The Texas Tech athletics department budget for fiscal year 2024 that ended on Aug. 31 returned, as expected, to a more normal range after a one-year outlier related to the major Texas Tech football facilities project .
In its annual revenue-and-expense report filed to the NCAA in January, Tech showed total operating revenues of $126,783,038 and total operating expenses of $126,712,428. The surplus was $70,610.
In the same categories the year before , Tech reported total operating revenues of $146,807,939, a record for the department, and total operating expenses of $136,364,850 for a surplus $10,443,089.
The biggest reason for the sharp increase came in contributions the department realized — $56.25 million in fiscal 2023 compared to $28.75 million in fiscal 2022 and $32.28 in fiscal 2024. That stemmed largely from Tech rolling multiple years of contributions that had been placed into interest-bearing accounts into the 2023 fiscal year to pay down debt.
"The fact that we've had a revenue surplus — even though this year is a little smaller than other years — is a testament to, hopefully, the way we're approaching everything, given everything that we have on our plate," Tech deputy athletics director Jonathan Botros said in mid-February. "So I think we're really happy with it and know that there's got to be a lot of major adjustments in the coming year."
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The Tech athletics operating budget reached nine figures for the first time in fiscal 2022 at $110.2 million. The operating budget for fiscal 2025 that started in September is $128.97 million.
Schools nationwide are preparing for a new era of revenue sharing. If the House v. NCAA settlement proposal receives final approval in April, the terms would go into effect July 1. Athletics departments could then begin directly paying their athletes a little more than $20 million per year.
Tech athletics director Kirby Hocutt said last spring Tech will participate to the full amount and detailed in December how Tech plans to allocate revenue sharing.
Examining Texas Tech athletics revenue in fiscal 2024
Tech's biggest sources of operating revenue in fiscal year 2024 included $36.859 million in media rights, NCAA distributions, conference distributions and conference distributions of football bowl revenue; $32.283 million in contributions; $17.059 million in royalties, licensing and advertising/sponsorships; and $16.753 million in ticket sales.
The university also subsidized athletics with $8.26 million in indirect institutional support for athletics facilities debt service and $6.513 million in direct institutional support. Indirect institutional support is the value of services provided to an institution that an athletics department is not charged for.
Though revenue sharing has not yet started, Tech President Lawrence Schovanec alluded to it in October when he explained the willingness to provide athletics more institutional support than in the past several years.
In an interview with The Avalanche-Journal, he said, "I think if any unit on this campus was facing a 20-something-percent cut in their revenue, we would have to look at how we might respond, and we will in this case, especially when you consider the market value of athletics."
Ticket sales revenue declined from $18.213 million in fiscal year 2023, and Tech's share of conference distributions of football bowl revenue decreased from $11.762 million in fiscal 2023 to $7.538 million in fiscal 2024.
Lacy Needham, Tech senior associate athletics director and chief financial officer, attributed the decline in ticket revenue to the Red Raiders ' having one less home football game than the year before. She noted conference distributions were affected by new Big 12 members BYU, Central Florida, Cincinnati and Houston receiving partial shares.
The Tech football and baseball programs' operating budgets decreased by several million dollars each, both largely attributable to the one-year anomaly in spending on facilities. Football operating revenue went from $80.87 million in fiscal 2023 to $72.54 million in fiscal 2024. Needham cited the one less home game of ticket revenue, the decrease in contributions from the outlier year and receiving the smaller portion of Big 12 distributions.
Baseball operating revenue went from $10.59 million in fiscal 2023, when about $5 million in contributions were activated to pay on the new Tech baseball team facility, to $4.14 million in fiscal 2024.
Breaking down Texas Tech athletics' expenses in fiscal 2024
The biggest expenses on the operating budget were $49.054 million in compensation, split almost equally between coaching salaries, benefits and bonuses and support staff/administration pay, benefits and bonuses. Other major expenses were $12.924 million in direct overhead and administrative costs; $12.208 million in athletics facilities debt service, leases and rental fees; $9.422 million in team travel; and $7.945 million in scholarships.
Needham, hired in May after she spent six years at Arkansas, said the department has spent months looking at ways to cut costs.
"We've been doing an expense management review since the fall," she said, "meeting with all of our departments in sports to look at ways to be more cost efficient, strategically source, be more cost effective but still achieve the goals we're trying to achieve. So it's been very helpful as we head into budget development in the coming months."
The financial report was obtained by The Avalanche-Journal and USA TODAY Sports through an open-records request in partnership with the Knight-Newhouse Data project at Syracuse University. The figures contained are not adjusted for inflation.
Texas Tech sport-by-sport breakdown on fiscal year 2024 revenue and expenses
Sports listed in order by total operating revenues.
∎ Football
Revenues:$72,540,767. Expenses:$44,042,646. Net:$28,478,131.
∎ Men's basketball
Revenues:$15,593,072. Expenses:$13,086,403. Net:$2,506,669.
∎ Baseball
Revenues:$4,136,422. Expenses:$7,184,846. Net:$3,048,424 loss.
∎ Women's basketball
Revenues:$2,430,444. Expenses:$6,784,623. Net:$4,354,179 loss.
∎ Soccer
Revenues:$862,181. Expenses:$3,126,664. Net:$2,264,483 loss.
∎ Men's track and field/cross country
Revenues:$803,870. Expenses:$3,803,853. Net:$2,999,983 loss.
∎ Women's track and field/cross country
Revenues:$717,044. Expenses:$3,898,170. Net:$3,181,126 loss.
∎ Softball
Revenues:$586,226. Expenses:$3,621,441. Net:$3,035,215 loss.
∎ Volleyball
Revenues:$308,151. Expenses:$1,866,250. Net:$1,558,099.
∎ Men's golf
Revenues:$186,866. Expenses:$1,511,858. Net:$1,324,992 loss.
∎ Women's golf
Revenues:$197,594. Expenses:$1,155,725. Net:$958,131 loss.
∎ Men's tennis
Revenues:$161,848. Expenses:$937,642. Net:$775,794 loss.
∎ Women's tennis
Revenues:$138,587. Expenses:$1,091,340. Net:$952,753 loss.
∎ Non program-specific
Revenues:$28,119,966. Expenses:$34,580,967. Net:$6,461,001 loss.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Texas Tech breaks even on expected lower athletics budget in fiscal 2024
