NCAA ice hockey more lucrative than women's basketball, softball,...

[Coinneach]

Ice hockey 3rd? Surprising. I thought that only in Massachusets and Minnessota is NCAA hockey popular.

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[MNNumbers]

That's revenue only, though, right? The cost of a rink probably pulls hockey down if you were looking at the bottom line... profitability.

 

[Barclay Donaldson]

Ice hockey 3rd? Surprising. I thought that only in Massachusets and Minnessota is NCAA hockey popular.

While it isn’t just Minnesota and Massachusetts, it is predominantly the north and northeast. There’s quite a few teams in Michigan, Colorado, New York, and greater New England that are all wildly popular.

Most of that revenue is Big Ten TV contract-driven. Programs like Maine and Vermont all the way to Air Force and Lake Superior State won’t bring in a lot of money, but it doesn’t stop them from having a big local following and selling out just about every game.

That's revenue only, though, right? The cost of a rink probably pulls hockey down if you were looking at the bottom line... profitability.

Most of them try not losing money. There’s exceptions obviously. North Dakota has higher attendance than every AHL team and a couple NHL teams. BU cut their football program *without* every intention of reallocating the money to the hockey team, who certainly wouldn’t hemorrhage it like a football team. Big 10 makes some money but the schools make the money from the TV deal, not the programs themselves.

 

[MNNumbers]

I agree that North Dakota, and probably Minnesota in most years are the real cash cows of that calculation. UND fills their arena to 11,000 every game. So, to say that "men's ice hockey automatically produces more revenue that women's basketball" is probably not quite nuanced enough.

There is more than one question here, though.

For example: Is the question: Is men's ice hockey more popular? In that regard, we might be able to say yes, because there is more consumer $$ spent on it than on WBB.

But we could also ask the question: Which is better for a University to sponsor, in a strict monetary sense? And, that's dicey, because hockey has expenses that other sports don't have, as well as the issue that not every market is going to do as well as UND and UMinn (for example).

 

[DaveG]

There is more than one question here, though.

For example: Is the question: Is men's ice hockey more popular? In that regard, we might be able to say yes, because there is more consumer $$ spent on it than on WBB.

But we could also ask the question: Which is better for a University to sponsor, in a strict monetary sense? And, that's dicey, because hockey has expenses that other sports don't have, as well as the issue that not every market is going to do as well as UND and UMinn (for example).

The answer to that is quite easily Women's Basketball. The costs involved in running/maintaining the arena and in equipment are nowhere near as high, and the simple fact of the matter is Title IX is going to be a factor in effect doubling the scholarship amount given out for any Men's Hockey program by having a Women's program added as well whether or not it's for the same sport.

 

[No Fun Shogun]

The only real surprise that I have is that I was under the firm impression that college baseball was the #3 highest revenue generating sport for the NCAA thanks to the big crowds that Southern and Western schools often bring in and from their TV deals for the college world series (which I would assume is a bigger deal than the Frozen Four TV contract). Even with that in mind, I figured that hockey was #4 at "worst."

I would assume that "average" is the key word there, as there are significantly more very small schools with baseball programs that barely draw compared to a much smaller number of hockey schools. So, if you compare 300 baseball programs with 60 hockey programs, a few big moneymakers in the latter can warp the average significantly.

 

[KevFu]

That's revenue only, though, right? The cost of a rink probably pulls hockey down if you were looking at the bottom line... profitability.

Well, everyone but football and men's basketball is tied for last at "Not profitable"

 

[AdmiralsFan24]

The only real surprise that I have is that I was under the firm impression that college baseball was the #3 highest revenue generating sport for the NCAA thanks to the big crowds that Southern and Western schools often bring in and from their TV deals for the college world series (which I would assume is a bigger deal than the Frozen Four TV contract). Even with that in mind, I figured that hockey was #4 at "worst."

There are a ton of schools that only seat around 1,000 for baseball and the Northern schools spend the first month of the season travelling around Florida, Arizona, California or basically anywhere where baseball can be played because they aren't going to be playing home games from mid-February to mid-March. The cost of that adds up pretty quick.

For example, Michigan (a pretty good baseball school for being in a cold climate) spent the first month of the season last year playing a series against Army in Florida, 5 days later they started a tournament in San Diego, 4 days after that tournament ended they went up to Palo Alto to play a series against Stanford and 5 days after that they played a series in Nashville against Lipscomb. After 14 games spanning the country, they finally played their home opener on March 13th, 26 days after their season started.

 

[KevFu]

Most of that revenue is Big Ten TV contract-driven.

Big 10 makes some money but the schools make the money from the TV deal, not the programs themselves.

TV revenues are not broken down by sport. The athletics departments of the Big Ten get X dollars for Big Ten Network, period. There's no "here's your BTN Hockey Revenue check."

A sports revenue breakdown would be "ticket sales" and MAYBE any "itemized booster donations" and that's about it.

And from that aspect, it actually makes more sense that hockey is ahead of women's basketball. WBB booster donations are virtually non-existent because of Title IX: You're not going to fundraise for a new million-dollar WBB locker room, you're going to fundraise for a $2 million renovation to your BASKETBALL locker rooms.

 

[S E P H]

Awesome to see hockey that high, but lets also be honest....the difference between 1st to 2nd to 3rd is quite large.

 

[mouser]

I'm chuckling that it only took Joe Klatt a year to find the article from Oct 2017 he cited in his tweet.

 

[KevFu]

This is going to sound pretty stupid... but it's another reason hockey is so high... It's definitely inside. Meaning, you can charge money for a tickets.

There are a lot of sports that don't actually have a "stadium" for outdoor sports. I can be physically impossible to charge for tickets at a high number of Division I venues. And not just "small schools."

Stanford field hockey plays near their baseball and soccer stadiums, and it's a turf field with a three-foot high chain-link fence around it to separate players/coaches/refs from any "fans" who just chill on the fence or in one set of bleachers.

 

[Bookie21]

While it isn’t just Minnesota and Massachusetts, it is predominantly the north and northeast. There’s quite a few teams in Michigan, Colorado, New York, and greater New England that are all wildly popular.

Most of that revenue is Big Ten TV contract-driven. Programs like Maine and Vermont all the way to Air Force and Lake Superior State won’t bring in a lot of money, but it doesn’t stop them from having a big local following and selling out just about every game.



Most of them try not losing money. There’s exceptions obviously. North Dakota has higher attendance than every AHL team and a couple NHL teams. BU cut their football program *without* every intention of reallocating the money to the hockey team, who certainly wouldn’t hemorrhage it like a football team. Big 10 makes some money but the schools make the money from the TV deal, not the programs themselves.

Most of that revenue isn't BIG10 TV driven. BIG10 TV money goes to all the sports, its not just unique to hockey

 

[Barclay Donaldson]

TV revenues are not broken down by sport. The athletics departments of the Big Ten get X dollars for Big Ten Network, period. There's no "here's your BTN Hockey Revenue check."

A sports revenue breakdown would be "ticket sales" and MAYBE any "itemized booster donations" and that's about it.

And from that aspect, it actually makes more sense that hockey is ahead of women's basketball. WBB booster donations are virtually non-existent because of Title IX: You're not going to fundraise for a new million-dollar WBB locker room, you're going to fundraise for a $2 million renovation to your BASKETBALL locker rooms.

Most of that revenue isn't BIG10 TV driven. BIG10 TV money goes to all the sports, its not just unique to hockey

The whole reason the Big 10 added hockey was because their TV schedule in the winter was pretty much basketball and football replays, with lesser popular sports in there. Yes the schools athletic departments get the money, but filling up the empty airtime that 90 million households is the biggest reason behind Rutgers getting a D1 team was on everyone’s lisps including Buccigross when the Big10 was first formed and why Illinois, who previously showing little to no interest in hockey despite having a rink on campus and a competitive club team, had a NHL feasibility study done.

 

[LeHab]

Surprised Men's soccer is not on the list, seems Women's is more popular? No Golf, Wrestling or Tennis either.

 

[Blackhawkswincup]

How the hell is Rowing so high?

 

[KevFu]

The whole reason the Big 10 added hockey was because their TV schedule in the winter was pretty much basketball and football replays, with lesser popular sports in there. Yes the schools athletic departments get the money, but filling up the empty airtime that 90 million households is the biggest reason behind Rutgers getting a D1 team was on everyone’s lisps including Buccigross when the Big10 was first formed and why Illinois, who previously showing little to no interest in hockey despite having a rink on campus and a competitive club team, had a NHL feasibility study done.

Right. But our comments were more along the lines of "nothing about college sports finances are actually broken down sport-by-sport to the penny because it's mostly 'multiple-sport' items and no one is going to divide them."

 

[KevFu]

Surprised Men's soccer is not on the list, seems Women's is more popular? No Golf, Wrestling or Tennis either.

Oh, wow. I just noticed that list is "average of 127 FBS schools."

That's missing 225 Division I schools. No wonder there's no Men's Soccer on the list, only about half of the FBS schools even have men's soccer.

The hockey programs on that list includes only 15 programs.

You're looking at about 1/8th of Division I NCAA athletics data.

 

[tony d]

That's good to see. Given how big college basketball and football are you're not topping them. The real race would be 3rd. Glad to see hockey is 3rd.

 

[bluesfan94]

TV revenues are not broken down by sport. The athletics departments of the Big Ten get X dollars for Big Ten Network, period. There's no "here's your BTN Hockey Revenue check."

A sports revenue breakdown would be "ticket sales" and MAYBE any "itemized booster donations" and that's about it.

And from that aspect, it actually makes more sense that hockey is ahead of women's basketball. WBB booster donations are virtually non-existent because of Title IX: You're not going to fundraise for a new million-dollar WBB locker room, you're going to fundraise for a $2 million renovation to your BASKETBALL locker rooms.

Same with hockey

 

[bluesfan94]

Oh, wow. I just noticed that list is "average of 127 FBS schools."

That's missing 225 Division I schools. No wonder there's no Men's Soccer on the list, only about half of the FBS schools even have men's soccer.

The hockey programs on that list includes only 15 programs.

You're looking at about 1/8th of Division I NCAA athletics data.

It would be Minnesota, Michigan, Penn State, Wisconsin, Air Force, Ohio State, Miami (OH), Boston College, Notre Dame, Arizona State, Bowling Green, UConn, Michigan State, and Central Michigan that have FBS and D1 Hockey programs. Other FBS schools may have D2 or D3 programs they derive revenue from; I can’t say I follow those levels.

 

[Inkling]

Probably helps the average that hockey is pretty targeted at regions where hockey has always been pretty popular and will draw crowds. Where hockey isn't popular, you will mostly not find it (the high start up cost means that you will only put it where it will be a big sport). The areas are also pretty affluent, and where there are small schools, often hockey will be the biggest sport on campus (eg. St. Lawrence).

Good to see women's hockey also high up on the list.

 

[KevFu]

It would be Minnesota, Michigan, Penn State, Wisconsin, Air Force, Ohio State, Miami (OH), Boston College, Notre Dame, Arizona State, Bowling Green, UConn, Michigan State, and Central Michigan that have FBS and D1 Hockey programs. Other FBS schools may have D2 or D3 programs they derive revenue from; I can’t say I follow those levels.

That was my list.... Plus Army (they have D1, right?)

 

[bluesfan94]

That was my list.... Plus Army (they have D1, right?)

Oh yeah I forgot about their hockey team.

 

[tarheelhockey]

You could teach a whole class on deceptive statistics using that chart.