The University of Michigan Athletic Department expects a budget surplus of $2.5 million for the 2017-18 fiscal year, and projects a $2.5 million surplus in the 2018-19 fiscal year.
Warde Manuel, the Donald R. Shepherd Director of Athletics, presented the year-end financials and the budget for the coming year to the Board of Regents on June 21.
For FY ’18, which ends June 30, the department anticipates an operating surplus of $2.5 million based on operating revenues of $188.1 million and operating expenses of $185.6 million.
Looking ahead to FY ’19, the athletic department projects an operating surplus of $2.5 million based on operating revenues of $187.8 million and projected expenses of $185.3 million.
The FY ’18 operating budget saw higher than expected revenues primarily due to an unbudgeted football program video series and preferred seating contributions that were made early as a result of a change in tax law. Expenses were higher than projected due to an increase in team and game expenses, and increases to both the deferred maintenance fund transfer and transfer to the university.
Highlights of the budget, presented by Manuel, include the following:
• Student season ticket prices will include a need-based discount based on federal Pell Grant eligibility in football, men’s basketball and ice hockey for a fourth straight season.
• Football ticket sale revenues are projected to increase year-over-year due to a seven-game home schedule this fall (compared to six games last year).
• Conference distributions are projected to increase slightly to $52.1 million in FY ’19, from $51 million in FY ’18, due mostly to an increase in conference television revenues.
• Other revenues are projected to decrease to $7.9 million in FY ’19 from $15.8 million in FY ’18 because of game guarantee revenue associated with a neutral-site football game as well as the completion of a football program video series in FY ’18.
• Included in operating expenses is an $800,000 increase due to hosting a professional soccer game.
• A projected FY ’19 decrease in deferred maintenance fund transfer is due to timing differences related to the transfer of funds. The FY ’18 fund transfer was $1 million more than projected for the same reason. The fund is used as a means to provide for major repair and rehabilitation projects for athletic facilities. The athletic department expects to set aside additional funds in future years for this purpose.
• The department anticipates a transfer to the university of $5.8 million in FY ’19. The FY ’18 numbers include an increase from a projected $7.375 million transfer to $9.1 million. The department has steadily increased its transfer, contributing $3.825 million as recently as FY ’17.
Michigan was one of six schools from the Bowl Subdivision to earn a multiyear score of 990 or greater in the sport of football in the NCAA’s Academic Progress Rate report last school year. Additionally, U-M is the nation’s only FBS school to record at least a 990 in football and a 995 in men’s basketball. U-M extends its standing as the only school to achieve the aforementioned marks in addition to a perfect score of 1,000 in women’s basketball.
Further, Michigan is the only Big Ten Conference institution to earn APR recognition awards in both football and men’s basketball, with men’s basketball now having earned the award in seven straight years. U-M had 10 Public Recognition Awards for ranking among the top 10 percent of their respective sports in the most recent multiyear APR report.
Through June 14, a total of 37 student-athletes earned first-team All-America honors during the year with a total of 73 All-America selections in all. Michigan had 54 student-athletes earn All-Big Ten first team honors with 33 student-athletes winning individual conference titles.
A record 358 student-athletes were named Academic All-Big Ten Conference compared to 290 in the previous year. Cross country and track and field’s Erin Finn, and men’s swimmer P.J. Ransford were U-M’s recipients of the Big Ten Medal of Honor.
Ransford was further honored as the Google Cloud CoSIDA Academic All-American of the Year for the Division I Men’s At-Large team. Ransford, wrestler Adam Coon and men’s soccer’s Ivo Cerda earned Academic All-America honors, bringing Michigan’s all-time total to 134 Academic All-Americans.
In the community, Michigan student-athletes worked in collaboration with numerous local nonprofit organizations.
A few of the student-led initiatives included the weekly visits with patients at C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital, local elementary schools, Michigan Buddies mentoring program within Ann Arbor Public Schools, and Lunch with a Wolverine for elementary school children, in addition to programs with Wounded Warriors and Adopt-A-Classroom.
The Wolverines recorded top-10 national finishes in the Directors’ Cup standings in 12 sports: men’s basketball (2), women’s cross country (9), men’s cross country (10), field hockey (3), men’s gymnastics (7), men’s ice hockey (3), women’s rowing (7), men’s swimming and diving (8), women’s swimming and diving (4), men’s tennis (9), women’s water polo (5) and wrestling (4), in addition to five other top-25 finishes.
At the Big Ten level, Michigan earned championships in seven sports: men’s cross country, women’s cross country, field hockey, women’s gymnastics, men’s soccer, softball, and women’s swimming and diving. The university also won conference tournament titles in men’s basketball, field hockey and women’s tennis and the women’s gymnastics regular-season crown. In addition, the U-M water polo team won the Collegiate Water Polo Association championship.
