Gamecock WBB loses $5 million annually. Why South Carolina is OK with that — for now By Jordan Kaye March 27, 2025 8:00 AM There has been a hard truth for years in women’s college athletics: It can be difficult to draw any sort of correlation with winning and the bottom line. Take the last women’s basketball season, for example. An Auburn team that went .500 in conference play, barely made the NCAA Tournament and was bounced in the First Four reported a budget deficit of nearly $5.1 million. Meanwhile, playing in the same conference was the best college basketball team in years. Under coach Dawn Staley, South Carolina (38-0) became the 10th team in women’s college basketball to go undefeated en route to a national championship — the Gamecocks’ third under Staley. And, well, the Gamecocks reported a financial loss even greater than Auburn — in the red more than $5.6 million during fiscal year 2024, which ran from July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024. A review of South Carolina’s annual report, an exclusive interview with new USC athletic director Jeremiah Donati and additional reporting produced these findings: ▪ The Gamecocks’ women’s basketball program had almost $5.9 million in revenue in FY24, but the program ran a net budget loss in large part because of coaching salaries. ▪ Women’s sports don’t make as much money from media rights as some of the men’s teams do. ▪ The Iowa and UConn women’s basketball programs made twice as much money than USC in the last fiscal year from ticket sales. It’s possible South Carolina adjusts ticket prices upward, among other things, to help Staley’s Gamecocks bring in more revenue. Let’s take a look at the economics. Is it about more than just money? Over the past three years — a span in which South Carolina has made the Final Four every season and won a pair of national titles — the Gamecocks women’s basketball team has averaged a deficit of $5.59 million. The largest shortfall ($5.7 million) of those three years came in FY23 — the lone season USC didn’t cut down the nets. For her part, Staley understands the factors at play. For instance: Last year, as the USC women’s basketball team lost $5.6 million, the men’s team had a profit of nearly $3.5 million. On paper, that looks like a Grand Canyon-sized gap incapable of being tightened. But if the South Carolina women’s team earned the same money from media rights (television deals, etc.) and NCAA Tournament distributions, the revenue of the two programs would be almost identical. “We may not make more than we spend — like a lot of programs,” Staley said in January. “A lot of men’s programs don’t make what they spend — but, for all of the existence of women’s basketball, we have been held back.” And there’s a good argument to be made that looking at South Carolina’s financial spreadsheets is a poor way of determining value. It does not account for the brand awareness of 24 million people watching Staley’s team win the national championship. It does not account for a high school student watching South Carolina’s domination and applying to USC. It does not account for future revenue such success might have on how much South Carolina earns from its next apparel deal. And it does not account for the tourism dollars that the Gamecocks — especially in hosting the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament — bring to Columbia. “The women’s program has helped Columbia elevate,” Columbia Mayor Daniel Rickenmann told The State. “I think it has been unbelievably elevating for the university. Think about what it means to our loyal fans, our restaurateurs, our hoteliers. … That all plays into it. It has really helped elevate our community.” Donati agrees. What can South Carolina do? “There’s no question that our women’s basketball program brings a tremendous amount of value, both tangible and intangible, including a vast amount of positive attention to our university. And, so, it’s difficult to perfectly quantify that,” Donati said. And soon it will become increasingly difficult for Donati to tout intangible revenue. If the House settlement goes through — as most expect it to — the school will be on the hook to pay its student-athletes up to $20.5 million beginning in July. Since taking the South Carolina job in December, Donati has said how the Gamecocks — and college athletics as a whole — have operated in the past can’t be how they operate in the future. It’s not sustainable. “So we’ve had very tough conversations with our coaches and our staff — just being honest,” Donati said. “We just can’t go on as business as usual.” Thus, Donati said, he’s focused on finding ways to create more of a “direct return on investment” with women’s basketball — which likely starts inside Colonial Life Arena. The Gamecocks’ women’s basketball team, playing in an arena that holds 18,000 people, has led the country in attendance for the past decade. And yet, LSU — playing in a building that holds nearly 5,000 fewer people — makes almost as much money from its ticket sales. During its 38-0 national championship season last year, South Carolina WBB collected $1.63 million from tickets. Concurrently, Iowa rode the Caitlin Clark train to the bank, profiting nearly $3.3 million from ticket sales last year. And the Hawkeyes weren’t alone in the financial windfall. UConn reported selling $3.25 million worth of WBB tickets last season. Still, only one women’s sports program in the country — Nebraska volleyball — turns a profit. “We are taking a fresh look at ticket pricing for both season and single-game tickets and creating additional corporate partnerships to increase our revenue,” Donati said. “We want to find the balance of keeping a full basketball arena while also making sure that we’re asking and getting fair-market value for those opportunities.” Eliminating the deficit might be impossible right now, but that doesn’t mean South Carolina has to keep losing more and more money. “We will find a way to close that gap,” Donati said. Aside from tickets, there are few revenue streams for women’s basketball right now. Under Armour and Learfield, South Carolina’s multimedia partner, give a combined $2.1 million — but that goes straight to Staley as part of her contract. Last year, though, the USC WBB team pulled in over $500,000 from contributions (donations from fans and boosters), over $500,000 from parking, concessions, novelties, etc. (more than the men’s team) and over $250,000 from the school itself as “institutional support.” Noted Staley: “Contrary to what people think, that women’s basketball isn’t a revenue-producing sport, we are a revenue-producing sport. Our South Carolina women’s basketball team is a revenue-producing sport.” Looking at South Carolina’s financials The revenue generated by having such a successful team — ticket sales, corporate partnerships, concessions — hasn’t generated enough to overcome the operating cost of fielding such a successful team. Most notably: Coaching salaries. More than half ($6.53 million) of the South Carolina women’s basketball total expenses from FY24 ($11,511,993) was tied up in paying its coaches. And winning, as it should, provides rewards. In January, Staley earned an extension that made her the highest-paid coach in women’s college basketball — increasing her annual salary over $800,000. Staley will make $4 million this season and earn an additional $250,000 in each succeeding year. Going back to the 2023-24 season, winning the national title triggered a $500,000 bonus for Staley. For making the NCAA Tournament and advancing to the Final Four, her four top assistants each earned two months’ salary (one month for making the tourney and one month for playing in the Final Four) as a bonus — which amounted to about $180,000. Another big cost last season was South Carolina’s travel, which was higher than it had been each of the previous two seasons ($1.8 million). A possible explanation: The Gamecocks opened the season playing in Paris. That is all normal across college athletics. Every head coaching contract includes similar incentives. Teams go on trips every few years. Programs spend money. But it doesn’t explain the deficit. To understand that, you have to understand the money women’s college basketball doesn’t make compared to the programs turning a profit. Let’s start with the NCAA Tournament. The 2025 tournament will be the first that women’s basketball teams will earn “units” for each March Madness game they play. This has been the case with the men’s tournament for years. As part of distributing revenue from its nearly $1 billion TV deal with CBS and Turner Sports, a men’s team earns a $2.1 million “unit” for its conference — which is then distributed to its conference members over a six-year span. So, when Alabama basketball tips off against BYU on Thursday night, every SEC team earns 1/16th of a unit — or $131,250. Now, the unit for the women’s tournament amounts to just about $115,000 — or around $7,000 per SEC school. That number is a reflection of an eight-year media rights deal the NCAA signed with ESPN that valued the NCAA women’s basketball tournament at $65 million annually. And then there’s the SEC’s media rights deal. We don’t have data to understand the effect of the SEC’s 10-year, $3 billion television deal with ABC/ESPN — which went into effect this summer — but precedent has not favored women’s basketball. In FY24, before the ABC deal kicked in, South Carolina’s athletics department made nearly $37 million from media rights. The SEC gives each conference member that money, then allows the schools to determine how they want to allocate. At South Carolina last year, over $15 million of that money went directly to the football program, over $4 million to men’s basketball, leaving $18 million to the school. But no media rights money went directly to women’s basketball, according to South Carolina’s annual financial report. As a result, the bottom line for South Carolina women’s basketball stays at a deficit. South Carolina’s sports programs at a glance ** Finances from Fiscal Year 2024 (July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024) ** Program, revenue, expenses, profit or loss Football: $78,496,729 /// $47,559,965 /// profit of $30,936,764 Men’s basketball: $13,355,149 /// $9,879,237 /// profit of $3,475,912 Women’s basketball: $5,896,840 /// $11,511,993 /// loss of $5,615,153 Baseball: $4,654,789 /// $7,396,457 /// loss of $2,741,668 Women’s track & field/cross country: $816,523 /// $4,065,983 /// loss of $3,249,460 Men’s track & field/cross country: $529,083 /// $2,436,889 /// loss of $1,907,806 Women’s swim & dive: $451,126 /// $2,208,535 /// loss of $1,757,409 Equestrian: $368,297 /// $2,697,497 /// loss of $2,329,200 Men’s soccer: $347,325 /// $1,805,569 /// loss of $1,458,244 Softball: $310,729 /// $2,699,339 /// loss of $2,388,610 Men’s swim & dive: $246,849 /// $1,567,653 /// loss of $1,320,804 Women’s soccer: $214,236 /// $2,381,638 /// loss of $2,167,402 Volleyball: $200,232 /// $2,079,696 /// loss of $1,879,464 Women’s golf: $146,426 /// $1,277,556 /// loss of $1,131,130 Women’s Tennis: $111,616 /// $1,311,155 /// loss of $1,199,539 Men’s Tennis: $98,831 /// $1,469,869 /// loss of $1,371,038 Beach volleyball: $80,377 /// $1,027,459 /// loss of $947,082 Men’s golf: $78,370 /// $897,938 /// loss of $819,568
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