Just weeks before the college football season kicks off, a federal report released Wednesday underscored what some researchers have been saying for decades: Most major college sports programs lose money.
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The Government Accountability Office reported 94 percent of Division I colleges spend more money on athletics than they generate — even after accounting for revenue from television contracts, ticket sales and donations to athletic departments.
The GAO looked at athletic departments as a whole, including the total cost for all sports offered at a school. The median shortfall for colleges with Division I sports teams was $20.6 million in the 2023-24 school year, up from a $12.3 million gap a decade earlier, the report found. Schools generally make up the difference with tuition, fees and other support.
The GAO did not address the marketing value of college sports.
Researchers have found that schools sometimes see a surge of applications after sports wins, a phenomenon called the “Flutie effect” — nicknamed for 1980s Boston College football star Doug Flutie. But that impact can be inconsistent and fleeting.
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“That stuff just doesn’t pay off generally,” said Andrew Zimbalist, an economist at Smith College who has long followed sports spending.
Still, Zimbalist said there is some value in spending on sports programs.
“Rather than creating an economic boon for the school, what they do is create a better sense of community for the student body, faculty and staff,” Zimbalist said.
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