Talk about eye-opening.
This is an excerpt from a much larger article that is definitely worth a read. It includes a 10-minute video interview with UofL Athletic Director Tom Jurich, the architect of much of this success.
From last Sunday's Louisville Courier-Journal:
When the U.S. Department of Education released its annual revenue and expense figures for college sports last month, the University of Louisville’s totals lit up the scoreboard.
For the fiscal year that ended in June, U of L reported $87.74 million in athletic revenue, ranking 16th in NCAA Division I, the organization's classification for its largest schools. And for the first time in this government index, which was created to monitor gender equity statistics among schools, U of L’s revenue exceeded that of the University of Kentucky.
More surprising, perhaps, was that U of L’s $40.89 million in reported men’s basketball revenue was nearly $12 million more than the next-closest competitor, Duke, and surpassed the revenues of all but 19 major football programs.
The numbers, which got a minor boost from one-time donations related to the new KFC YUM! Center and Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium expansion, are testimony to the earning potential of new facilities and luxury suites, and clearly put the program into a new financial neighborhood.
In fact, U of L is one of only two programs in the top 20 in revenue that are not a part of the Southeastern, Big 12, Pac-12, Big Ten or Atlantic Coast conferences. The other is Notre Dame, which is independent in football.
