Still...if IU was interested, that means he can probably get a better gig than WVU in the future (and I'm not dogging WVU, they have a really solid tradition in basketball).
Did a quick look at the 2024 financial report published by the AD. Here are a few take aways.
1. Total revenue increased from $49,188,482 to $53,351,789 or $4,163,307.
2. Almost all of the increase was from a distribution of $4,005,000 from the AAC. This is the largest conference distribution we have ever received. The previous high-water mark was $2,255,251 in the 2016 report.
3. While the conference distribution is large by UNT standards, it is less than half of what the legacy AAC members probably received. ECU, Memphis, USF, Temple, Tulane and Tulsa all received in excess of $8.1M in the most recent Form 990 filed by the AAC for fiscal year ending in June 2023, so I doubt their distribution went down. We'll know in a couple months when the next 990 is published. It's hard to be competitive when you are at such a financial disadvantage vis-a-vis your conference "peers." This speaks highly of our athletes and coaches to put competitive teams on the field or court.
4. A couple red flags in my opinion. For comparison of a few expense items I picked 2015 and last year (2023 report).
Between 2015 and last year, coach salaries increased from $5,149,797 to $9,348,128 or an 81.52% increase. That's not the red flag, however, support staff (AD) salaries over the same time period increased from $4,977,297 to $9,631,744 or a 93.51% increase.
Looking just from 2023 to 2024, coach salaries increased from $9,233,837 to $9,348,128 for a paltry 1.35% increase. Conversely, support staff (AD) salaries increased from $8,432,941 to $9,631,744 or a healthy 14.22% increase. I don't think I've ever heard anyone say, ya know, screw our coaches, what we really need is to pay our support staff more in order to win championships.
Even scarier is this category titled "Admin Overhead." From 2023 to 2024 this increased from $4,083,277 to $6,392,713 for a whopping 56.56% YoY increase. WTH? That's a big chunk to throw in the "overhead" wink, wink bucket.
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