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More money does not necessarily mean more success for college men’s volleyball teams.
Of the 10 schools with the highest operating budgets for the 2011 season, four failed to finish in the top 10 of the national rankings and only two reached the Final Four, according to the U.S. Department of Education’s latest Equity in Athletics report.
The Office of Postsecondary Education, a branch of the U.S. Department of Education, last week released its report on college athletics budgets for the 2010-11 fiscal year, July 1, 2010 to June 30, 2011. Under the Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act, schools receiving Title IV federal funding and have intercollegiate athletics teams are required to annually submit budget information ranging from individual team operating budgets to recruiting expenses for each gender.
A team’s operating budget includes all aspects of its expenditures except for recruiting, coaches’ salaries and financial aid to players.
Grand Canyon at $167,840, Pepperdine at $92,729, IPFW at $79,956 and Pacific at $74,555 were among the 10 highest operating budgets, but none of these schools finished higher than No. 11 in the national rankings. In addition, all these schools did not qualify for their conference tournament or lost in the opening round.
The 2011 NCAA champions Ohio State finished with the 12th highest operating budget at $72,584.
The Buckeyes, which became the first Midwest school to legal win the NCAA title, also had the fourth lowest operating budget within their conference. In addition, Ohio State men’s volleyball had the third smallest budget of any male sports at its school — only spending more than fencing and gymnastics.
UC Santa Barbara’s operating budget of $65,271 was the lowest of any school in the four-team 2011 NCAA Tournament.
USC led all teams with a $222,751 during the 2010-11 fiscal year and was one of two teams with more than a $200,000 operation budget. The Trojans in 2011 became the first team in since 1996 to be ranked No. 1 throughout the entire regular season, but lost in the NCAA Tournament Semifinals.
Penn State was the only other team to reach the Final Four and be in the top 10 for operating expenses.
The Nittany Lions, which won the EIVA for the 13th consecutive season, were sixth in the nation with a $123,913 operating budget. However, Penn State’s budget exceeded all other EIVA by more than $60,000.
The EIVA had the smallest operating budget conference average of the three major men’s volleyball conferences. Besides Penn State and NJIT, no EIVA school had a larger operating budget than any MIVA or MPSF team.
The latest Equity in Athletics report also revealed that nine athletics departments had larger operating budgets for men’s volleyball than women’s volleyball.
Grand Canyon had the greatest disparity favoring men’s volleyball with the men’s team spending $99,388 more than the women’s volleyball team.
Lewis was second for schools spending more on men’s volleyball with a $38,606 difference, while BYU finished third with a $23,996 difference.
Eighteen of the 27 schools with Division I-II men’s volleyball teams had larger operating budgets of their women’s volleyball team.
Penn State had the greatest difference with its women’s volleyball team having a $346,490 larger operating budget.
Men’s volleyball operation budget
1. USC — $222,751
2. UCLA — $205,859
3. Grand Canyon — $167,840
4. BYU — $137,222
5. Hawai’i — $134,300
6. Penn State — $123,240
7. Stanford — $121,913
8. Pepperdine — $92,729
9. IPFW — $79,956
10. Pacific — $74,555
11. Lewis — $73,500
12. Ohio State — $72,584
13. Ball State — $72,541
14. UC San Diego — $69,486
15. UC Santa Barbara — $65,271
16. NJIT — $62,483
17. Long Beach State — $61,963
18. UC Irvine — $59,725
19. Cal State Northridge — $58,425
20. Quincy — $56,080
21. Loyola — $55,036
22. St. Francis — $54,210
23. George Mason — $54,027
24. Rutgers-Newark — $35,269
25. Harvard — $34,210
26. Princeton — $29,682
27. Sacred Heart — $21,463
Operation budget per player
1. USC — $11,724
2. Grand Canyon — $9,873
3. Penn State — $6,847
4. Hawai’i — $6,715
5. BYU — $6,534
6. Stanford — $6,096
7. Pepperdine — $5,152
8. UCLA — $5,146
9. Ball State — $4,534
10. Pacific — $3,924
11. IPFW — $3,807
12. UC San Diego — $3,657
13. Rutgers-Newark — $3,527
14. Lewis — $3,500
15. Ohio State — $3,456
16. UC Santa Barbara — $3,435
17. NJIT — $3,124
18. Long Beach State — $3,098
19. Harvard — $2,632
20. Loyola — $2,621
21. UC Irvine — $2,597
22. George Mason — $2,573
23. Quincy — $2,337
24. Princeton — $2,120
25. Cal State Northridge — $2,087
26. St. Francis — $2,008
27. Sacred Heart — $1,433
Men’s volleyball operation budget compared to women’s volleyball
1. Grand Canyon — $99,388
2. Lewis — $38,606
3. BYU — $23,996
4. Quincy — $19,874
5. UCLA — $11,805
6. Rutgers-Newark — $10,360
7. St. Francis — $9,117
8. Loyola — $4,365
9. Cal State Northridge — $2,754
10. Pepperdine — -$13,872
11. Harvard — -$15,824
12. NJIT — -$9,535
13. Long Beach State — -$16,019
14. UC Irvine — -$16,382
15. Princeton — -$16,474
16. Ball State — -$17,094
17. IPFW — -$17,512
18. UC San Diego — -$20,764
19. Pacific — -$27,113
20. UC Santa Barbara — -$27,847
21. George Mason — -$30,657
22. Sacred Heart — -$32,243
23. Stanford — -$33,809
24. Hawai’i — -$79,415
25. USC — -$157,046
26. Ohio State — -$169,319
27. Penn state — -$346,490
Do the numbers include coaches’ salaries?
Great question. Coaches salaries are into included. I just updated the story to make that clarification.
Do these numbers including fundraising that the team’s must do?
To our best understanding yes.
I can understand why GC is so high, and has such a difference from their female counterparts. Just look at the travel they must do during the season, due to being in Phoenix and playing in the MIVA conference. If travel expenses are included this is a no brainer that they would have such a high cost to run their program. If they were more localized I am sure that cost would go down greatly.
Great comment Curtis and travel expenses are included.
Is the last table describing the woman’s program expenses, the ‘compared to woman’s program’?
And the UH program must have a ton of $ in it for travel.
Last table compares amount spent on the men’s team to amount spent on the women’s team.
This is great info, but I would think that for many teams, expenditures for recruiting and coaches’ salaries are greater than those other operating expenses.