Big Ten athletic department losing $78 million

The Big Ten is emerging as the new powerhouse of college sports following Indiana’s national championship win, which marked the conference’s third national title in football in a row. After Indiana’s win, noted SEC “homer” Paul Finebaum even conceded that the Big Ten was the top conference in the sport.

“The Big Ten is the best conference in the country. We congratulate coach Cignetti, Indiana, and the Big Ten, for an extraordinary run,” Finebaum said, according to Awful Announcing.

However, the Big Ten’s success hasn’t quite trickled down to all of its members, per a recent report from NJ.com.

“The ledger shows a $47.2 million shortfall. When added to the $7 million subsidized from the school’s general budget, $8 million from the state budget and $15.8 million in student fees, the department’s deficit reached a record $78 million. It brings Rutgers’ athletics deficit to $516.9 million since joining the Big Ten in 2014-15,” reported Keith Sargeant.

“We do in fact have a revenue problem and a pretty significant one.”

Keli Zinn, Rutgers’ athletic director since late July, is well aware that things need to improve.

“Regardless how we slice this thing, it’s got to get better,” Zinn said.

“You could make the argument that we do not have an expense problem, but we do in fact have a revenue problem and a pretty significant one,” she acknowledged.

Still, Zinn remains optimistic in the face of the dire circumstances she has inherited.

“I think you’ll see a good level of growth in that category in the years ahead‚” she said. “That’s a combination of inventory we already have available to sell that has not been sold. And then certainly when you layer that in with some brand and marketing strategy that’s attractive to corporations and companies, all that comes together to create a much better picture there.”

If the Big Ten is looking to return to its Midwest roots, there’s an athletic department in Southwest Ohio that’s the talk of the town right now.