University of Northern Iowa reports record level of general fund support for athletics

The University of Northern Iowa in fiscal 2024 contributed $6.3 million from the main campus’ general fund to its Athletics Department — the most in program history and indicative of an evolving college athletics landscape, officials said.

“The fiduciary challenges that UNI Athletics faces are similar to many other programs competing at the (Football Championship Subdivision) level,” UNI spokesman Pete Moris told The Gazette about the second tier of NCAA football — formerly known as Division I-AA — made up of 129 teams in 13 conferences, including UNI and Drake University in Iowa.

“The landscape of college athletics has shifted significantly in recent years,” Moris said. “UNI leadership recognizes that its athletic department must continue to evolve to remain competitive while being fiscally responsible.”

Among the changes transforming collegiate athletics are “name, image and likeness” deals allowing student-athletes to make money off their personal brand; a recent revenue-sharing settlement allowing Division I schools to start paying athletes; and swelling conference and media-rights payouts — all of which are threatening to further widen the gap between the haves and have-nots of college sports.

The athletic departments at Iowa’s division I public universities boast self-sufficiency — although the University of Iowa Department of Athletics has borrowed from the main campus budget, including a $50 million loan during the height of the pandemic.

But their conference support has been and continues to be much more robust.

UI Athletics in the 2024 budget year received $61.6 million from the Big Ten — nearly 2.5 times the $26.4 million it received a decade ago. Iowa State University received $34.7 million from the Big 12 last year — 45 percent more than a decade prior.

That compares with the $1.3 million UNI received in conference support in fiscal 2024. Although that was up slightly from a decade ago, it was down from the $1.7 million UNI Athletics received in 2022.

In propping up the UNI athletics budget in fiscal 2024 with a record $6.3 million general fund transfer, the main campus provided nearly $3.3 million in “general support”; $1.3 million in “scholarship support”; and a $1.8 million “one-time” contribution that was $1.3 million more than planned at the start of the 2024 budget year in July 2023.

For more than a decade, UNI’s general fund contribution to athletics hovered between $4 million and $5 million annually — and was between $1 million and $2 million in the 1980s and 1990s.

Addressing the extra help from the main campus, UNI officials in a recent budget summary to the Board of Regents said, “As the campus and collegiate athletics landscape continues to evolve, departmental leadership continues to review the budget in order to maximize revenue-generation opportunities and limit expenses in an effort to work toward a sustainable balanced budget.”

‘Unresolved issue’

Some regents, auditors and campus faculty in the past have addressed the self-sustaining discrepancy between UNI Athletics and the other Iowa regent universities by urging Panther Athletics to shore up its budget; by asking the main campus to shrink its contribution and by asking whether the other regent universities should help.

Nearly a decade ago, lawmakers proposed legislation that would have compelled UI and ISU to share athletics income with UNI Athletics — a proposal that didn’t pass.

And last year, UNI’s unionized faculty members called for an end to the practice of shifting general fund dollars to athletics — arguing UNI’s academic enterprise was “really just cut to the bone.”

  Buy Photo

“What we'd like to see going forward is that the auxiliary units be self-sustaining,” UNI professor Christopher Martin said at the time, noting the millions UNI gives the athletics program “would really help us a lot.” UNI’s academic enterprise, he said, is “the main mission of the university.”

A 2022 internal audit of UNI Athletics reported, “Departmental operations have resulted in deficit spending in four of the previous five years, reducing departmental fund balances and requiring additional support from the university’s general fund.”

Although UNI Athletics’ total expenses over the previous five years had been within 2 percent of budget, “variances of greater than 10 percent in actual to expected revenue have occurred since FY 2019. These deficits have reduced departmental fund balances and have required unanticipated support from the university.”

The audit recommended UNI Athletics “assess budgeting practices and work with university leadership, including finance and operations, to determine expectations for use of budgeting assumptions and create a long-term plan to ensure departmental ability to maintain positive account balances and balanced budgets.”

Two years later, in November 2024, internal auditors flagged UNI’s response to that audit as “not completed within six months of originally schedule date,” which was May 2023. A revised follow-up date has been set for June 2025.

“The only remaining unresolved issue is the first item, financial management,” Moris said of the 2022 audit.

‘Inheriting budgetary challenges’

  Buy Photo

To the question of whether UNI Athletics is pursuing self-sufficiency — like UI and ISU — Moris said, “In today’s college athletics landscape, it is not practical for any athletic program outside of the Power Four conferences to be self-sufficient.”

“UNI will continue to provide a level of general fund support to athletics within Iowa Board of Regents’ guidelines,” he said.

Financial management was among the priorities in finding a new UNI athletics director after former director David Harris left for the same role at Tulane University in 2024.

“When UNI was interviewing candidates for our director of athletics role earlier this year, university leadership was very transparent with the candidates that they would be inheriting budgetary challenges that may take several years to rectify,” Moris said.

During UNI’s director search, former Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby stepped in on an interim basis — until Megan Franklin was named UNI’s ninth athletics director in May.

  Buy Photo

Franklin served more than a decade as senior associate athletics director and for a stint as interim AD at Drake University, making her familiar with the Football Championship Subdivision and its challenges.

“Megan has been a key contributor to the renaissance of Drake Athletics in recent years,” UNI President Mark Nook said in a statement. “Her understanding of the NCAA Division I landscape and the Missouri Valley Conference will be immediately beneficial to Panther Athletics.”

Working within regent guidelines, Moris said, UNI Athletics and its leadership will continue to address budgetary issues while it “bolsters existing revenue streams and implements new strategies to increase income.”

Such strategies include philanthropy and “potential naming rights partnerships for the UNI-Dome,” which is undergoing a massive renovation.

“Once new premium spaces are completed in the UNI-Dome, those improvements are anticipated to improve the financial position of athletics as well,” Moris said.

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com