The Baton Rouge Advocate acquired the financial reports for the 2015-16 school year, the one most recently available for all schools. The exception being Vanderbilt, as it is a private school.
Here are a few takeaways from Georgia’s perspective:
- Georgia ranks ninth in the SEC in both revenue ($124.66 million) and expenses ($115.5 million). The schools that Georgia spent more than were South Carolina ($122 million), Ole Miss ($110 million), Missouri ($97 million) and Mississippi State (94.9 million). The schools that UGA had more expenses than were Arkansas ($105.5 million), Ole Miss ($97 million), Mississippi State ($84.7 million) and Missouri ($81 million.)
- The idea that UGA is one of the few financially solvent athletic departments out there isn't backed up by these numbers, at least. Every school showed a profit that school year, with the lowest profit margin being $4.9 million, by Kentucky. Georgia's profit margin of $9.1 million was the third-lowest. Texas A&M has a profit margin of $57.2 million, way ahead of the second team in that category, Florida at $20.1 million.
- Baseball was a major focus of The Advocate story. And once again UGA was among the lowest in the SEC in revenue and expenses, with expenses just under $3 million, lower than all schools except Missouri, and revenue of well under $1 million, lower than all schools other than Kentucky and Missouri.
- As for updated figures for UGA, the projected budget (approved expenses based on projected revenue) for the current school year was $123,049,705. The projected budget for the 2017-18 school year was set last month at $127,590,041.
- In terms of solvency, this of course doesn't account for reserve funds and debts for each school, which were not included in the figures cited by the story. UGA's reserves and debt are well-chronicled. (Between $32 million in the UGA Foundation and about $47 million on its own ledger, the reserve is just under $80 million. The debt, which come at interest rates between 3-4 percent, is projected to be $91 million for the upcoming school year, according to figures provided by the school.)
- For what it's worth, officials at several other schools surveyed this week also cited having reserve funds. Florida and Alabama's A.D.'s simply said they were a healthy amount. South Carolina's A.D. said their reserves are around $26 million.
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