and postseason) were $44.5 million while its expenses were reported at $29.9 million.
The men’s basketball program finished with $17.2 million in expenses compared to only $8.7 million in revenues, reflecting an overall loss of $8.4 million for a program that in the 2020 fiscal year generated $11.3 million in excess. Its revenues in fiscal year 2021 were down 70 percent (from $29.3 million) while its expenses were down slightly at 4.8 percent (from $18 million).
Ticket sales were the largest source of lost revenue for both teams. The football program generated about a third of its revenue from ticket sales in fiscal year 2020 ($15.3 million) and the men’s basketball team generated 75 percent of its revenue from ticket sales in the same year ($22 million). Ticket-sales revenue for those programs fell to $3.6 million (football, down 76.3%) and $1.99 million (basketball, down 91.1%) in the 2021 fiscal year. Both programs limited ticket sales in accordance with Southeastern Conference pandemic protocols.
Contributions to the athletic department, most of them derived through K-Fund donations connected to the sales of ticket packages and all of them categorized under “non-specific” revenue, were also down significantly. UK received $25.6 million in contributions in fiscal year 2020 but only $3.7 million in the 2021 fiscal year (a decrease of 85.7%).
Other teams
UK’s most significant women’s program in terms of revenue and expenses, the women’s basketball team, operates at a loss but did so at less of one in fiscal year 2021 than it did the year prior.
The women’s basketball team reported a deficiency of minus $4.08 million, a 21.6 percent increase from its loss of $5.2 million in the 2020 fiscal year. Its revenue was down 57.8 percent ($426,694 in 2020 to $179,984 in 2021) but overall expenses decreased 24.4 percent (from $5.6 million in 2020 to $4.3 million in 2021).
All of Kentucky’s other teams are categorized under “other sports.” Revenue from UK’s other 18 programs dropped 46.5 percent ($2.4 million to $1.1 million) but their expenses were down from $25.8 million to $21.6 million, a 16.3-percent decrease. Their overall deficit improved by 12.3 percent from fiscal year 2020 to 2021.
(Note: Revenue and expenses for the 2021 fiscal year do not include Kentucky’s new varsity stunt program, which begins competition in February and brings the total number of UK varsity programs to 22. Its first accounting totals will be included in the 2022 fiscal year report.)
Notes
— Predictably, recruiting expenses were dampened from fiscal year 2020 to 2021. Football spent $1.04 million on recruiting in the 2020 reporting year but just $186,864 in 2021 (an 81.9% decrease) while men’s hoops dropped even more, from $1.07 million to $66,081 (93.8%). Women’s basketball recruiting expenses fell the most, percentage-wise, from $414,913 to $15,637 (96.2%). Recruiting expenses for the 18 other sports fell 87.9 percent, from $773,672 to $93,559. The NCAA’s COVID protocols included suspensions of recruiting travel at various points.
— In recent years preceding the COVID-19 pandemic, UK Athletics transferred about $8 million annually to the school for the Jacobs Science Building, non-athletic scholarships and administrative support. That number in the 2021 fiscal year fell to $1 million, reflected in the report under transfers from the men’s basketball ($300,000) and football ($700,000) programs.
— One stark discrepancy in the expenses between the men’s and women’s basketball programs comes in the item “student meals (non-travel).” The men’s basketball team reported $971,449 in expenses under that category while the women’s basketball team reported $232,773, or 76 percent less. UK’s athletic department says this discrepancy — which isn’t exclusive to the 2021 fiscal year (the women’s expenses on that item were 81.8 less in the 2020 reporting year) — is a reflection of the teams’ different living arrangements (the men have a dedicated on-campus dormitory; the women live in traditional dorms or apartments) and discrepancies in how each program categorizes its expenses.
