Arizona Seeks To Balance Athletic Department Budget By 2026

The University of Arizona athletic department has been operating in the red. They have been over budget and have taken preventative measures to keep it from happening again.

Last week at the Arizona Board of Regents meeting, Arizona president Robert Robbins addressed the budget overflow and said the school engaged the consulting firm of Ernst & Young to perform an audit of the department and suggest ways the athletic department could trim the fat on one end and raise more money on the other.

The firm revealed the department operated at a $33.6 million deficit for fiscal year 2024. They had $95.2 million in income and spent $128 million. Ernst & Young made some recommendations as to how they can raise more funds. They are looking to add an additional $16 million to $24 million in operating improvements within the next three to five fiscal years.

The athletic department had the largest deficit of all departments in the university.

“With all of the changes in college athletics, if we’re going to continue to have a Power 4 athletics program at the University of Arizona, we’re going to have to look at ways to cost shift and eliminate some costs such as security costs, facilities costs, more tuition waivers for students that take online courses as well as enroll in the spring and summer courses,” Robbins said.

The Chief Financial Officer of the school, John Arnold, said they have already worked on reducing the budget.

“We’re reducing the deficit from the $177 down to $52 million,” Arnold said.

The department plans on receiving a new surplus of cash from ticketing and parking, better development and more revenue from the Big 12 conference.

Arnold also made mention of the fact the departments were spending money without full knowledge or consideration of their budgets.

“The organizational structure hadn’t been looked at for a very, very long time,” Arnold said. “Several of the departments noted they didn’t know what their budget was and there seemed to be limited accountability, tracking or communication around [the] budget.”

Athletic Director Desiree' Reed-Francois told Jenna Fink, a sportscaster with Channel 4 in Tucson, how she plans on reducing her departments burden on the university.

"We cut expenses. We cut out certain positions that were not mission critical. We also renegotiated contracts wherever we could," Francois said. "We have got to have a sound financial model. Our goal is to balance by fiscal year 2026."

Francois also said the conference revenue increased and they renegotiated debt to lower the deficit.

"It was a complete team effort. All of our coaches bought in," Francois said. "This is what we are facing and how we have to do it."

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