UCLA Athletic Department Financials Disappoint Under Chianti Dan

USA Today is out with a report on college athletics financials, and once again, Chianti Dan's performance does not justify his outsized salary, with the school reporting sharply rising expenditures, even as the total revenues are down from 2008 and 2009 along with contributions, while-on-the-field performance in revenue sports is also down.

Out the window of Mack Brown's office sits the sixth-largest stadium in college football, empty and quiet on a warm spring morning but the center of the Texas universe, packing in 100,000-plus, on game days in the fall.

Big is good in this state. Bigger is better still. A short walk away is a 20,000-square-foot weight room and an equally recruiting-friendly, state-of-the-art locker room complete with gaming stations and a nutrition bar. Brown, himself, is one of the highest-paid coaches in his sport — at better than $5 million a year, pulling down more than four NCAA Division I schools spend on their entire athletics program.

"The thing you know at the University of Texas," he says, "is that you're going to be able to have the best of the best and you're going to have it on a yearly basis. … I wouldn't swap with anybody."

And as we've pointed out before (in case the clueless Morgan Center types don't get it) football success means lots of money for everything else -- including a $6 million dollar payment to the school's academic programs:

Football merely fronts the largesse. In the past three years, USA TODAY Sports' annual analysis of college athletics finances shows, no college athletics program has out-earned or outspent the colossus that is Texas.

The Longhorns took in a little more than $150 million in 2010-11, the most recent year for which public schools' filings with the NCAA are available. That outdistanced second-place Ohio State by $18.5 million. The 'Horns' outlay for football and 19 other varsity sports was $133.7 million, almost $11.5 million more than Ohio State put into its 36 teams.

Texas' program is one of only 22 across Division I that operate in the black — it generated enough revenue to cover athletics expenses — an increasingly touchy issue in times of shrinking state allocations and economic stress in higher education. Moreover, the Longhorns kicked $6 million back to the school's academic side a year ago.

At UCLA, total revenue for 2011 was $66,003,893, up from 2010, but down from 2008 and 2009. Expenses are up sharply from 2010. Interestingly, the school is reporting that it spend exactly the same as it brought in for for every year from 2007-2011, suggesting that there is some creative bookkeeping occurring.

The total subsidy for 2011 is $2,587,439, of which $60,000 is from school funds, the remaining amount is student fees. Contributions were $7,808,406 in 2011, down sharply from 2009 and 2010. On the expenses side, coaching staff expenses were $24,699,821, while "other expenses" were $24,429,080.

For contrast, Texas had $0 in student fees and $0 in school funds. Total revenue at Texas increased every year from 2006-2011, with 2011 revenue at $150,295,926. Interestingly, Texas's contributions have also gone up nearly every year.

Ohio State also has had no student fees or school funds and continued increases in revenue although the Buckeyes have had to deal with a decrease in contributions.

UCLA has now dropped to 34th in revenue. As we previously noted in our facilities series, UCLA was 25th in revenue for 2007-2008:

In 2007-2008, UCLA's athletic department was 25th in revenue, with $66 million, putting the Bruins' revenue ahead of Cal (28), Minnesota (29), Washington (33), Oregon (36), Louisville (44), North Carolina State (55), and TCU (57) all schools that are upgrading or have significantly upgraded their facilities. Additionally, with significant Pac-12 revenues arriving in the near future, and a huge and successful alumni base, money is absolutely not a legitimate excuse.

Now, Louisville (15) Oregon (17), Minnesota (23) Washington (30), have passed UCLA in revenue, and all have improved their rankings in revenue, while UCLA's revenue ranking has decreased. Another Chianti Dan failure, and just one more reason among many why Chianti Dan needs to go.