The Univ. of Kansas Athletics BOD “bet on additional football growth" Friday and “approved at its quarterly meeting a break-even budget of” $127M for the fiscal year 2024, according to Henry Greenstein of the LAWRENCE JOURNAL-WORLD. KU’s athletic department “benefited from a reenergized football fanbase in the fiscal year 2023,” to the “tune of increased revenues from ticketing, concessions, merchandise and sponsorships.” KU Exec Associate AD & CFO Pat Kaufman said that the department is “now projected to finish with” $115M in annual revenue, rather than the expected $109M, yielding what he called a “modest surplus.” KU AD Travis Goff said that in the upcoming year, the department “expects to benefit from a full cycle of increased interest in season tickets for football, as well as a minor price increase in season tickets for men’s basketball.” Greenstein noted Kansas athletics “will also incur added expenses.” Kaufman said that its temporary pandemic-era reduction on debt payment terms “has expired,” and it “also brought on plenty of new hires.” The $127M budget “exceeds 2023’s, but also provides an even starker contrast in comparison” to, say, the $89M in operating expenses that Kansas “incurred at the height of the pandemic” (LAWRENCE JOURNAL-WORLD, 6/16).
Univ. of Kansas athletics approves increased budget for fiscal year '24
