quote:
I was surprised to learn, for example, that Wisconsin's athletic budget is about $25 million more per annum than LSU's. Looks like you guys sponsor more sports at the varsity level. Many LSU fan like myself would like to see LSU add some more sports, so I'm frankly jealous. IMHO only having 8 men's teams and 11 women's teams is too little for an athletic program as profitable as ours.

Yeah, I was pleasantly surprised to see Wisconsin's total revenue and expenses both rank second behind Texas.

Wisconsin has 11 men's varsity sports and 12 women's varsity sports. Of course, it helps that Madison is situated on an isthmus between two relatively large lakes. Gives the university the opportunity to have rowing teams. Hockey (men's and women's) is also a very popular sport up in these parts. The winter season certainly helps that flourish. One thing a lot of Wisconsin fans wished we had was a baseball team. As it stands, we are the only B1G school without a program.

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Posted by TigersOfGeauxld

Just across the water...

Member since Aug 2009

25057 posts

Posted on 7/2/14 at 4:50 am to hoopsgalore

quote:
Yeah, I was pleasantly surprised to see Wisconsin's total revenue and expenses both rank second behind Texas.

Exactly the link I was referring to. If you look at that, your revenue was $149,141,405, your expenses were $146,659,187, and your subsidy was $7,859,675.

LSU, on the other hand had revenue of $117,457,398, expenses of $105,312,018, and no subsidy.

So Wisconsin cleared 10,341,893 with subsidy vs LSU clearing 12,145,380 without one. That difference is explained by the fact that Wisconsin supports more teams than LSU does. This year will feature an expanded Tiger Stadium seating over 100,000 for the first time. Most of the additional seating being added is premium seating. I expect our revenue will increase as a result. We could easily support more teams.

(Pic by
Jefferson Davis)

quote:
One thing a lot of Wisconsin fans wished we had was a baseball team. As it stands, we are the only B1G school without a program.

What a difference location makes. LSU baseball is our second-most profitable sport. We've led the nation in attendance for 15 years in a row. We're also the only college baseball team to exceed 400,000 tickets sold in a season. We've done it twice now.

To put that in perspective, only two college basketball programs have exceeded 400,000 attendance in a season...Syracuse and Louisville.

As far as sports being added at LSU, we added sand volleyball this year. We should be building a new facility for them in the fall, probably by renovating the old tennis center after the new facility is built. Our new Indoor Tennis Facility will be tied for the largest in SEC, and it's being built as we speak.

LSU currently has club sports in women's equestrian and men's soccer. We could add both sports as varsity programs without needing to build facilities. The men could share the new stadium built for the women's team. And the equestrian team could continue to use the state park facility two miles from campus.

LSU has long wanted to build a marina on University Lake. But plans are underway to dredge and reshape the lakes around the campus, so it's not a good time to do that.