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The NCAA imposed a moratorium until 2010 on any schools starting the upgrade process to move up to Division I. The stated reason was to reconsider the rules a school will follow to become or remain a member of Division I.

In the past, the NCAA has tried to use other criteria to force financially underperforming universities down to a less expensive level of competition.

In the 1990s, the NCAA insisted any schools who wanted to play football at the IA (now called FBS) level had to have a stadium that seated 30,000. A number of schools proceeded to gather funds to do costly stadium upgrades to 30,000. In many cases, like Buffalo, EMU, and UNT, these stadium uprgades had the net result of discouraging fan attendance. Several schools were forced to drop football.

In the 2000s, the NCAA had a rule requiring schools to maintain a multi-year average of 15,000. A number of schools failed to meet these requirements, including a couple that generally draw season averages high above this threshhold.

Presumeably, the NCAA has not enforced these rules due to the number of schools they would be throwing out of the FBS level. Presumably, the seemingly unenforcable nature of this rule is what has lead to the moritorium on all moves.

It is very conceiveable, if not likely, the next threshold the NCAA may impose to keep teams that lack the financial support to play at the FBS level out of the FBS classification may be based on athletic budgets.

For fans of the business side of collegiate sports, that is an excuse to pour over the athletic budgets of division I schools and reach some conclusions!

Are you ready for some football...budgets?

(All numbers are from 2007. I didn't list them all out, as the numbers are far less important than the approximate ballpark. In general, most schools stay in the same approximate ballpark from year to year, but some schools do spike up in some years and some are unequivocally expanding their athletic budgets like UNT, UTSA, Texas State, and one or two other Sun Belt schools.)

BCS tier athletic budgets

1. Ohio State 109M
2. Tennessee 92M
3. Florida
4. Texas
5. Wisconsin
6. Southern California
7. Louisiana State
8. Penn State
9. Alabama
10. Iowa
11. Nebraska
12. Michigan State
13. Texas A&M
14. Oklahoma
15. Auburn
16. Michigan
17. Virginia
18. Stanford
19. Georgia
20. UCLA
21. Arkansas
22. Kentucky
23. North Carolina
24. Kansas
25. Notre Dame
26. South Carolina
27. Boston College
28. Virginia Tech
29. Minnesota
30. Purdue
31. Arizona State
32. Connecticut
33. California
34. Louisville
35. Texas Tech
36. Washington
37. Oregon
38. Miami (Fla.)
39. Georgia Tech
40. Missouri
41. Clemson
42. Duke
43. Maryland
44. Oregon State
45. Illinois
46. Rutgers
47. Syracuse
48. West Virginia
49. Oklahoma State
50. Indiana
51. North Carolina State
52. Arizona
53. Northwestern -41M
54. Baylor -40M
55. Florida State -40M
56. Colorado - 40M
57. Kansas State -40M
58. Texas Christian (non-BCS) - 39M
59. Vanderbilt - 39M
60. Pittsburgh - 37M
61. Iowa State - 37M
62. Wake Forest - 37M
63. Cincinnati - 34M
64. Mississippi - 34M


This is where non-BCS FBS schools start en masse.

I think looking at the above the idea that pops into my mind is how much is membership in a BCS conference worth? Specifically, in terms of increased TV revenue, bowl payouts, increased visitor attendance by being in a conference of haves...What dollar value does that equate to? $5 million? $10 million? More?

I look at the bottom 10-12 BCS schools and wonder if the rest of their leagues would love to kick most of them out if they had a clear path to it. (Obviously, not Northwestern, Colorado, WSU, or FSU, but the rest...?) What would the budget of those schools look like in lesser conferences? $30 million? Less?

FBS Tier athletic budgets

65. Brigham Young -31M
66. San Diego State -30M
67. Washington State (BCS) -30M
68. Central Florida -30M
69. Memphis
70. Houston
71. South Florida (BCS) -28M
72. Southern Methodist
73. Hawaii
74. New Mexico
75. Rice
76. Utah
77. Temple
78. Mississippi State (BCS) -26M
79. UNLV
80. East Carolina
81. Fresno State
82. Tulsa
83. Miami (Oxford)
84. Boise State
85. UAB
86. Wyoming
87. Texas-El Paso -21M
88. Central Michigan
89. Nevada
90. Buffalo
91. New Mexico State - 19M
92. Tulane
93. Marshall

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