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COLUMBIA, Mo. — The University of Missouri’s athletics department plunged into a $15.2 million budget deficit during the 2024 fiscal year after two years of operating in the black and despite a standout season by its football team.

The deficit also came amid a winless conference record for the men’s basketball team and a change in athletic directors.

Mizzou athletics brought in about $168 million in revenue during fiscal year 2024 and spent $183.2 million, creating the deficit of $15.2 million, according to its annual submission to the NCAA’s Membership Financial Reporting System.

The deficit was covered by the university through an internal loan to the athletics department.

Those revenue and expenditure figures are both records for Mizzou, indicative of the rising amounts of money flowing through college sports.

The 2024 fiscal year began July 1, 2023, and ended June 30, 2024. It included the Tigers’ breakout 2023 football season, the men’s basketball team’s winless Southeastern Conference season, the sudden exit of former athletics director Desiree Reed-Francois and the eventual hire of current AD Laird Veatch.

Operating in the red is not unheard of for Mizzou athletics. Prior to Reed-Francois’ hiring, it had been the norm for five years. She steered the department into the black, albeit by just $1 with direct financial support from the university in fiscal year 2023, her final full year at the helm before a shortfall returned under her leadership during the portion of fiscal year 2024 that she was AD.

The football team’s revenue in particular carries implications for the entire athletics department, which relies on the money for help with other sports. MU football’s ability to generate cash to spread around was one motivation for administrators to greenlight a $250 million renovation of Memorial Stadium.

University administrators seemed to expect that the athletics department budget would come in at a deficit.

UM System President Mun Choi saw “nothing surprising� in the financial report, he said in an interview this week.

But he added that “we’re mindful of how to continuously improve our revenue, top-line revenue, but also look at our expenses very carefully because with the new model of athletics, it’s not just new spending opportunity,� Choi said. “We’re going to ask ourselves, ‘What are we no longer going to do?’ to prioritize what’s important for athletics.�

MU leaders were ready for the likelihood that the athletics department would need financial support, Choi said. He sees that as a new reality for college sports across the SEC, where Mizzou athletics is not alone in receiving extra funding from its university arm.

Choi said expecting athletics to be “self-generating� may have been realistic a decade ago “but that is no longer the case across the United States — especially among the (major) programs.�

And the athletics department did receive more financial support from the university in the 2024 fiscal year: $25.7 million, up from $22.8 million the year prior. Categorized as “direct institutional support� in budget terms, the money includes some internal loans from MU to its athletics division.

The university is also covering the $15.2 million deficit as an internal loan, putting the athletics department’s tally of contributions from the university for the latest fiscal year at $40.9 million.

Choi, opting to call the shortfall a “differential� more than a deficit, described the financial support within the structure of broader UM System spending.

“You know, $40 million obviously is a lot of money, right?� Choi said. “But in the context of an organization that has over $5 billion in net operating (budget), for such a critical element of our university, it should be placed in context in that regard.�

The influx of funding from the university has come with added oversight from the UM System Board of Curators, which launched a Mizzou athletics oversight committee nearly a year ago to monitor — among other things — the department’s budget.

“With the statistics that we saw, we felt in filling our fiduciary duty that it was a must to step in and find out more about what was going on in the athletic department,� curator Bob Blitz, the oversight committee chair, said last April. “We’re trying to make sure that the athletic department is running in a financially responsible way and doing the best they can, that they have the best methods to raise money.�

Ticket sales up, expenses rise

Across all sports, Mizzou athletics saw an 14.1% increase in revenue from ticket sales, driven primarily by the football team’s success and what was at the time the most season tickets issued since 2015.

Winning 11 games, including a Cotton Bowl appearance and victory over Ohio State, meant the football program generated 25.3% more revenue in the fiscal year that included the 2023 season than it did in the prior year, which saw a 6-7 record and a less glamorous bowl game.

The cost of that success grew more rapidly than the money it brought in, though. Football expenses increased by 45.4%. As a result, the football program’s operating margin shrank from $8.6 million in fiscal year 2023 to $3.5 million in fiscal year 2024.

The budget figures do not account for Missouri’s name, image and likeness (NIL) operations, nor early aspects of the Memorial Stadium project, which falls under a separate capital project budget.

The figures also represent one of the last fiscal periods before college sports undergo a transformation, with the arrival of revenue-sharing with athletes. Once it takes effect, expected later in 2025, athletic departments will be able to share roughly $22 million per year with athletes.

Veatch previously told the Post-Dispatch that Mizzou will participate in that venture at “the highest possible level� to remain competitive in the SEC. He expects there to be an “eight-figure� expense added to the athletics department’s budget, likely starting with the 2026 fiscal year that will begin this summer.

The addition of that expense, plus the broader state of Mizzou athletics’ finances, have prompted Veatch to seek ways to bring in more revenue, including boosting season-ticket prices.

“We’re gonna have to ask more of our people,� Veatch said in November. “We’re gonna have to raise prices ... But we also take responsibility in other areas, so we know we need to reallocate expenses in ways that are smart and thoughtful and be really good stewards of those resources. We recognize that’s part of it too, but it’s a big gap that can’t be made up overnight.�

Veatch was in charge of the Mizzou athletics department for only the final two months of the 2024 fiscal year. Reed-Francois was the leader for most of it.

“President Choi and the board were very transparent with me through the process,� Veatch said this week, “as I was even considering the job, and certainly as I came on board. Early on in my tenure, much of it was just getting my arms around understanding what our financial picture looked like.�