Data Source
All financial figures are pulled directly from filings each U.S. college submits to the U.S. Department of Education under the Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act (EADA). The primary file is the institutional revenues and expenses disclosure; fiscal-year dates follow each institution’s own academic calendar.
Processing Pipeline
- Raw CSV ingested into three normalized tables: institution, finance by year, and sport-level detail.
- Institution slugs generated from the official name, keyed to the IPEDS
unitid. - Zero-revenue or zero-expense records excluded from publication.
- Percentile rank computed within classification — a D1-FBS program is never ranked against a D3 program.
Peer Benchmark
Peers are selected as the five schools in the same NCAA/NAIA classification with the closest total athletic revenue to the subject school. When fewer than five programs exist in a classification, we use the full group.
Investment-Lens Ratios
- Subsidy Rate = max(expenses − revenue, 0) ÷ revenue
- Revenue per Athlete = total revenue ÷ (men + women participants)
- Top Sport Share = top-revenue sport ÷ total athletic revenue
- Expense Ratio = total expenses ÷ total revenue
Known Limitations
EADA self-reports are annual and carry a 12-month lag. Some non-FBS institutions report only aggregated totals. We surface these gaps rather than imputing values.