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Rutgers Athletic Financing: Turning the corner?

I'm waiting for Mark Killingsworth's rebuttal, but as of right now, it looks like Rutgers is financially on the upswing.

By rvc73
rvc73

The University reported that it supported athletics with less direct support than it previously had.

By a lot.

N.J. Advanced Media's story stated that Rutgers put out $23.8 million to athletics for the fiscal year 2015.  That was, though, a 34.5% decrease from fiscal 2014.

Thank you, Jim Delany.

Rutgers received almost three times as much from the Big Ten ($9.4 million) than it did from the Big East in its last year in that conference.  And while we are still a few years away from full membership (money-wise) in the Big Ten, the trend is obvious.

"I think what it does is it confirms what folks here have been saying for a while and that is the trend is going to continue,'' Rutgers Athletics Director Pat Hobbs said. "You are going to see the institutional support decline as we move toward full participation in the Big Ten. Certainly this year was evidence of it. It was hard to see in the last two years because you had special items, particularly the exit fee with the Big East which is the biggest piece of that."

The special items included the exit fees that Rutgers had to pay for leaving the Big East/American Conference.  Athletics' Chief Financial Officer, Janine Purcaro, explained the exit fees:  "The direct university support number went down just about $13 million. $6.5 million of that is directly attributable to the accrual for the last piece of the exit fee. $5 million was paid two years previous. We made the accrual for the additional $6.5 million. It's being paid at $1.65 million over five years. Each Sept. 1 we owe them a check for years. It was on our books (in 2014) as one-time expense.''  That bill is now gone.

Rutgers made almost $3 million more in ticket sales, which Purcaro said was across the board (read wrestling as well as football). Donations were up around $700,000 and licensing brought in around $6.3 million.

On the Banks will bring more detail as it becomes available.  For now, though, this is good news.  For those questioning "big time" athletics.....suck it!