Whether LSU Basketball is a better job than NC State Basketball is a micro-level question that is actually kind of a macro-level question about the future of the sport.
Will the industrial economy of scale of football factories in the Power Two overwhelm the places where fans actually care about basketball?
I think this ties in nicely with my above post about Syracuse.
The thing is, having a power conference football program is an absolute money pit, and if you want to be able to sustain that and have anything left over to compete in other sports, the media rights payouts in the ACC and Big 12 are just not enough to be competitive going forward in both unless you're able to generate a significant amount of revenue on your own as a program (that's what the Blue Bloods do).
I mean, look at UNC's balance sheet for both sports, for example (
https://goheels.com/documents/2026/2/3/NCAAMembershipFinancialReport2025.pdf):
Basketball Profit/Loss: $22,928,499
-Total Revenues: $39,742,089
-Total Expenditures: $16,813,590
Football Profit/Loss: $14,191,345
- Total Revenues: $63,337,093
- Total Expenditures: $49,145,748
So despite the much larger overall revenue for football, basketball was actually more profitable for UNC. And the revenue difference is actually fully accounted for by one line item - media rights, where UNC football generated $20 million more in media rights than UNC basketball. In fact, take away media rights, and UNC football would be in the red. Take away media rights, and UNC basketball would still be more profitable than UNC football was
with the media rights. Which is why ACC teams want to get out so badly - their media rights deal is so much worse than the P2.
And UNC is one of the schools in good shape. A lot of schools don't post these reports. My guess is a lot of them are not in the black in football. Here's a Big 12 team that's doing quite a bit worse: Kansas (
https://kuathletics.com/documents/download/2026/1/15/FY_24-25_NCAA_Final_Report.pdf)
Basketball Profit/Loss: $2,186,865
- Total Revenues: $21,918,944
- Total Expenditures: $19,732,079
Football Profit/Loss: $2,593,903
- Total Revenues: $37,110,397
- Total Expenditures: $34,516,494
I mean, still in the black, but barely so, despite spending $15 million a year less than UNC on football. And keep in mind,
this is before revenue sharing.
Meanwhile, here's our balance sheet, for a Big 10 perspective (
https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/...nts/2026/1/16/FY25_IL_NCAA_Report__Final_.pdf)
Basketball Profit/Loss: $16,655,914
- Total Revenues: $35,275,590
- Total Expenditures: $18,619,676
Football Profit/Loss: $38,671,209
- Total Revenues: $87,939,659
- Total Expenditures: $49,268,450
So, as far as the cost to operate a program goes, we're in the ballpark with UNC in both sports and with Kansas on basketball, and spending more than Kansas is on football. For now. But given the huge revenue advantage to having an SEC or Big Ten football program, I don't know how that's sustainable, particularly with revenue sharing. With most P4 teams expected to contribute $15 million to revenue share for football, that easily puts Kansas football in the red and for UNC it would be close. And for the broader picture, for this FY 2025 reporting period, UNC's entire athletic dept finished $15 million in the red. Kansas finished $80 million in the red. We finished $5 million in the black. That's not a crazy amount, but it means a lot more room to maneuver going forward.