Hello and thanks for opening up the NILnomics newsletter. This is the third of four issues on Auburn athletics - this week the focus is on baseball and the Olympic sports. Let’s dive in.
Auburn reports 17 teams to the NCAA. In FY2025, two of them, football and men's basketball, brought in more than they spent. The other 15 did not. The first two issues in this series examined the department as a whole, the football program, and a men's basketball program that reached the Final Four. This issue turns to the other 15: baseball, which reached the College World Series in 2019 and 2022 and hosted NCAA super regionals at Plainsman Park in 2025 and 2026, and 14 Olympic and other non-revenue teams that range from women's basketball and gymnastics to golf, swimming and diving, and track and field.
Using Auburn's NCAA financial reports for FY2017 through FY2025, and the same reports for the other public SEC schools, the issue asks what Auburn spends on these teams and where that spending ranks, what the money buys, what the teams bring in, and who pays for the difference. FY2025, which ended on June 30, 2025, is the last fiscal year before the first full year of the House settlement. The settlement removed the NCAA's scholarship limits, a change that matters most for teams such as baseball, which had been limited to 11.7 scholarships.
On spending, the answers describe the same department the first issue found, one that sits close to the middle of the public SEC schools. Auburn's baseball budget, $7.57 million in FY2025, ranked ninth among the 15 public SEC schools, just below the median, and 11th among the 182 public Division I programs in the NILnomics panel, and it grew 87% over the nine years, the same rate as the public SEC median. Spending on the other 14 teams, $44.30 million, ranked sixth and has tracked the median since FY2017. Within those totals, Auburn has made distinct choices. Its golf, women's tennis, and swimming and diving budgets rank near the top among public SEC schools. Its track and field and women's basketball budgets are near the bottom, and across these sports it spends more than the median program on athletic aid and less on coaches. Where Auburn departs from its public SEC peers is in what these teams bring in. On the reported figures, Auburn baseball lost $33.64 million over the nine years, more than any other public SEC program. In FY2025 the other 14 teams ranked 13th among public SEC schools in ticket revenue. Football and men's basketball, which cleared $440.71 million over the same period, covered the 15 teams' combined deficit of $305.75 million.
Baseball in the SEC
College baseball's money is concentrated in the SEC. In FY2025, the seven largest public Division I baseball budgets all belonged to SEC programs, led by Tennessee's $13 million, and public SEC schools held 13 of the 20 largest; Clemson, eighth at $7.88 million, had the largest public budget outside the conference. Every public SEC program ranked among the 30 largest public budgets. SEC teams won each of the seven Men's College World Series held from 2019 through 2026, most recently Oklahoma, whose FY2025 budget, $6.60 million, ranked 11th among public SEC schools.
Figure 1. Baseball operating expenses, the 20 largest among public Division I programs, FY2025
Auburn's budget sits in the middle of that group. Its $7.57 million ranked ninth among public SEC schools, just below the median of $7.59 million, and 11th among public Division I programs. Over nine years, Auburn's baseball spending rose 87%, from $4.04 million in FY2017, the same rate as the median among the 14 public SEC schools with reports in both years, which rose from $4.06 million to $7.58 million. Six of those schools increased their budgets faster. Tennessee's grew the most, from $3.38 million to $13 million, an increase of 284%. Tennessee won the national championship in 2024, and LSU, whose $10.99 million was the second-largest public budget in FY2025, won in 2023 and 2025.
Figure 2. Baseball operating expenses, public SEC schools, FY2017 and FY2025
Auburn's results have come on that median budget. The program reached the College World Series in 2019 and 2022, as the first issue in this series noted, on budgets that ranked eighth and seventh among public SEC schools. In 2025, under Butch Thompson, its head coach since the 2016 season, it earned the No. 4 national seed and hosted its first super regional at Plainsman Park, which it lost to Coastal Carolina. It returned as the No. 4 national seed in 2026 and again hosted a regional and a super regional, losing the super regional to Ole Miss.