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Which Programs Get the Most Wins Per Expenses Among Power 5 Schools?

How doe OSU stack up?

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As I’m sure many of you saw last week, the new NCAA finances were released for the 2018-19 school year. Oklahoma State checked in 45th in revenue at $95.3 million and 47th in expenses at $95.0 million. Healthy on all accounts but not one of the financial powerhouses in the Big 12 or nationally.

There are a billion ways to look at these numbers, and most of them are incredibly boring. One very not boring way to look at them is like this: Which schools are paying the most per football win these days? There are a couple of Texas schools that are always delightful to see on this list, and I’m always interested to see where OSU falls.

Oklahoma State athletic director Mike Holder has always been big on a couple of things here. One, is a balanced budget that remains independent of the school itself. And two, is not getting too big for what you’re trying to do. The first point is always a good one. The second can sometimes be frustrating, but boy does it look smart in the middle of a pandemic.

I thought a fair way to do this would be to take average wins over the last five years (OSU averages nine Ws a year since 2015) and divide total expenses by this number. You could do 2019 wins only, but to me that’s a little bit of an unfair representation given how often expenses and revenue can be ahead of or behind winning and losing.

It’s also worth pointing out that these numbers are entire athletic department numbers and include how much OSU spent on tennis and baseball and soccer, not just football. But as we’ve learned during the pandemic, football makes up so much of both the revenue and expenses of an athletic department that we can reasonably use total numbers and get the same effect as if we pulled each individual program’s football-only numbers.

One last caveat: I know this probably isn’t the best or most statistically-correct way to look at this, but it was the one I wanted to do because it was the one I was most curious about. Let’s start with the five most-efficient programs.

Note: I rounded all these numbers and private institutions like Baylor and TCU are not included. 

Rank School Expenses Avg. Wins Cost per Win
1 Washington State $76M 8.6 $9M
2 Clemson $132M 13.8 $10M
3 Utah $96M 9.2 $10M
4 Oklahoma State $95M 9 $11M
5 Kansas State $83M 7.2 $12M
6 Virginia Tech $94M 8 $12M
7 North Carolina State $90M 7.2 $13M
8 West Virginia $98M 7.6 $13M
9 Mississippi State $99M 7.6 $13M
10 Georgia $143M 10.8 $13M

No surprises here, right? OSU, Washington State, Kansas State and Utah at the top. All operating on sub-$100 million budgets at an incredibly high level when it comes to football. Clemson’s numbers are laugh-out-loud worthy. The Tigers have won 13.8 games a year in the last five years on a budget that’s barely 60 percent as big as Texas’. Put that in my veins.

Now let’s do the least efficient.

Rank School Expenses Avg. Wins Cost per Win
10 Purdue $102M 4.4 $23M
9 South Carolina $137M 5.8 $24M
8 UCLA $127M 5 $25M
7 Maryland $109M 4.2 $26M
6 Arkansas $130M 4.6 $28M
5 Texas $204M 7 $29M
4 Oregon State $82M 2.8 $29M
3 Illinois $120M 4 $30M
2 Rutgers $103M 2.6 $40M
1 Kansas $109M 1.8 $60M

A tough look for these schools. Imagine being Arkansas, South Carolina or Illinois and spending $25 or 35 million (!!) more than Oklahoma State but winning four times a year. Man, the toughest scene. Though not as tough as Kansas’ scene. And to be fair to Texas, the Horns would have to win 20 times a year to touch OSU’s efficiency so that won’t be happening anytime soon.

As always, this stuff is fun to look at, and in OSU’s case fun to appreciate its frugality (even though I wouldn’t hate another extra $2-3 million being dumped into recruiting … you know, just to see what happens).

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