No other UL team exceeds the $3.8M deficit women’s basketball showed last seasonGETTY IMAGES
The Univ. of Louisville women's basketball team is the "No. 1 source of red ink" for the school's athletics department despite being ranked fourth in the country and having the third highest attendance average, according to Tim Sullivan of the Louisville COURIER-JOURNAL. No other UL team exceeds the $3.8M deficit women’s basketball showed last season. UL AD Vince Tyra said, "With the straight-line economics of that sport, you may scratch your head. But now that I’ve been in here 18 months, the portfolio and the brand has a lot of value when you are talking to corporate sponsors, when you are talking to licensees that represent our marks, and also to Adidas. They have great appreciation for what happens in these sports. All sports." Sullivan notes attendance for UL women's basketball is "on pace for a ninth straight season among the five top." When coach Jeff Walz took over the program in '07, its home attendance averaged 3,104, and its reported revenues for the previous year totaled just $115,621. Attendance has "more than tripled" during Walz’ tenure, and revenues had "grown nearly 14-fold by last season," to $1,610,281. Whether those revenues can "rise fast enough to offset expenses that totaled $5,431,274 last season is more of a theoretical question than an active concern." Neither Tyra nor Walz "views profit as a priority for women’s basketball, and both suspect raising prices could result in smaller crowds" (Louisville COURIER-JOURNAL, 2/19).
