University of Kentucky athletics revenue 2022: UK 16th in FBS, football expenses climbing
LEXINGTON, Ky. — The Kentucky athletics department's revenues and expenses in fiscal year 2022 ranked among the highest in the nation in both categories, according to data collected by USA TODAY in partnership with the Knight-Newhouse Data project at Syracuse University.
UK had revenues of $159,079,024 for FY2022, which ranked 16th nationally among public Power 5 schools. (Private schools, such as Vanderbilt and Northwestern, are not required to disclose their spending.) But that was seventh most among public SEC universities, trailing Alabama (No. 3 nationally, $214.4 million), Georgia (No. 5, $203 million), LSU (No. 6, $199.3 million), Texas A&M (No. 7, $193.1 million), Florida (No. 8, $190.4 million) and Auburn (No. 11, $174.6 million).
Texas ($239.3 million) and Oklahoma ($177.3 million), which will join the SEC in 2024, ranked second and 10th, respectively, in total revenue. Ohio State was the country's leader at $251.6 million.
UK ranked slightly higher (13th) nationally in expenses with a total of $153.6 million. That total also put it seventh in the conference pecking order behind Alabama (No. 3, $195,881,911), LSU (No. 5, $192.8 million), Texas A&M (No. 6, $177.7 million), Florida (No. 8, $174.4 million), Georgia (No. 10, $169 million) and Tennessee (No. 11, $157.1 million).
Future SEC mates Texas and Oklahoma once again were top 10 nationally in expenses, too, with UT at No. 2 ($225.2 million) and OU at No. 7 ($176 million).
Here are other takeaways about Kentucky's revenues and expenses in context of its FY2022 report:
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Kentucky increasing football spending ... but still not keeping up with the Joneses in the SEC
According to the data from the Knight-Newhouse project, Kentucky spent slightly more than $27 million on football (defined as total operating expenses, which includes cost of student aid) in 2017 when adjusted to 2022 dollars.
Five years later, UK had increased its football spending 35% to more than $36 million in FY2022. In comparison, the median percent increase among all public FBS schools during that five-year stretch was 18%. It also was 12 percentage points higher than the SEC median of 23% from 2017 to 2022.
Football spending at UK still lags well behind other public universities in the conference except only Missouri ($32.8 million) and Mississippi State ($29.1 million). The median football spending for public SEC schools in 2022 was a shade more than $47 million. That figure only will continue to rise once Oklahoma and Texas join the fray.
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UK bounces back from COVID-affected reductions
The coronavirus pandemic hindered athletics departments across the country throughout 2020 and 2021.
But UK's FY2022 report shows operating revenues are nearly all the way back to where they were in the last year not affected by the pandemic: 2019.
Kentucky's FY2022 revenue of $159.08 million is almost identical to FY2019 inflation-adjusted revenue of $159.45 million.
Kentucky paying down debt at a pace far exceeding conference rivals
One area where UK athletics has shined the past five years is making strides paying down debt on facilities, leases and other rental fees.
In 2017, Kentucky had more than $10 million in debt. In FY2022, that figure stood at just less than $6.6 million, a 35% decrease. That's markedly better than the SEC and FBS schools as a whole. The median SEC public school's debt decreased 4% from 2017 to 2022, while public universities across the nation saw debt rise 1% from FY2017 to FY2022.
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Reach Kentucky men’s basketball and football reporter Ryan Black at rblack@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter at @RyanABlack.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Kentucky football 2022 spending 11th in SEC: See NCAA financial data
