Iowa women’s basketball sees 125 percent jump in revenue, per NCAA filing

IOWA CITY — As Caitlin Clark and Iowa women’s basketball experienced a surge in popularity in 2022-23, it resulted in a surge in revenue for the program.

Iowa women’s basketball experienced a 125 percent increase in operating revenue in the 2022-23 fiscal year, according to Iowa’s most recent NCAA financial report obtained by The Gazette via a public records request.

Ticket revenue, which nearly doubled from $767,069 in 2021-22 to more than $1.4 million in 2022-23, was one of the biggest drivers of the program’s financial boost.

Iowa women’s basketball also benefited from significant increases in NCAA distribution funding, philanthropic contributions, media rights, sponsorships and other revenue sources.

The dramatic increase in revenue was amid a season that featured sellout crowds, record-breaking TV audiences and most notably Iowa’s first trip to the national championship game.

The program’s financial momentum will continue to be on display when the 2023-24 financial filing is finalized next January. The Hawkeyes sold out their entire slate of home games this season while also increasing ticket prices.

“There are other schools that are benefiting from it as well with ticket sales when we come there and play,” Iowa Athletics CFO Greg Davies told The Gazette. “So that’s a great thing.”

Lisa Bluder’s program was not the only Iowa women’s team to experience significant increases in revenue.

Iowa’s other intercollegiate women’s sports programs combined to increase revenue from roughly $1.6 million in 2021-22 to $3.4 million in 2022-23 — a 117 percent jump.

Almost all of the increased revenue for the non-basketball women’s sports can be attributed to contributions. Every women’s team on campus saw sport-specific contributions more than double, according to the NCAA filing.

The rise in contributions — a $1.6 million increase for non-basketball women’s sports — was a “general increase in contribution income for sport program operating support, as well as an increase for grants-in-aid support,” Davies said.

Iowa’s department-wide operating revenue, expenses ‘can be skewed’

Iowa Athletics’ operating revenue exceeded operating revenue in 2022-23 by $7.1 million, according to the NCAA report, but that figure comes with a large asterisk.

The way the NCAA measures an athletic department’s revenue and expenses is different from the way the University of Iowa measures the department’s revenue and expenses.

“The NCAA report includes more information than what our budget does,” Davies said.

The revenue listed on the NCAA filing sometimes may officially be part of another department’s budget (like the UI Center for Advancement). At the same time, there are expenses that are “outside of our budget that all have to be reported in the NCAA report,” Davies said.

The apparent $7.1 million profit in 2022-23 was heavily influenced by the construction of the new wrestling facility, which has been entirely donor-funded.

The philanthropic contributions for the project were a major factor in Iowa’s total contributions increasing by $13.4 million in the 2022-23 fiscal year (despite facing competition for donors from Iowa’s NIL collective).

However, the $17.1 million in what the NCAA defines as “athletics-related capital expenditures“ does not count toward the NCAA’s measurement of ”total operating expenses.“

“Actually, when you look at our budget for last year, we balanced our budget,” Davies said. “This report can be skewed a little bit when we have large projects like that.”

Other notes

Comments: john.steppe@thegazette.com