Softball Budget for last year
Matt Brown from Extra Points regularly obtains financial data from public schools "by filing tons of Open Records Requests to obtain each school’s FY25 MFRS Report. This is an itemized budget report sent to the NCAA each year, and while imperfect, it is the closest thing we have to a standardized budget dataset in college sports." It does not include info from private schools or from schools located in states that limit open records laws (for example, Pittsburgh and Delaware).
Matt emphatically points out that "this data does NOT cover athlete payroll, House settlement payments, NIL, etc. This data comes from the Total Operating Expenses line item on the report. That includes coach and staff salaries, coach buyout and severance packages, recruiting spending, team travel, food, software costs, buy games, and everything that goes into running a program BESIDES athlete payments."
"This data also comes from FY25, or July 1, 2024-June 30, 2025. That means this data would be for the 2025 college softball season, when Texas defeated Texas Tech."
Matt was able to calculate the average budgets for teams that earned at-large bids to the NCAA tournament, teams that won their conference tournaments (and therefore got an automatic invite), as well as teams that did not qualify for the NCAA tournament,
Teams that received at-large bids averaged an expense budget of $3.7 million (28 teams)
Teams that won their conference tourneys and got the auto bid averaged $1.7 million (15 teams)
Teams that did not qualify for the NCAA tournament averaged $1.0 million (138 teams)
Below are the operating budgets from top 55 teams from his database. The good news is that Virginia Tech is ranked #26, spending $3,054,356. The bad news is that Clemson spent $4,313,465 and FSU spent $3,785,339. The numbers from Duke are not available.
School FY25 Reported Operating Budget
University of Oklahoma.....................$7,724,358
University of Tennessee, Knoxville...$5,807,620
University of Nebraska-Lincoln........$4,631,302
Texas A&M University, College Station..$4,490,934
University of Florida........................$4,481,513
Clemson University - #6.........................................$4,313,465
University of Washington...............$4,296,701
University of Texas at Austin.........$4,048,926
University of Oregon.....................$4,007,540
University of South Carolina, Columbia $3,970,575
University of California, Los Angeles $3,945,889
University of Alabama................$3,887,893
University of Mississippi............$3,854,656
Louisiana State University.........$3,786,974
Florida State University - #15.........................$3,785,339
Texas Tech University................$3,772,933
University of Missouri, Columbia....$3,658,487
Auburn University...........................$3,656,063
Oklahoma State University.............$3,653,489
University of Arkansas, Fayetteville..$3,608,958
Mississippi State University.............$3,289,586
University of Georgia......................$3,278,703
University of Michigan....................$3,207,711
University of Arizona......................$3,148,855
University of Kentucky...................$3,109,448
Virginia Tech - #26...........................................$3,054,356
Arizona State University $3,021,775
University of Central Florida $2,915,988
University of Kansas $2,687,838
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick $2,592,237
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities $2,584,783
Pennsylvania State University $2,563,528
Indiana University, Bloomington $2,506,011
The Ohio State University $2,498,704
University of Utah $2,405,324
University of Wisconsin-Madison $2,375,936
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign $2,355,118
University of Iowa $2,349,230
University of California, Berkeley $2,328,572
University of Virginia - #40......................................$2,319,454
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill - #41.......$2,303,867
Purdue University $2,275,642
North Carolina State University - #43....................$2,235,286
University of Louisiana at Lafayette $2,143,936
Boise State University $2,133,240
Michigan State University $2,131,447
Wichita State University $2,093,987
Iowa State University $2,064,498
James Madison University - #49..............$1,923,736
Colorado State University $1,907,858
Oregon State University $1,901,150
San Diego State University $1,863,959
Texas State University $1,818,247
University of Maryland, College Park......$1,790,898
University of Louisville - #55...................$1,779,642
** Edited by VTChip at 4/2/2026, 12:48:20 PM
20 Replies
4mo
top funded programs in the country? I am honestly surprised VT is in the top 30 on this list.
(In response to this post by VTChip)
4mo
can help fund other sports, and that gap will only grow.
(In response to this post by VTChip)
V
VTScoop
4mo
begin until July 1, 2025. So the 2026 softball season will be the first playing season for with that. You should see all of the House expenses in these budgets moving forward. Certainly, AT THE MINIMUM, you will see the scholarship portion of the house settlement (Revenue Sharing) included, as budgets do include the scholarship dollars attributed to each sport. And almost all sports (with the exception of men's and women's hoops and football) had their House Settlement/Rev Share payments in the form of scholarships (if the sport got additional scholarships). A few schools shrunk the amount of women's hoops Rev Share and added a little to baseball (not here at VT but some others have done that). But I think all Revenue sharing costs (whether cash or scholarship) will be reflected in said sports budgets starting with the next FY reporting.
For the difference in some of these budgets, it can be as simple as two or three in state athletes instead of out of state athletes on a roster (or vice versa), simple game day operations expenses, or even one more flight trip in a year versus another. Scheduling with these massive leagues now, by itself, could swing a budget by several hundred thousand.
Also, looking at Mississippi State as 21st in those budgets, for example, they spent roughly $200K more than us. In looking at their home schedule (as an example), they play 28 home games compared to 13 for VT. So, their game day operations costs could easily bridge that $200K. And I am not here stirring up VT's gameday experience versus other schools :-). Just wanted to share some food for thought on some of these things when it can swing a few hundred thousand from one year to the next.
** Edited by VTScoop at 4/2/2026, 2:47:33 PM
(In response to this post by VTChip)
V
VTScoop
4mo
Operating Revenue for softball for FY 25 was $517,005. The four biggest sources of the revenue:
Contributions $235,434
Royalties, Licensing, Advertisement, Sponsorships $195,586
In Kind $12,769
Concessions/Novelty $23,665
VT Softball had a reported 22 participants (officially on the roster).
(In response to this post by VTScoop)
G
GBOHokie
4mo
Every game. Raise the concessions
Overall, that’s more than I expected.
(In response to this post by VTScoop)
4mo
One are of concern (and one year doesn't make a trend), is that FSU and Clemson increased their spending pretty significantly from 2024 to 2025
(In response to this post by VTChip)
4mo
(In response to this post by VTChip)
2
2hhoop3
4mo
For me, Louisville at $1.779MM was a surprise. The MFRS reports are useful but, people need to keep in mind what they do and do not include and that they are really an order of magnitude tool versus a finely sliced and diced report. Thanks for the info!
(In response to this post by VTChip)
4mo
Both Clemson and FSU increased their spending last year by 20% and 10%, respectfully, while the VT spending went down 10%
Of course, the big unknown is NIL, which is not in these numbers.
(In response to this post by 2hhoop3)
4mo
Klempsun. Thanks again Babcock. Fund sports no one gives a rats ass about!!
(In response to this post by VTChip)
4mo
And the student athletes that worked hard to earn a scholarship
(In response to this post by ancient alien 2018)
S
Stech
4mo
it’s impact would be almost negligible. Near the bottom of the list, if not the bottom. Not to mention one of our biggest if not the biggest donors of all time paid to renovate the golf course. Plus many alumni and fans use the golf course for reunions, meetings, celebrations and fundraisers. Consequently, you need to keep the golf course in great condition, and one of the ways to do that is to get feedback from the coaches that use other courses around the country.
I think Whit needed to retire last year, and I am okay with cutting some sports with high expenses, but golf isn’t one of them by far and away.
(In response to this post by ancient alien 2018)
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2hhoop3
4mo
You have to understand what a sport really costs before any decision is made to cut it. That calculation is not just a straight forward bottom line calculation.
(In response to this post by ancient alien 2018)
4mo
percentage of the sport's budget is scholarships, and that's a cost that can be saved.
Eliminate OOS tuition like the NC legislature did 4 years ago, and that frees up several million for all sports.
(In response to this post by 2hhoop3)
2
2hhoop3
4mo
if a nonrev's scholarship limit is fully endowed scholarships are bottom line neutral. Moreover, the donor(s) that endowed them likely give more and cutting a sport might be revenue negative versus bottom line neutral. The foregoing is before you begin to measure the soft costs. I have said it before and will say it again now. The time to decide on a sport is BEFORE it is created. A later decision to cut a sport is a far more complicated calculation and decision. Eliminating OOS tuition is a policy decision at the state level and an indirect tax on state residents to fund athletics. Yes, it would be nice if the playing fields were leveled between states, however, I am not sure that eliminating OOS tuition is the most equitable or efficient mechanism to accomplish that and I know it is not the most fair to tax paying residents of a state.
(In response to this post by ancient alien 2018)
4mo
Wasn’t that the AZ trip? Not that it’d make that huge of a difference but…?
(In response to this post by VTChip)
4mo
(In response to this post by VTChip)
4mo
time before the NIL takes over.
(In response to this post by william floyd)