The Joe Burrow tweet and ensuing discussion on 11W led me to look into the numbers involved at Ohio State in terms of football's contribution to the greater university.
First, some numbers, lifted directly from Ohio State's 2018 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, found here
Total university operating revenue: $5.2 billion
Of that number, $1 billion was tuition and fees, $700 million was grants, $3.1 billion was hospital revenue, and $500 million was from other miscellaneous sources.
Total university non-operating revenue: $1.2 billion
Included in this is $475 million in state tuition share and appropriations, $440 million in investment income, $168 million in gifts (gifts to the athletic department are included in athletic revenue, this $168 isn't from football), and $109 million in miscellaneous small items.
Now, the athletic department numbers. Those aren't separately stated in the CAFR, so I had to poke around online, and the most recent I could find were from the 2016-2017 fiscal year. 1 year earlier than the comparison numbers above, but acceptable for the purposes of this discussion.
Total athletic revenue: $185 million
Total athletic expenses: $173 million
I couldn't find anything that tells me what happened with the $12 million surplus, whether it was transferred elsewhere or that cash stayed in the athletic department. Cleveland.com has pretty good detail on the sources and uses of athletic department revenue for the year prior, it's worth a look.
So what does this all mean?
$185 million seems like a large number, but over 90% of that is spent on athletics. Total athletic revenue equates to 20% of tuition and fees, 26% of grants, 42% of investment income, and a mere 6% of hospital revenue. These percentages are based on the gross revenue, the $12 million (even if it's transferred to help elsewhere) seems extremely miniscule.
The value in Ohio State's football program is not in the money it adds to the university mission so much as it: 1 - does not require subsidy from the university (plenty of big programs do) and 2 - the football program funds a bevy of other non-revenue sports. The football program does not appear to "bring in" any significant funds to the university. From a monetary perspective, Ohio State is a hospital with a college attached to it (the hospital generated a $400 million surplus for 2018).
Overall, the university had a $1 billion surplus (also known as profit) for the 2018 year. 1.2% of this was from the athletic department. While Ohio State does have one of the largest athletic departments in the country, it's dwarfed by the university's education, research, and hospital functions. The benefit is of a recreational nature and any assumption that it moves the needle at Ohio State is flawed.
Thoughts?
