Move to ACC is paying off for Virginia Tech

Joining the ACC, expanding Lane Stadium and scheduling more home games has been good to the bottom line of the Virginia Tech football program, nearly doubling revenue in the past five seasons for which figures are available.

Tech reported football income of $40.75 million for the 2006 season, the latest numbers available. That was by far the most in the ACC and 88 percent more than the $21.69 million the Hokies generated in 2002, two years before they left the Big East.

Most of the increase came between 2005 and 2006, when revenue grew 55 percent. The bulk of the jump came from increased ticket and luxury suite revenue from the expansion of Lane Stadium, revenue sharing from the ACC and a 2006 schedule that featured eight home games.

"We're always trying to grow the business," athletic director Jim Weaver said.

Tech cleared $14 million from football in 2006, up from $8.5 million in 2005, according to reports filed with the state Auditor of Public Accounts. Weaver cautioned that much of the additional revenue will go toward debt incurred by expanding Lane Stadium.

"It's not money we have at our disposal," Weaver said. "Until we get out of debt service, it's not going to allow us to have much more net revenue to re-invest into our program."

The athletic department owes about $66 million of the roughly $79 million it has borrowed since 2001 for two projects: the south end zone addition and the west-side expansion. Debt service will run $8 million this fiscal year and $7.9 million in fiscal 2009. It will tail off after that until the projects are paid off in 2027 and 2029, respectively.

Tech's revenue from football places it far ahead of its peers in the ACC. On its annual report with the U.S. Department of Education, Clemson listed football revenue of $32 million, second-highest in the ACC. Duke, at $8.96 million, reported the lowest figure.

Virginia reported income of $14.2 million and expenses of $17.1 million for football in the 2006 season - a net loss of $2.9 million, according to the Auditor of Public Accounts. But the figures are deceiving because of the methodology Virginia used, said Keith VanDerbeek, associate director of athletics for business operations.

Virginia's figure would be higher had it chosen to put some of its ACC payout in the football revenue column, he said. Instead, the Cavaliers put the entire amount into the "non-program specific" category.

In Virginia Tech's report, $5.5 million of its $10.8 million ACC payment was counted as football revenue.

"We kind of do some pro-rating there," said Lisa Rudd, assistant director of athletics for financial affairs.

Virginia Tech benefits from having more conference money than it did in the Big East. The largest payout Tech got from the Big East was about $5.1 million, which occurred when the Hokies won the 1999 conference title and played for the national championship, Weaver said.

Unlike the Big East, the ACC's annual payment is not performance-based. Each school receives the same amount - about $9.3 million in fiscal 2007 - plus a travel allowance for bowls and other championship tournaments.

ACC membership has also been a boon for men's basketball at Tech. Ticket sales for Tech's last season in the Big East, 2003-04, were $1.3 million. That figure grew to $1.8 million in 2004-05, the first year in the ACC, and to $1.97 million in the 2006-07 season, the latest for which figures are available.

"We've sold out every year in the ACC," Weaver said. "We never did that in the Big East."

Tech's entire athletic budget grew from $45.7 million in fiscal 2005 to $65.6 million in fiscal 2007, an increase of 43 percent. That growth rate dwarfs the national average of 25.5 percent in the same period among all 119

Division I-A football schools.

Average expenses went up 23 percent at those schools in the same period, according to the NCAA. Financial matters were a major topic of discussion among athletic directors at last week's ACC meetings, Weaver said.

The ADs tabled discussion of adding a ninth conference football game, but talk of increasing the number of conference games from 16 to 18 in men's basketball is still out there.

"We felt that it was prudent, in these economic times, to discuss as many things as we could," Weaver said.

Ed Miller, (757) 446-2372, ed.miller@pilotonline.com