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COLUMBIA, Mo. — Missouri football enjoyed a breakout season in 2023 that set the tone for success in 2024 and beyond, but the program’s fiscal performance that year also has implications for its immediate future.

Mizzou football brought in 25% more revenue during the fiscal year that included the 2023 season than in the period including the 2022 season as the Tigers reaped the monetary benefits of an 11-win campaign and high-profile Cotton Bowl victory.

It came at an increased cost, though, as football expenses rose 45% for MU athletics that year, shrinking the margin by which the football program generated a profit.

Football is one of only 20 sports sponsored by the University of Missouri, but it is by far the most lucrative and expensive. The MU athletics department — which reported a $15.2 million deficit in fiscal year 2024, the period that included the 2023 football season — saw $52.8 million of its $183.2 million operating budget go to the gridiron. On the revenue side, $56.3 million of Mizzou’s $168 million cash flow came from football.

In approximate terms, that means $1 out of $3 received by Missouri athletics arrives via football and $1 out of every $4 spent by the athletics department goes to football.

That ratio underscores the magnitude and influence of college football for a Southeastern Conference school like MU, for which football is a key source of revenue and exposure.

UM System President Mun Choi credits the Tigers’ football success for a spike in applications to the school and an uptick in enrollment, for example, using the common metaphor in college sports circle of football being the “front porch� of a university. That dynamic is part of why he and other UM System leaders saw value in pumping more than $40 million into the athletics department during fiscal year 2024 as direct support and internal loans.

“There’s no mathematical formula to determine how much of that (increase in applications and enrollment) was due to football, but I would say football had a big role in just increasing the reach of the university,� Choi said in an interview this week.

Mizzou’s annual submission to the NCAA’s Membership Financial Reporting System contains interesting data points on how the 2023 football season differed from 2022.

In a wins-and-losses sense, the years were quite different. MU went 6-7 in 2022, playing in the not-so-glamorous Gasparilla Bowl against Wake Forest to close out a run of middling seasons.

In 2023, however, the Tigers barnstormed their way into major polls, selling out five consecutive home games and beating blue-blood program Ohio State in the more prestigious Cotton Bowl to finish 11-2.

Winning directly increased ticket sales, which rose 26.71% from the 2022 to 2023 season, as well as revenue generated through parking, program and concession sales.

As would be expected with the difference between the bowl games, playing in the Cotton Bowl was worth 2.5 times as much as playing in the Gasparilla Bowl — a difference of more than $3.1 million. MU also received bowl revenue from the SEC, which like other conferences divvies up postseason money to spread among its member schools.

The other side of the coin — money pun unintended — was the added expense of playing in a big-time bowl. Mizzou spent $4.9 million in bowl expenses for the 2023 season, a budgeting category that includes the logistical costs of participating in the game. That was up from the 2022 price tag of roughly $1 million.

As is the norm, MU football coaches’ contracts include incentives for benchmarks like bowl participation. That meant that the athletics department paid out $1.6 million in bowl bonuses to coaches for making the Cotton Bowl, roughly four times as much as the $400,000 tab for Gasparilla Bowl bonuses.

Because some bowl revenue comes via the SEC’s postseason pool that is split between the conference’s schools, it’s difficult to use publicly available figures to pinpoint the returns that Missouri got from its Cotton Bowl trip.

What is evident from the athletic department’s latest financial figures, though, is that winning brings in more money but costs more, too. The MU football program went from being in the black by $8.6 million to a $3.5 million margin.

“I view it, coming into my role here now, as Mizzou sort of catching up to the investment that’s necessary to be competitive and successful in that sport,� MU athletics director Veatch said. “Whether that be investing in the facilities that you’ve seen over the recent years, personnel, coaches, you’ve seen that we’ve been aggressive in the NIL space. That is really important. You’re just now starting to see some of the catch-up on the revenue side.�

Veatch was not Missouri’s AD during the 2023 football season — Desiree Reed-Francois, who left the post in early 2024, was. But since taking the job, Veatch has targeted football revenue as an area to grow.

Mizzou athletics announced in November that it would be significantly raising football season ticket prices because it hadn’t done so for long enough that ticket revenue was lagging behind SEC peers. During the 2024 season — which will be included in 2025 fiscal year data released around this time next year — the Tigers sold out Memorial Stadium for all seven of their home games, but that sales performance probably won’t do enough to boost the bottom line.

“We can’t solve the problem or the challenge by selling more tickets,� Veatch said in November. “So we have to catch up our prices.�

In a joint interview with Choi this week, Veatch cautioned against reading too much into one sport’s financial performance in a given year due to how one-time expenses — like a contract buyout or new uniforms and equipment — can alter the fiscal picture.

“We certainly look at revenues and expenses with all of our programs year-to-year,� Veatch said. “I would suggest, though, that they fluctuate based on various things, whether that is one-time expenses that you don’t see year-to-year for a specific sport. I think you need to look at it more as a trend over time as opposed to a one-year snapshot.�

Missouri men’s basketball remained in the red as a program that cost more to operate than it brought in during its 2023-2024 season that saw the Tigers go 0-19 against SEC opponents during the team’s worst-ever losing streak. Men’s hoops expenses outpaced revenue by about $750,000, though $2.5 million in severance payments to former coach Cuonzo Martin played a heavy role in that program operating at a loss.

Mizzou’s dismal men’s basketball season didn’t prevent ticket sales from seeing a slight 4% increase, nor donations to the program from doubling to more than $2.5 million.

“Our men’s basketball program here tends to be one of the healthier ones from a revenue-to-expense, bottom-line standpoint as compared to our peers,� Veatch said. “I do think there’s growth in that area from a revenue standpoint as well, but we tend to do pretty good. Obviously, wins and losses impact that and impact the market. Many times, you see that the year trailing a performance in one way, shape or form — good or bad.�

The MU women’s basketball program, which didn’t perform much better than the men’s team, didn’t financially benefit from a wave of national interest in women’s college hoops and saw its ticket sales drop by about 9%. Donor contributions did rise, though the program lost nearly $4.5 million.