Hello and thanks for opening up the NILnomics newsletter. This is the second of three issues on Auburn athletics: nine years of football spending, and how men’s basketball has risen beside it. Did I mention I was on a podcast?
Okay that’s enough of that. Let’s dive in.
The first issue in this series found that Auburn runs the SEC's median athletic department and that it stands apart in two places, severance and student fees and university support. This issue narrows the focus to football and men's basketball and widens the time frame. Using every line of Auburn's NCAA financial reports for FY2017 through FY2025, and the same lines for the other public SEC schools, it follows where Auburn's football money has gone, how the program compares with the rest of the conference, what changing coaches has cost, and how football compares with a men's basketball program that has risen in the conference over the same years.
The reports describe a program whose spending on its current coaches has fallen behind the conference while its spending on former coaches has led it. Auburn's football budget rose 38% over the nine years, from $42.87 million to $59.37 million; among the 14 public SEC schools with reports in both years, the median increase was 70%. Its coaching pay ranked second among public SEC schools in FY2017 and 14th in FY2025. Severance moved the other way: Auburn charged $55.60 million in severance to football over the nine years, the most among the 13 public SEC schools with reports for every year, and in FY2021 and FY2023 it lifted the program's budget to second in the conference.
Through all of it, the program kept clearing money, at or above the conference median in every year but one. Men's basketball moved in the opposite direction. Its coaching pay rose from sixth among public SEC schools to fourth and its revenue from 11th to third, and by FY2025 it ranked higher than football on six of eight measures of spending and revenue.
Nine Years of Football Spending
Auburn spent $476.29 million on football from FY2017 through FY2025. Its budget was above the median among public SEC schools in each of the first eight years and equal to it in FY2025, when it ranked eighth of 15 at $59.37 million.
The two highest rankings came in the years of the coaching changes. In FY2021, the fiscal year in which Auburn dismissed Gus Malzahn, $16.09 million of the football budget's $51.65 million was severance, and the program ranked second among public SEC schools; with severance removed from every school's football budget, it would have ranked seventh. In FY2023, the year of Bryan Harsin's dismissal, severance of $18.56 million made up 26% of the $71.11 million budget, and the program again ranked second rather than eighth. Without severance, Auburn's football budget in both years would have sat at the middle of the conference.
Figure 1. Auburn football operating expenses, with severance shown separately, and the public SEC median, FY2017-FY2025