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Even by recent standards set by the Rutgers University athletics department, which has been hemorrhaging money for decades, its latest budget deficit numbers are staggering.
A $78 million shortfall in fiscal year 2025, adding up to a stunning $516 million hole since joining the prestigious Big Ten Conference in 2014.
The eye-popping numbers — first reported by NJ.com earlier this year — have spread like wildfire across social media, causing a stir that transcended industries. Political commentators like Chuck Todd and Clay Travis joined national sports observers in expressing shock at the figures, wondering how it’s possible for a modern-day athletic department to stay afloat swimming in so much red.
As officials from New Jersey’s signature public institution continue to hike tuition and fees even higher than the rate of inflation, the deficit numbers in the athletics department beg the question: How did the hole get so deep at Rutgers? And where did all the money go?
The answers, it turns out, are complicated.
The cost of competing in one of America’s elite college conferences has skyrocketed, spurring Rutgers to spend more than $1.35 billion in athletics since 2014. The money was spread across multiple areas, from $506 million on enormous coaching staffs led by some of the highest-paid employees in the state of New Jersey — including head football coach Greg Schiano, the university leader with a salary reaching $6.75 million next fall — to $260 million on recruiting, feeding and providing scholarships to thousands of athletes, to racking up $143.8 million in debt to build state-of-the-art facilities.
And those figures don’t even include millions more dedicated to Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) deals being doled out to athletes in today’s modern era of revenue sharing.
Critics argue Rutgers has not gotten its money’s worth — on the field or in its wallet. Since joining the league, the school has finished last among Big Ten teams eight times in the Learfield Director’s Cup, which ranks athletics departments by their overall success. It won only two NCAA Tournament games combined in men’s and women’s basketball, logged just three winning seasons in football and earned only three Big Ten team titles combined across its 24 men’s and women’s sports.
“This is a really risky and bad bet, which allows for the very small possibility down the road that the stars will align and they’ll break even -- but I don’t see any reason why it’s going to happen,’' said Andrew Zimbalist, a sports economist at Smith College. ”The notion that the TV contract is going to continue growing is very uncertain. What we do know is, if they’re going to try to compete with the big boys, it’s going to cost more and more money.’'
Rutgers embraced the challenge when it eagerly joined the Big Ten more than a decade ago, committing itself to competing at college sports’ highest level — and to chase the potential financial rewards that come with major media deals. But the reality was the school’s athletics budget was largely subsidized then, and not much has changed in that regard.
While the school has reported nearly $1.17 billion in revenue since joining the Big Ten, 28% of that total ($326.4 million) was generated with student fees ($138.1M), state support ($42.1M) and money from the university’s general budget ($146.2M).
Rutgers has struggled to make its money back through other avenues. It received fewer donations than any Big Ten team by a wide margin, made less in ticket sales in 11 years than many schools did in the past four years alone and, in a potential sign of its lack of brand power, ranked last among conference teams in royalties/licensing/sponsorships dollars. And while it recently started to receive a full share of the Big Ten’s media rights deal, the massive paychecks have not been big enough to make up for everything else.
“Sadly, I’m not surprised because Rutgers started behind the eight ball,” said David Ridpath, a professor of sports administration at Ohio University and a former athletics administrator. “Rutgers got into the Big Ten and got into a bigger hole. And while they’re certainly making more money than they were from the old Big East (Conference), they’ve outspent any gains. What kind of business could survive doing that?”
In an effort to understand where Rutgers spent its money and how it compares to its Big Ten peers, NJ.com reviewed hundreds of pages of financial reports for the Scarlet Knights and other conference schools from the past four years. The analysis compiled data from each Big Ten school that played in the conference during the entirety of that span, meaning Oregon, UCLA, USC and Washington weren’t included since they joined in 2024-25. Also not included was Northwestern, which isn’t required to publicly reveal its annual financial reports because it’s a private school.
The NJ.com examination, which provides the most comprehensive look yet at how Rutgers athletics’ half-billion deficit steadily grew over 11 years, revealed:
- Rutgers athletics expenditures jumped 174.7% from the first year in the league ($70.6M) to the most recent ($193.8M), increasing every year. In that 2024-25 season, only Ohio State ($320.4M), Michigan ($261.6M), Penn State ($254.6M) and Nebraska ($207.7M) spent more across the Big Ten.
- Rutgers’ expenditures took a major leap in the last five years, going up 63.7% between the COVID-impacted 2020-21 year ($118.4M) to the 2024-25 season. In the last four years, Rutgers spent $664 million, which ranks seventh among the 13 Big Ten teams tracked over that span.
- Revenue has not kept up with expenses, increasing by just 107.8% since joining the Big Ten. After suffering an inevitable drop during the 2020-21 COVID year, Rutgers set a new high in revenue every year since, increasing by 33.8% between 2021-22 ($109.6M) and the most recent 2024-25 year ($146.6M). Still, in 2024-25, Rutgers ranked 15th out of the Big Ten’s 16 public schools in revenue generated.
Taken together, the data paints a dire financial picture for Rutgers athletics and shows few signs of improving soon.
One fact is indisputable: Rutgers blows out the rest of the Big Ten in an unwanted category — lost money.
The NJ.com analysis revealed Rutgers’ $255.2 million deficit over the past four years is most of any Big Ten school by a wide margin. Six other league schools were in the red — Maryland ($86.4M), Illinois ($22.2M), Wisconsin ($20.8M), Michigan State ($17.7M), Indiana ($14.1M) and Minnesota ($7.4M) — for a combined deficit of $168.6 million, or $87 million less than Rutgers.
On the other end, six Big Ten schools showed a surplus between the 2021-22 and 2024-25 seasons: Nebraska ($40.3M), Michigan ($35.8M), Purdue ($31.1M), Penn State ($16.7M), Iowa ($14.2M) and Ohio State ($7.6M).
“Rutgers found out quickly how far behind they were in terms of facilities and staffing, so that opened up the floodgates,” said Karen Weaver, a sports finance expert at the University of Pennsylvania. “The revenues didn’t keep up with what they were spending. So the hole got deeper and deeper and deeper.”
NJ.com calculated the deficit as revenue generated by Big Ten athletics departments excluding subsidies (state support, student fees and direct-university support) minus expenses. Generated revenue refers to funds produced directly by the athletics department, including ticket sales, concessions and parking fees, donor contributions, sponsorships and Big Ten and NCAA distributions.
While NJ.com removes these figures from the revenue equation when calculating the department’s deficit, Rutgers president William Tate argued that the NCAA’s practice of counting subsidies as revenue is the proper way.
”When these sources of support are counted as revenue, the financial picture of Rutgers athletics is more accurate and less dramatic," Tate wrote in an NJ.com guest column published earlier this month.
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Keli Zinn (left) listens as Rutgers President William Tate IV speaks during a news conference to introduce Zinn as the Scarlet Knights’ new athletic director, Wednesday, July 30, 2025, in Piscataway, N.J.Andrew Mills | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
Here is a breakdown of Rutgers’ finances in its first 11 years in the Big Ten:
TOTAL EXPENDITURES: $1,356,068,522.
Rutgers spent an average of $123.3 million per year since joining the Big Ten, with its budget increasing by an average of $11.2 million per year.
The school spent $70.6 million in its first season (2014-15) and $193.8 million in its most recent (2024-25), a 374.7% increase in an 11-year span. Much of that came in the past five years: since the COVID-impacted 2020-21 year, Rutgers upgraded its budget by $75.4 million, a bump of 63.7% with an average increase of $15.1 million per year.
With revenue-share expenses joining the equation in next year’s fiscal report, the Scarlet Knights are expected to topple $200 million in spending during the 2025-26 year, Rutgers athletic director Keli Zinn said in an exclusive interview with NJ.com.
“I think what you’ll see a year from now is that’s going to be our worst year looking at a profit and loss scenario,” she said. “But you’ll see some level of improvement that’s expected in that 26-27 year and then, by 27-28, based upon the current projections we have, in some growth categories and opportunities with revenue, I’m hopeful you’ll actually see it start to decline and improve.”
Here’s a breakdown by category:
Coaching Staff Compensation: $506,634,249
The biggest expense category Rutgers reported was — by far — support staff compensation ($227.7 million), which was roughly $35 million higher than the next biggest category (student aid, $192.9M), just over $77 million more than head coaching compensation ($150.4M) and $99 million more than assistant coaching compensation ($128.4M).
Football spent a total of $176,919,488 on its coaching staff over the past 11 years, of which $122,763,510 (69.4%) came after Greg Schiano returned as head coach ahead of the 2020 season.
The program spent $61.2 million on its support staff since joining the Big Ten, 55.3% of which came in the last three available seasons (2022-2024). The program increased its support staff compensation by 123% from the 2021 season to the 2024 season, spending a total of $40,141,202 in those four years — more than any other football program in the Big Ten in that span.
That is the biggest reason the Scarlet Knights ranked second among Big Ten football programs in total coaching staff compensation in the 2023 ($28,133,212) and 2024 seasons ($35,058,309).
In the latter campaign, the Scarlet Knights nearly matched Ohio State ($35,995,718) in total coaching compensation; the Buckeyes won the national championship while Rutgers went 7-5, setting a program record in Big Ten wins (4) before losing in the Rate Bowl.
“The cost of doing business by being a Big Ten football program, the coaches salary’s have really climbed quite a bit,” Schiano said. “You get what you pay for. That’s important to me.”
Rutgers does not spend as much on the top of its coaching chart as other schools, however. Schiano ($6,250,000 in 2024) and men’s basketball coach Steve Pikiell ($3,800,000 in 2024) may be two of the highest-paid public employees in New Jersey, but their salaries ranked 12th and 10th out of the Big Ten’s 16 public schools during the 2024-25 season.
Athletic facilities debt service, leases and rental fees: $110,024,220.
Rutgers had a long way to go to catch up with many of its peers in the facilities arms race, and it made some headway across multiple sports. It built a state-of-the-art practice facility for its basketball, wrestling and gymnastic programs; an academic success center that houses multiple Olympic sports and top-level administrators, including Zinn and her executive staff; and multiple upgrades for its football program, from a new outdoor practice complex to refurbished locker rooms and weight rooms.
Rutgers’ internal debt for athletics is currently $94.9 million and its external debt is $48.4 million, with $37.6 million owed on the RWJBarnabas Athletic Performance Center, $22 million owed on the Rodkin Academic Success Center and $58.9 million still owed on the 2007 football stadium expansion, according to documents obtained by NJ.com.
Rutgers officials said their loan practices changed in 2016, when the school created an internal bank structure, separating external debt from internal projects. The purpose, a school official said, was to achieve the lowest possible weighted average cost of capital based on market conditions and its long-term capital plan.
In January 2017, Rutgers took out an $18.38 million loan to cover what it called “transition costs” for costs related to the firings of former coaches Eddie Jordan, Kyle Flood and athletics director Julie Hermann. The loan was charged with 5.75% interest, which brought the total amount of what Rutgers was expected to owe to $23.7 million.
Rutgers athletics was expected to pay off the loan in annual increments of about $712,000 starting in 2022, but documents obtained by NJ.com show the $23.7 million debt was forgiven between fiscal years 2022 and 2023.
Rutgers athletics also took a $62.7 million internal loan to cover what it called “operational deficit” between the five fiscal years between 2017 and 2021. The debt was removed from the Rutgers athletics spreadsheet in fiscal year 2023.
The debts were covered by Rutgers’ operational budget, which in fiscal 2025 had $2.4 billion in institutional debt, documents show. When accounting for the $86.4 million that was forgiven, Rutgers athletics’ deficit since joining the Big Ten in 2014-15 increases to $603.3 million.
And while the quest to upgrade facilities has diminished as paying players has become the priority across the industry, Rutgers is still trying to catch up to its peers. Plans for an indoor practice facility for the football program — a priority when Schiano was hired — are on ice while the school looks at upgrades to SHI Stadium and Jersey Mike’s Arena in order to increase premium seating and open more avenues for revenue.
Direct overhead and administrative expenses: $128,224,746
The vague category is described as “overhead and administrative expenses paid by or charged directly to athletics including administrative/overhead fees charged by the institution to athletics, security, risk management and other administrative expenses” in the NCAA report.
The cost of business in this category was relatively stable in the first eight years, teetering between $9.8 to $12 million in that span. Then it exploded between 2021-22 and 2024-25, a period in which Rutgers increased its budget in the category by 77% from start ($10.5M) and to finish ($18.7M).
Non travel meals: $43,304,898
Rutgers spent $8.4 million in this category in the 2024-25 academic year, a 422.1% increase from the $1.6 million it spent in the 2015-16 season (the category was not included in the 2014-15 report for Rutgers’ first year in the Big Ten).
A majority of it was spent by football ($43.3M), which accounted for 65.1% in this category. The budget increased dramatically when Schiano arrived, going up 58.5% in his first season ($3.2M in 2020-21 compared to $2.1M in 2019-20) and climbing steadily from there.
Football spent $5.5 million in non-travel meals in the 2024 season, a 69.3% increase from the 2020 season. Throughout that span, the program caught flak for spending six-figures on delivery applications.
Severance: $22,560,964
Rutgers spent a relatively tame $22.6 million on paying fired coaches compared to the extravagant buyouts being paid across the country. It owes much of that to the stability it saw throughout the department, with only two major head coaches (Chris Ash in football, Eddie Jordan in men’s basketball) and one high-profile assistant (offensive coordinator Sean Gleeson) getting axed over the past decade.
Three-quarters of the spending in this category (76.8%, $17.3M) came from football. The program owed Ash $8.47 million when it fired him in September of 2019, though he likely offset some of that with jobs at Texas, the Las Vegas Raiders and the Jacksonville Jaguars.
TOTAL REVENUE: $1,165,521,194.
Rutgers generated an average of $105.96 million per year since joining the Big Ten, with its earnings increasing every year outside of the COVID-impacted 2020-21 season.
The school made $70.6 million in its first season (2014-15) and $146.6 million in its most recent (2024-25), a 107.8% increase in an 11-year span. Much of that came in the past five years: since the 2021-22 year, Rutgers increased its revenue by $37 million, a bump of 33.8% with an average increase of $12.3 million per year.
That number is projected to continue increasing as the money flowing in from the Big Ten’s media rights deal balloons every year, which should help close the gap accumulated as the Scarlet Knights — who did not get a full share of the media rights deal until the 2020-21 season — tried to keep up with their peers.
Here’s a breakdown by category:
Subsidies: $326,376,024
Between student fees ($138.1M), university support ($146.2M) and state funding ($42.1M), 28% of Rutgers’ revenue comes from subsidies since joining the Big Ten.
Most Big Ten schools rely on some form of subsidy, NJ.com analysis shows, but Rutgers took in the most combined state support, direct-university support or student-fee revenue over the last four years ($109.6M).
— Ten of 13 Big Ten schools have been reliant on money from the university’s general budget since 2021-22, including Indiana ($36.5M), Wisconsin ($28.8M), Rutgers ($25.6M), Maryland ($21.9M), Minnesota ($14.9M), Michigan State ($7.8M), Ohio State ($801K), Illinois ($220K) and Michigan State ($150K).
— Only three of 13 public Big Ten schools received a subsidy from their respective state budgets over the last four years: Illinois ($29.6 million), Rutgers ($27.2M) and Wisconsin ($6.2M).
Over the course of Phil Murphy’s eight-year term as New Jersey governor, Rutgers received $42.1 million in state support, financial reports between FY2018 and FY2025 revealed. Rutgers athletics received $114,492 from the state budget between FY2010 and FY2017, which spans former Gov. Chris Christie’s term.
— Four of 13 Big Ten schools count student fees as a revenue item. Rutgers took in the largest student-fee subsidy since 2021-22 ($56.7M), followed by Maryland ($48M), Illinois ($14M) and Iowa ($2.6M).
Rutgers has received at least $10 million in student-fee support in every fiscal year since 2014 and records show it has increased each year since 2020: $10.5M (FY2021), $12.8M (FY2022), $13.5M (FY2023), $14.5M (FY2024) and $15.8M (FY2025).
Rutgers officials say their student-fee subsidy can be at least partly attributed to its free distribution of tickets to students for all sporting events.
Rutgers distributed approximately 149,000 free tickets to students for its 14 football home games in the 2023 and 2024 seasons, an average of 10,700 per game, according to documents obtained by NJ.com.
While the face value of Rutgers tickets varied by matchup, the average single-game ticket price for the Scarlet Knights’ non-conference games was $55 and Big Ten Conference matchups was $100 during the 2024 season. Rutgers officials say they could’ve boosted their overall ticket sales by selling tickets to students for football and men’s basketball games.
“A lot of schools do treat (student fees) as a true revenue category,’’ Zinn said. “And for some schools, it’s a huge revenue line item on their books.’’
Media rights: $209,130,864.
Despite only getting a full share of the Big Ten’s monster media rights deal since the 2020-21 season, it has been the biggest single source of revenue for Rutgers. It received $61.3 million in the 2024-25 year alone, accounting for nearly as much revenue as the department made in royalties, licensing and sponsorships ($66.97M) in its first 11 years in the Big Ten.
And that pot will continue to grow, Zinn said, as long as the Big Ten continues to thrive in postseason play across major sports.
“In order to hit $80 million, you’re going to need to see some continued performance in that postseason category,” Zinn said. “Take the current year, what we’ve budgeted. The payout of that is going to increase, and it’s a good little uptick on it based upon the fact of how well the Big Ten performed within the bowl season.”
Donations: $75,805,610.
Since it joined the Big Ten, the Scarlet Knights received the lowest amount of contributions of any team in the league by a significant margin. It is the only school to not reach the nine-figure mark over the 11-year span, trailing second-to-last Maryland by $26.4 million.
Contributions account for just 6.5% of Rutgers’ operating revenue since joining the Big Ten, the lowest percentage in the league by far.
For perspective: non-Rutgers public Big Ten schools averaged $37.4 million in contributions during the 2024-25 season. In 2023-24, Nebraska alone received more in donations ($76.3M) than Rutgers did in its first 11 years in the league.
The Cornhuskers are one of four schools that received at least $55 million in contributions during at least one fiscal year in that span, along with Ohio State, Indiana and Illinois.
Rutgers’ highest single-year contributions total as a Big Ten member was $8.9 million in 2014-15, its first year in the conference.
In the past seven years, there were only seven times one of the other 12 public Big Ten schools reported contribution totals less than $10 million — Maryland (four times), Nebraska (twice) and Wisconsin (once) — and three of them came during the COVID-impacted 2021-22 year.
A notable part of the equation is the lack of premium seating options at SHI Stadium and Jersey Mike’s Arena, where obligatory donations to secure those seats would bring in significant revenue in the contribution category the way it does at schools with more modern facilities. Fixing that deficiency is among Zinn’s top priorities.
But the race to catch up in contributions is only getting harder, with schools like Michigan State, Illinois and SMU getting pledges of $400 million, $100 million and $50 million from major donors in the past six months.
“I jokingly say this, but everybody has to have a billionaire on speed dial,” Weaver said. “It feels like that in certain situations. You look at what Phil Knight did at Oregon, you look at Larry Ellison, the Oracle CEO, what he has done in Michigan, Cody Campbell at Texas Tech, he’s the freaking Board of Regions chairman there. So these people have influence and they can instantly change the course of (an athletic department).”
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Rutgers infielder Pablo Santos (18) dives and scores on a wild pitch during the college baseball game between Rutgers and Ohio State at Bainton Field at Rutgers Universityl in Piscataway, NJ on 5/18/24.Scott Faytok | NJ Advance Media
Royalties, Licensing, sponsorships: $66,967,106.
In a category that goes hand-in-hand with donations — both are analogous to the revenue streams used to build funds to pay players — Rutgers lags significantly behind its peers.
Rutgers raised just $2.7 million in the category in 2024-25, the lowest in the Big Ten and a significant drop from its high of $8.6 million the previous year. But even at its peak, the Scarlet Knights were leaps and bounds behind their competition: in the 2023-24 academic year, the other 12 public Big Ten averaged $17 million, with only Purdue ($7.4M) and Illinois ($7.1M) raising less.
How does it break down by sport?
Football is the biggest earner and spender in the department by a wide margin.
Schiano’s program piled up almost as much expenses ($425.7M) as the other 19 teams combined ($476.5M) in the past 11 years. Last year, it spent a record $76 million, representing 39.3% of the university’s record $193.8 million in athletic spending.
Football generated $214.4 million in revenue while the other 19 sports generated $338.9 million, though that does not tell the whole story.
If Rutgers credited the football program for the percentage of the media rights pot it generated like most Big Ten schools — the average for those who do is 85% — then the football program would account for $177.8 million in media rights revenue over the past five years while the other 19 sports would account for $31.4 million combined.
Still, when evaluating each program’s profitability as tabulated on the fiscal year reports submitted to the NCAA, football has the biggest deficit ($211.3M) of all 20 sports at Rutgers, with men’s basketball ($60.2M) being a distant second.
Women’s basketball accounts for the third-biggest deficit ($50.3M) by a significant margin, losing nearly as much money as the three closest sports combined: baseball ($20.7M), volleyball ($18.3M) and women’s soccer ($17.6M).
How much of Rutgers’ budget goes to athletics?
In his guest column with NJ.com, Tate pointed out that “athletics represents about 3% of the university’s $6 billion budget — less than half of average athletic expenses at the top Division I universities.“
In 2024-25, 3.67% of Rutgers’ $5.3 billion budget was earmarked to athletics. That percentage is in line with Rutgers’ Big Ten peers, according to an NJ.com review of institutional expenditures around the conference.
When — or will — Rutgers shrink its deficit?
The solution to that problem is a complicated one.
Considering Rutgers remains stuck at the bottom of the Big Ten across most of its sports, spending less money seems unlikely.
“Until people say, ‘we’re not going to put up with this,’ Rutgers is going to continue to spend and is going to continue to rely on direct institutional support to plug any holes,’' Ridpath said.
Some athletic departments have cut sports to save money, but while the Scarlet Knights sponsor more teams (24) than all but three Big Ten schools — Michigan (28), Ohio State (28) and Penn State (27) — that is not on Zinn’s radar.
“I think the best path forward at this point is more revenue, and that’s what we’re focused on,” Zinn told NJ.com. “If there comes a day in time where we don’t feel good about that piece, and then we’re going to need to take a look at a number of things, but for right now, I’m pretty optimistic and bullish about what we’re capable of with our revenue, and you’ll continue to see that be a priority.”
As the deficit piles up and conference opponents continue lapping the Scarlet Knights, time is running out to figure out how to raise the revenue significantly enough to catch up.
“There are a lot of schools in the country who would love to be a part of the Big Ten like Rutgers is, but this is a real put the pedal to the metal moment,” Weaver said. “How do we compete in the Big Ten? That’s the question I think Rutgers has been asking itself ever since they got in.”
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