Oklahoma State Athletic Budget About to Climb Over the Nine Figure Mark

STILLWATER – In a very interesting story in the Sunday edition of The Tulsa World, Oklahoma State athletics director Chad Weiberg told Kelly Hines of The Tulsa World that this summer the Oklahoma State University athletic budget will climb over the $100-million mark for the first time in history. The current Oklahoma State athletics department budget is roughly $99.6-million. For the longest time in the old Big Eight, Oklahoma and Nebraska had the largest athletic budgets and in the more modern Big 12 it has been Texas and Oklahoma by a long shot that have made and spent the most money on athletics. It was many years ago that those two schools began spending more than $100-million a year on their athletic program.

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At all Big 12 schools past and present, football is the big money maker and the biggest sport expense.

In future years with Texas and Oklahoma leaving for the SEC and Brigham Young, Central Florida, Cincinnati, and Houston all moving into the conference, the Big 12 schools will be more equal and close together in athletics revenues and spending. Past history tells us that.

Weiberg told Hines in The World’s story that he feels good past, present, and future about the way Oklahoma State goes about funding and spending in athletics. He cited that the athletic department is self-sufficient and doesn’t not rely on monies from the general university. The athletic department is kept separate. 

“We believe that we are good stewards of our resources, and we are spending those resources in the best way that we can to be competitive,” Weiberg said in the story. “That in the end is what we’re here to do — provide a great experience for our student-athletes and compete because part of a good experience for our student-athletes is (the ability) to compete.

“But we also want to provide them all the support in the process, whether that’s academics or strength and conditioning or nutrition and all of those things that go into being successful on the field and in the classroom.”

Oklahoma State brings in the most money with the $41 million that comes from the Big 12 and includes the football contract with ESPN and Fox along with money from the NCAA for the men’s basketball tournament.  The next biggest revenue stream is from fans with donor contributions that total $32.8-million and much of this is the Oklahoma State POSSE organization. Ticket sales are next with football leading the way at over $10-million.

The operating budget has increased by over double in the past decade. The largest part of the budget is operating which includes sports expenditures and coaches salaries. The next largest expense is athletic department scholarships as the department pays the University over $10-million in scholarships. Just under that and costing nearly the same is facilities and maintenance and utilities. The just under that at $8.8-million is student-athlete support, which would go toward housing and meals

Weiberg is proud of the fact that Oklahoma State has a relative small amount, he believes the lowest in the Big 12 toward debt relief. The Oklahoma State way through most of their facilities growth has with the great help of the late Boone Pickens and others was to pay as they go.

Debt relief is listed at only $2,425,551.

Now, we did some research and came up with these numbers on the Big 12 and soon-to-be Big 12 schools minus private institutions Baylor, BYU, and TCU. The sources for these numbers were from Sportico. These numbers come from the 2020-2021 fiscal year, which you might remember was greatly impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak and pandemic. 

2020-21 Fiscal School Year Athletic Expenses and Revenue by Big 12 and Future Big 12 Schools

Again, these numbers are from 2020-21 and they are greatly impacted by the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.