Kenny Brooks, Virginia Tech's record-setting women's basketball coach who led his team to the Final Four a year ago, announced last week that he is leaving for the University of Kentucky.
Whenever a star coach leaves, it's natural for schools to grit their teeth and vow to find the best possible successor.
Instead, Virginia Tech athletic director Whit Babcock said something many fans didn't want to hear. “We have our limits,” he acknowledged.
In this case, he was talking about budget constraints and how tech companies couldn't hang on to Brooks because Kentucky has a bigger budget.
As with many other things, the size of a college's sports budget is not the only factor in determining whether a team wins or loses. “Our resources were good enough to get us to the Final Four and a quarter of the way to a national championship,” Babcock told the Roanoke Times. “If that were all [was about the] If they had the money, Ohio State and Texas would be in it every year. ”
Still, more money is always better than less, and there is a general correlation between the size of a school's athletic budget and success on the field and court. Money is also driving the current restructuring of college sports conferences. In 2000, there wasn't that much difference between the top conferences. In fact, teams in his Atlantic Coast conference were making more money from television revenue than teams in the Big Ten or Southeastern Conference. Currently, there is a huge disparity in earnings. ESPN reports that Big Ten schools are expected to earn between $80 million and $100 million from the league's latest television deal. The average for SEC schools is $51.3 million. And what about ACC? Approximately $39.4 million.
This is why the Pac-12 conference collapsed last summer and the top four schools made the jump to the Big Ten. They earned bigger TV fees, and the Big Ten gained access to a lucrative TV market on the West Coast. That's why Clemson and Florida State are currently suing to leave the ACC. They see themselves as trapped in low-profit meetings. The chairman of the University of North Carolina's Board of Governors has also made it clear that he is not satisfied with the amount of money UNC is making, and if Clemson and Florida State find their way out of the ACC, North Carolina State will be right behind them. There is growing speculation that this may be the case. they.
Hardly a day goes by without some new speculation emerging about which conferences would be interested in which schools if the ACC were to fall apart. Relevance to us: Where do the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech end up? The general consensus, of course, may bear no resemblance to the actual truth, but both the Big Ten and SEC I think they would be interested in the state. Because it brings new markets to both conferences. Virginia Tech has also been mentioned as a possible candidate for both schools, but it is not a member of the Association of American Universities, an invitation-only group of top research universities that is generally considered a prerequisite for joining the Big Ten. . He is not a member of AAU at only one school in the Big Ten – Nebraska – and that was when the Cornhuskers joined the league. (The problem with becoming a member of an invite-only group is that your invitation may be revoked if you don't comply.)
You can argue all day long about which conferences are best suited to which schools and vice versa, about sports traditions, geographic rivalries, general “reputation,” and more. Last year, I also looked at how Virginia and Virginia Tech fit into the Big Ten or SEC academically. (See FAQ “Will the Atlantic Coast Conference be disbanded?”)
Now, thanks to a new database, a different kind of comparison can be made. It's the size of the school's athletic budget, which Babcock suggested is related to the departure of one of its key coaches. Sportico, a news site dedicated to following “school business,” annually compiles a database of public university financial figures, records of which can be accessed through Freedom of Information Act requests. This is the same database I recently wrote about when I pointed out that James Madison University (my alma mater) relies on mandatory student levies to subsidize its pursuit of big sports.
Sportico allows you to consider where Virginia and Virginia Tech would fit if they had to find affiliation in a new conference.
As with all data, let's talk about its limitations before we get into it. The main limitations are: Not everyone is included in the Sportico database. Private schools are not covered by his FOIA. The same goes for some state schools. That's less of an issue in the Big Ten and SEC, which are overwhelmingly made up of state schools for which data is available. The problem is even greater in the ACC, which has a more even mix of public and private schools. In other words, of the 15 schools in the ACC (with plans to increase to up to 18 schools), only eight of his schools have data.
The data shows that Virginia Tech had the smallest athletic budget among comparable schools in 2022-2023, the most recent year available.
Clemson $174,276,658
Florida $172,130,700
Louisville $140,216,963
North Carolina $139,079,504
Virginia $138,225,818
California $134,872,860
Georgia Tech $132,273,817
North Carolina $118,653,089
Virginia Tech $116,947,347
Not included: Duke University, Boston College, Miami, University of Notre Dame, Pittsburgh, Southern Methodist University, Stanford University, Syracuse University, Wake Forest University.
It tells us something, but it's not enough. I'm certainly reluctant to say Virginia Tech has the smallest athletic budget in the ACC since it's only half a conference. All we know for sure is that at least 8 out of 15 or 18 schools (for analysis purposes, have plans to attend conferences such as California, but are still not fully entitled to I will also include schools that have not been confirmed yet). One thing we can clearly see is how far ahead Clemson and Florida State are. This helps explain why they think they can compete at a higher level. Now let's move on:
If Virginia or Virginia Tech were to join the Big Ten, they would be some of the lowest-funded schools in the conference.
These schools are compatible with:
Ohio $274,948,554
Michigan $225,548,280
Pennsylvania State University $202,073,671
Wisconsin $194,020,289
Nebraska $190,870,384
Michigan State $181,850,581
Iowa $160,302,475
Rutgers $153,523,767
Illinois 152,809,698
Washington State 150,037,375
Minnesota $146,982,927
Oregon $146,778,941
University of California, Los Angeles $141,964,728
Indiana $139,087,323
Virginia $138,225,818
Maryland $121,160,348
Purdue $119,773,814
Virginia Tech $116,947,347
Excludes: Northwestern University and University of Southern California
Now, this is somewhat misleading. Because if either Virginia or Virginia Tech were in the Big Ten, they would get Big Ten TV money and have a bigger athletic budget. This simply shows what they are spending now with less ACC TV money. If Big Ten TV had the money, it would probably be higher up in the rankings. Still, if you want to know how it compares to now, here's how. Pac-12 refugees (Oregon, Washington State, Southern California, UCLA) will also be raised. These numbers are indicative of where they stand in Pac-12 money, not the Big Ten money they could earn after completing the transition.
Virginia or Virginia Tech would also have one of the smallest budgets in the SEC.
Texas $232,323,521
Alabama $212,030,188
Louisiana $199,110,998
Oklahoma $198,975,224
Texas A&M $194,692,848
Auburn $192,030,692
Tennessee $181,032,519
Georgia $186,604,238
Florida $175,738,444
Kentucky $169,565,280
Arkansas $166,552,649
South Carolina $160,420,148
Mississippi $150,195,985
Missouri $141,558,286
Virginia $138,225,818
Mississippi $120,959,663
Virginia Tech $116,947,347
Does not include: Vanderbilt
Once again the same conditions apply. If either Virginia or Virginia Tech were in the SEC, they would definitely benefit the SEC and rank higher. This at least shows you where they're starting from.
Budget-wise, Virginia and Virginia Tech would both fit nicely in the Big 12
Like the ACC, the Big 12 includes many private schools, so it's not a perfect comparison. But you can also make something imperfect.
Arizona $142,814,430
Arizona $141,717,696
Virginia $138,225,818
Texas Tech University $136,364,850
Colorado $136,114,470
Utah $124,453,484
Kansas $124,210,259
Oklahoma $121,160,348
Virginia Tech $116,947,347
Iowa $115,523,596
West Virginia $103,142,400
Kansas $95,281,988
Central Florida $88,199,644
Not included: Baylor, Brigham Young, Cincinnati, Houston, Texas Christian.
The Big 12 schools will each earn about $50 million in television revenue, more than the $39.4 million currently earned by ACC schools. So, like other conferences, if both Virginia and Virginia Tech were to make the Big 12 profitable, they would certainly move up in these rankings.
We also don't know how much each conference's television rights will become more valuable as more schools come from new markets. But I suspect that these comparisons will influence the dynamics of the conference more than tradition, geography, etc. Those elements were tossed aside long ago. In other words, in the words of the great philosopher Biggie Smalls, “If you didn't know, now you know.”
