This summer, when Louisiana State University (LSU) unveiled a freshly renovated 28 million-dollar football operations building with luxury sleeping pods, a swimming pool, a mini-theater and more, they reignited an ongoing discussion about the flow of money in college sports. The flashy updates drew criticism. On the one hand, the football program is extremely competitive; according to USA Today, the LSU athletic department generated more than 145 million dollars during the 2017-2018 season. On the other hand, LSU has thirty thousand students. Spending 28 million on a project that less than 150 students is perhaps absurd and ill-placed.
Smith, a DIII school, probably won’t see spending of the same magnitude. But questions about money in athletics are still worth raising – how does this conversation map onto Smith’s athletic department and financial structure?
Every fiscal year, Smith College releases their financial budget report to the public – a gesture of transparency and perhaps a flex. Smith, after all, has an endowment of over a billion dollars and a strong, generous alumni network. Even so, it’s a good point to jump from when following the paper trail. The budget report is vague; it outlines a general picture of how much money is spent and brought in over the course of the fiscal year. It explicitly states the functional expenses and we can see what was spent on five broad categories: Instruction, Academic Support, Student Services, Auxiliary Enterprises and Institutional Support. Beyond that, we aren’t told more specific information about individual departments or resources at Smith.
Another point that raises questions about money and athletics is through donations that are made directly to the athletic department which can then goes on to specific teams. The athletics department raises money through their own fundraisers, specifically their annual Day of Giving challenge. In their 2019 Summer Newsletter, the athletic department reported raising over ninety-thousand dollars in a single day event. They asked donors to give money over the course of 24 hours in a competitive challenge.
Athletics receives lots of donations – alright…what’s next? Is it enough to produce an actual profit? Is athletics bringing in money for the school? Are we seeing that money? To continue exploring these questions, I reached out to Kristin Hughes, the head of Smith’s Athletic Department with a couple of questions.
Do varsity teams, through donations or any other means, generate a profit? If so, does that money stay within the scope of that specific team?
All of our teams do some level of fundraising, but it is nowhere close to being a profit. The majority of our teams raise money to off-set the cost of training trips. But any money a team raises stays directly with that team.
Is athletics self-sufficient (i.e. have its own governing and financial structure)? Or does athletics receive funding from the college?
Athletics falls under the Dean of the College, and while we have our own organizational chart, we report to that office. So structurally speaking, we function in similar ways to departments like Residential Life and The Wurtele Center for Leadership. We receive funding from the college like every other department which serves as our operating budget.
Smith athletics, as it stands now, doesn’t generate a profit like a large Division I school. The department is baked into our existing financial structure, and that’s alright. Evidently, lucrative athletic departments raise complicated issues about spending, allocating resources, and expectations for players. Smith athletics, for the time being, will remain reasonable and competitive in its own domain.
