Don't Wait! Your contribution now supports the powerful stories that will connect our community in the new year.
Oregon fans watch an NCAA college football game against Maryland, Saturday, Nov. 9, 2024, in Eugene, Ore.
Lydia Ely / AP
The undefeated University of Oregon football team is bringing in more than just bragging rights to the Eugene-based school — it’s poised to deliver an economic bump as well.
It’s a storybook season for the Ducks: a well-respected coach and Heisman candidate-quarterback leading the flock to the top of the Big Ten — in UO’s first year in the conference, no less — and to the No. 1 spot in the country.
Getting an up-close view of the team’s popularity is Arlyn Schaufler, CEO of the Duck Store, the nonprofit campus bookstore and major Oregon merchandise retailer.
“We bought Big Ten Championship merchandise,” Schaufler told OPB, “And we’ve had to reorder it like four times.”
The excitement surrounding the Ducks’ football team was obvious before the season even started, he said. The adoration of the team grew as it kept winning, bringing in even more fans — and potential profits — to area businesses.
Internally at the UO, and at most universities with big sports programs, it’s common for football to financially carry the athletic department. College athletic finance experts say football often brings in more than half of total revenues, with men’s basketball a distant second.
“I love women’s basketball, but women’s basketball does not pay for itself,” Steven Rackley, sports management professor at Rice University, said. “I love all of those sports, but they don’t pay for themselves. Essentially, football is paying for those sports to exist and to function at a high level that you’re playing them at.”
Oregon’s athletic department brought in just over $150 million in operating revenues in fiscal year 2023, according to UO’s filing with the NCAA. Football accounted for nearly $80 million, while men’s basketball generated just over $10 million and women’s basketball about $1.9 million.
Athletic departments make money through a variety of revenue streams, such as ticket sales, parking, and contributions from donors. They also get money from merchandise through licensing agreements, meaning the department gets a cut every time a vendor buys an item with the university logo. The department also gets a slice of its respective conference’s media revenue, the most lucrative being TV contracts for football.
For the Ducks, in 2023 the football team brought in $20.3 million in ticket sales, $17.2 million in contributions, and $22 million in media rights.
Related: Duck excitement covers University of Oregon campus, city of Eugene… and beyond
When football teams do well, Rackley said, it can give a modest boost to merchandise and ticket sales. But when teams drop out of the limelight, it can significantly hurt revenue streams.
“And it not only affects the athletic department,” Rackley said. “It also will affect other areas on campus, recruitment of students — it can affect perception of your university, and so much of athletic departments and what they do is about that perception of who we are.”
It means colleges will hit fundraising hard when a team is having a standout season, he said, and will use the opportunity to strengthen its national brand to recruit both athletes and other prospective students.
While college sports generate a lot of revenue, they also cost a lot of money to support. Expenses include things like equipment, insurance, salaries of coaches and staff, facility costs and travel.
At UO, the athletics department is self-sustaining, meaning it brings in about as much as it spends. In fiscal year 2023, operating expenses for the UO athletic department totaled just over $146 million. Football expenses made up almost $43 million, just over half of what the sport brought in overall.
“We think they spend a lot of money – which they do,” Rackley said, referring to college football teams. “I mean, they have these huge budgets, they spend a lot of money. But at that level, compared to what they’re bringing in, they’re spending relatively little.”
Oregon is entering into a new financial era now that it joined the Big Ten, Rackley points out. It could spell greater revenue for the school as the Ducks’ new conference garners larger media contracts and more national attention.
However, it will mean higher travel costs for UO since most Big Ten teams are halfway across the country. That might not be a big deal for football, Rackley said, which plays around a dozen games a season. However, most sports have multiple weekly competitions and will demand a larger slice of the travel budget.
Back at the Duck Store in Eugene, Schaufler said the move to the Big Ten and the undefeated season have especially helped increase online sales.
“We saw a very large uptick in sales for online operations,” he said. “We’ve got a very robust website, and so the online business really took off, because you get a lot of people that get excited and adopt Oregon as their new team.”
Schaufler started working at the Duck Store in 1994, just before Oregon went to the Rose Bowl in 1995 (losing to Penn State). He took over as CEO in 2012.
The store has seven locations at Autzen Stadium, where the Ducks play their home games. Schaufler said the game that stands out to him this year — both in terms of gross sales and in excitement — was when Oregon narrowly defeated Ohio State in Eugene.
But as the end of the season, including the New Year’s Day Rose Bowl, approaches, Schaufler said fans are cautiously optimistic.
“There’s also a wait-and-see approach from the fan base,” he said. “They’re like, ‘we know we’re good, but boy, we got a rough road.’ If we can get to the National Championship, people will lose their minds — and then if we win it, people will absolutely go crazy because Oregon’s never won a national championship in football.”
Tags: University Of Oregon, Ducks, Business, Football, Sports
Streaming Now
Morning Edition
