Hello and thanks for opening up the NILnomics newsletter. This is the first of three issues on Auburn athletics, and it starts with the department as a whole. Let’s dive in.
Three recent issues of NILnomics examined the University of Arkansas' athletics budget: how the department divides its money between football and men's basketball, where those dollars rank in the SEC, and which teams pay for the others. This issue applies the same analysis to Auburn.
Auburn's 2024-25 athletic year was uneven. Men's basketball reached the Final Four, men's track and field finished third at the NCAA indoor championships and fourth outdoors, and baseball reached a super regional. Football finished 5-7. Across all sports, Auburn placed 19th in the Learfield Directors' Cup, which awards points for national postseason finishes in each sport, and ninth among SEC schools. In November 2025, Auburn dismissed Hugh Freeze, the third head football coach it has dismissed since December 2020, with a buyout reported at about $15.8 million.
This issue asks four questions of Auburn's NCAA financial reports.
How much does the department earn and spend, where does the money come from, and where does it rank in the SEC?
How is the budget divided among teams, and which teams pay for the others?
How do the teams' results compare with what Auburn spends on them?
And what has the department paid to change coaches?
The answers describe a department that sits at the middle of the SEC on almost every measure. Auburn's FY2025 revenue of $205.93 million and expenses of $203.85 million each ranked eighth among the 15 public SEC schools, exactly the conference median, and its $59.37 million football budget was the median as well. Its results across all sports were close to the middle too, and three of its teams finished well ahead of their budgets. Men's basketball reached the Final Four on the sixth-largest budget among the public Sweet 16 teams, and baseball reached the College World Series in 2019 and 2022 with budgets that ranked eighth and seventh in the conference.
Two lines in the reports, however, are far from the median. From FY2021 through FY2025, Auburn reported $60.03 million in severance payments to coaches and staff it no longer employed, the most among the 175 public Division I schools with reports for all five years. Over those five years, severance cost Auburn more than any of its teams except football and men's basketball. Over the nine years in the data, Auburn also received $110.12 million in student fees and university support, more than any other public SEC school.
The SEC's Median Athletic Department
Auburn's fiscal year runs from October through September, so FY2025 covers October 2024 through September 2025. In that year Auburn reported $205.93 million in operating revenue and $203.85 million in operating expenses, a margin of $2.08 million. Both totals ranked eighth among the 15 public SEC schools, exactly the conference median, and the margin ranked seventh, just above the median of $1.31 million. Revenue ranged from $164.68 million at Mississippi State to $352.55 million at Texas.
Figure 1. Total operating revenue, public SEC schools, FY2025
The middle of the conference is a familiar position for Auburn. Over the nine years in the data, its revenue rank has ranged from seventh to 11th, and it has been the exact median in four of them: FY2020, FY2022, FY2023 and FY2025. Its revenue grew 40% over the period, from $147.49 million to $205.93 million, the same rate as the conference median. In no year did Auburn's revenue differ from the median by more than $9.37 million, the shortfall in FY2021; it was $8.93 million below the median in FY2024 and within $2.17 million of it in every other year.
Figure 2. Total operating revenue, Auburn and the public SEC median and range, FY2017-FY2025