Despite winning seasons, University of Louisville athletics doesn't turn a profit

For years, Forbes has touted University of Louisville's basketball program as the richest in college athletics, while its entire athletics department has been acclaimed as the envy of the country. 

But for all its winning seasons, national championships and bowl appearances, the athletic powerhouse built by now-suspended athletic director Tom Jurich falls short in at least one regard: It doesn't turn a profit.

If not for $7 million per year in subsidies from the university, the program would have finished in the red the past two years.

Revenue and expense figures reported to the NCAA show that without the university’s help, the program would have lost $4.6 million in the 2014-15 budget year, and $4.4 million in 2015-16. And a Courier-Journal’s analysis of data collected by USA TODAY shows the athletic department got more money from the university in that second year – $7.4 million – than any of the nation's 25 largest programs.

You may like:Rick Pitino and Tom Jurich will leave University of Louisville as rich men

U of L spending:  Louisville spends more on AD Tom Jurich than 4 academic departments

The data shows that 50 of 230 athletic programs — but not U of L — transferred money back to the university in both years. University of Kentucky athletics, for example, spun off $6.7 million that went to scholarships and debt service on UK's new Jacobs Science Center.

Several Louisville faculty members said athletic subsidies are inappropriate at a time when the university is laying off employees and freezing positions to deal with a $48 million budget shortfall.

"The university needs to get its priorities straight," history Professor Tracy K'Meyer said. Added Nancy Theriot, a professor of women and gender studies: "The university is an academic institution. That’s what we should be funding – academics, not athletics."

Louisville's 2015-16 athletic subsidy included $3.1 million for utilities and maintenance at stadiums and arenas; about $830,000 to boost student-athlete academics; $1.928 million in student fees, at $50 per student per semester; and $1.3 million in a "gender equity commitment."

That last item represents tuition paid by non-scholarship female athletes who otherwise might not attend the school if not for the chance to play. The university gives it to the athletic department to support all 23 men's and women's sports.

In an interview last month before he was suspended because of the allegations in a college basketball bribery scandal, Jurich said athletics is subsidized because former Presidents John Shumaker and James Ramsey "wanted one university."

"There used to be a firewall between athletics and university," Jurich said. "We wanted to break that down."

He said the athletic department needs student fees "to continue to grow" and that they have been "part of our history." The department said it takes less in student fees than most other universities. The Courier-Journal found that among public universities in the Atlantic Coast Conference, only Clemson gets less from student fees.

U of L Athletics:Without Tom Jurich, Bobby Petrino would owe less to leave University of Louisville

The athletic program also draws revenues from ticket sales, contributions, media rights, licensing, NCAA distributions, bowl game revenue and program sales.

Jurich noted that the overwhelmingly successful program has raised money to invest nearly $280 millions in facilities during his 20-year tenure, allowing it to build new homes for all but two sports.

And while the program made no payments to the school in 2014-15 or 2015-16, it gave $2 million in 2012-13 and the same amount in 2016-17, to pay for faculty and staff raises. But the department was in effect reimbursed for the first gift by the U of L Foundation, which paid $2.65 million to buy property for a soccer stadium and a parking lot for athletics.

Jurich also said the program aids the university by paying $15 million for athletic scholarships. He also said his department should be credited with bringing in another $15 million in tuition and other fees from student-athletes who might not otherwise go to U of L.

But other programs do the same; UK's department this year is paying $17.6 million in athletic scholarships.

In an email, interim President Dr. Greg Postel said: “The Athletic Department does receive significant funding from the university. However, the department also gives to the university in significant ways," citing the scholarship money.

As the NCAA defines it, U of L is not self-sufficient, but it is hardly alone.

The Courier-Journal found that only 22 programs nationwide were self-supporting in 2015-16, meaning the revenue they generated exceeded their expenses. All were in the SEC, Big 10 or Big 12 except for Florida State, the only self-supporting program in the ACC.

In 2015-16, the most recent year for which figures are available from USA TODAY, Louisville had net revenues of about $104.6 million against $109.4 million in expenses. In net income, it ranked 39th, trailing Alcorn State (38th), Coppin State (33rd), New Orleans (36th) and Mississippi Valley State (30th).

The Chronicle for Higher Education reported last year that less than 1 percent of revenue generated by major public college athletic departments is directed to academic programs and that even bigger television and licensing money collected by elite programs is almost all spent on sports.

Over the previous four years, the Chronicle found, only 10 athletic departments gave more money than they received in subsidies. Even then, the payout for library renovations, scholarships for nonathletes, and university leadership programs was relatively minimal — a total of about $140 million, or just 4 percent of revenue.

See where others stand:Athletics revenue and spending from top NCAA universities 

Adidas deal:Rick Pitino raked in 98 percent of the money from University of Louisville's current deal

Why can’t the Cardinal program support itself without subsidies, while UK officials say their program has been self-sufficient for 16 years in a row?

For one, UK collected $42 million in media rights in 2015-16 as a member of the lucrative SEC television network. Louisville took in just $12 million because the Athletic Coast Conference won't launch a similar network until 2019.

Louisville's program also spends disproportionately on compensation: While it ranked 22nd in overall expenses out of 230 programs, its $23.3 million payroll for coaches and administrators ranked 9th.

In all of college sports, Louisville had the highest-paid athletic director ($5.4 million, taxable income), men's basketball coach ($5.1 million from the university alone) and baseball coach ($1 million base pay).

K’Meyer, the history professor, calls those salaries “obscene” in light of the school's goal of paying professors in the College of Arts and Sciences only 80 percent as much as their peers at other benchmark universities.

U of L athletics makes no apologies.

"We pay for leadership," athletic department spokesman Kenny Klein said last month. "We feel like we have the best coaches across the board."

More:U of L Foundation topped list of 10 highest-paid public university foundation execs in the nation

And he said the results speak for themselves: 67 conference championships, 42 conference tournament championships and 125 finishes in the nation's top 25 in various sports over the past two decades.

Those accomplishments were crowned, of course, by the 2013 NCAA men's basketball champion, which the NCAA is trying to take away because of the team's stripper scandal.

Avery Kolers, a U of L philosophy professor and past American Association of University Professors chapter president, said he doesn’t begrudge academic program subsidies for athletics.

“People come together around U of L athletics and that’s a good thing,” Kolers said.

But he said it is “inappropriate that a sector that is no more successful than the rest of us should be awash in cash while students, staff, and faculty either bear heavier burdens or are forced to continue their careers elsewhere for lack of funds.”

Reporter Andrew Wolfson can be reached at 502-582-7189 or awolfson@courier-journal.com. Reporter Justin Price contributed to this story.

Some of the data for this story is available at sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/finances.

The "allocations" represent subsidies from athletic programs to their universities.