America East or MAAC

[olddog71]

I was just looking at the Mid-Majority website and found some current information* on the various athletic budgets.

 

The average budget for men's basketball teams in the MAAC last year (2007-08) was $1.3 million. The average budget for the same sport in the America East was $1.1 million.

 

The average athletic department budget for the MAAC in the previous year was $8,401,285. For the America East, it was $14,755,456, fifth highest among all mid-major conferences. Only the WAC, MAC, Ivies, and CAA had larger athletic department budgets. Interestingly, the CAA with more members had a budget that was only about one-quarter million more.

 

We know that the budgets for the northern America East (Maine, UNH, and UVM) are smaller than the other members of the AE, chiefly because of their more rural locations. Their expenses are simply lower. Similarly, the MAAC, with more schools in larger metropolitan areas, does not spend much more on men's basketball than the AE, relative to cost-of-living differences.

 

Here's a link to the page: The Red Line

 

I found these facts interesting and simply wanted to pass them on to the readers here.

 

* Athletic department figures are from 2006-07

* Men's basketball figures are for 207-08

[danefan]

The thing that skews the overall Ath. budgets to an extent is the schools with football. The AEast's overall budgets are only that high because of teams like UNH, Maine, Albany, Stony Brook who are sponsoring scholarship football. Add in the teams that sponsor hockey and you have the difference in MAAC budgets and AEast budgets. MAAC schools are one-trick pony's with basketball (with the exception of Iona's cross-country program and I'm sure someone can point out another olympic sport in which the MAAC excels.....right?)

[olddog71]

The thing that skews the overall Ath. budgets to an extent is the schools with football. The AEast's overall budgets are only that high because of teams like UNH, Maine, Albany, Stony Brook who are sponsoring scholarship football. Add in the teams that sponsor hockey and you have the difference in MAAC budgets and AEast budgets. MAAC schools are one-trick pony's with basketball (with the exception of Iona's cross-country program and I'm sure someone can point out another olympic sport in which the MAAC excels.....right?)

 

danefan,

 

Thanks for pointing out the football and hockey differences.

[UAalum72]

Football expenses at Stony Brook, Maine, and UNH are roughly $3 million +/-, Albany about half that. Hockey isn't listed separately, but operating expenses are slightly more than football, all four teams at around $400 to $500,000. Of course these are self-reported numbers of varying accounting methods.

US Dept. of Education Equity in Athletics