In a conference where everything “just means more,” having the best of something means even more. The best recruits, the best stadiums, the best practice facilities, the best coaches, the best support staffs and so on.

It’s something the SEC specializes in.

The conference is known for its sprawling stadiums, raucous crowds, and fierce home-field advantages.

Some hundreds of thousands of college football fans descend upon their beloved college towns across the South during Saturdays in the fall, helping to create a behemoth of a conference, even outside of football.

But being a member of the SEC now also “just means more.” Being a part of the SEC means bringing in more money, but trying to stay at the top also means more work, more upkeep and more investment to keep everything state-of-the-art.

More money, higher expenses

There’s more money in college athletics than ever before, especially in the mighty SEC.

The median SEC team recorded total revenues of approximately $57.4 million in 2005, the first year in the Knight-Newhouse database. That number jumped to over $159 million in 2022, the most current year in the database, good enough for a whopping 177.16% increase.

A significant chunk of that growth has come through media rights. The SEC median in 2005 for conference distributions, media rights and postseason football, which the Knight-Newhouse database describes as “Revenue received from the NCAA (including championships) and athletics conferences, media rights, and post-season football bowl games,” was roughly $12.9 million. In 2021-22, it was $59.3 million.

Both Egg Bowl rivals have profited from this growth dramatically. Ole Miss saw its earnings in this category jump by over 515%, and it’s been even more dramatic in Starkville (741.3%). With another new media deal on the horizon with Oklahoma and Texas set to join the SEC in 2024, the growth should only continue to increase.

But as the money coming in has increased, so has the money going out.

As part one of this series highlighted, increasing compensation for coaches is a contributor to increasing expenses for athletics departments. 

But compensation for administration and support staff, along with facilities and equipment, are also costs that continue to rise.

“(An) explosion in staff and coaches’ compensation, that and facilities,” Wayne State University assistant professor Scott Hirko said. “That’s where the money is going. The data show it, it’s everywhere, it’s across all areas of college athletics. The more money that’s made, the more it goes back into the system, and most of that money goes to football.”

Hirko previously served as the project manager for the Knight-Newhouse College Athletics Database and is now a scholar-in-residence for the Newhouse School of Communications at Syracuse, where he uses the database to delve into financial decisions in major college sports. The Knight-Newhouse database tracks such expenses under the “facilities and equipment” category.

“Facility expenses include debt service, leases, and rental fees for athletic facilities,” the database’s description reads. “This includes overhead and administrative expenses. Equipment expenses includes spending for items provided to teams, including in-kind equipment.”

In 2010, Mississippi State reported spending approximately $4.36 million on facilities and equipment, but that has risen to $23.8 million in 2022 — a 446% increase – per the Knight-Newhouse College Athletics Database. (Note: The database doesn’t have any data for private schools, like Vanderbilt.)

Ole Miss reportedly spent approximately $10.2 million on facilities and equipment in 2010, and that figure ballooned to $36.6 million in 2022.

This is nothing out of the ordinary for schools in the SEC. Mississippi State actually spent the least amount of money in the conference on facilities and equipment in 2022, while Ole Miss used the third-most, according to the Knight-Newhouse data.

The median SEC team spent roughly $33.9 million in 2022, and the median Power Five team spent about $31.2 million. 

But with SEC schools raking in exorbitant amounts of money, it’s a little easier for them to spend the cash to continue to attract the best talent they can, as Hirko pointed out.

“The money has to go somewhere,” he said. “If you’re making more money from the SEC (media) deal – we don’t pay college athletes a salary – so the money has to go somewhere, so you extend facilities.”

Keeping up with the Joneses

The arms race in college athletics is as fierce as it ever has been, with no signs of slowing down anytime soon. Whether it’s an SEC titan or any other Power Five blue blood, some program, somewhere is set to unveil the latest state-of-the-art facility.

“Other than Name, Image and Likeness, that’s where the real growth is besides coaching salaries,” said Karen Weaver, graduate faculty and academic director at the University of Pennsylvania and expert on the intersection of college sports and administration. “…Every kid wants to train in the nicest, best facility. They want to have access to the best rehab and the best strength training and all that kind of thing, so coaches know that’s how they’re being judged.”

That leaves both Mississippi schools in a difficult position.

Both Vaught-Hemingway Stadium and Davis-Wade Stadium are dwarfed by the enormous cathedrals around the rest of the league.

They share a conference with four stadiums that seat over 100,000, with another set to join the SEC next year in Texas. Not to mention that Texas and Oklahoma have ramped up their spending on facilities ahead of their inaugural season in the SEC — no Power Five school spent more on facilities in 2022 than Texas ($65.8 million) and Oklahoma ($61.3 million).

Much like their approaches to head football coaches, the two Egg Bowl rivals have gone down different roads when it comes to the facilities arms race. Spending the third-most money on facilities in 2022 isn’t a one-time thing for Ole Miss, as it has been in the top five of the SEC in four of the last five years.

In Starkville, that hasn’t been the case. The most Mississippi State has spent on facilities and equipment in the last five years was $28.4 million in 2019, which was still only the third-lowest in the conference. The $24.7 million spent by MSU in 2021 was the only time it broke out of the bottom three of the conference.

SEC brings uphill battle, bright future for Mississippi State, Ole Miss

With two more national brands joining a conference that already includes the likes of Alabama, Georgia, LSU, Texas A&M and Florida – five schools that finished in the top 10 in total revenue in 2022, per USA Today – it’s fair to question how the two Mississippi schools can keep up.

The state is somewhat unique in the SEC in that it has two schools in the conference, but its population pales in comparison to that of Florida, Georgia, Texas or even Tennessee.

Mississippi is arguably most similar to Arkansas in the SEC, but Arkansas obviously only has the one school.

In neighboring Alabama, its two SEC programs have built national profiles through multiple decades of success but also benefit from a greater population base.

All of this adds up to a very difficult equation for both MSU and Ole Miss to solve in an increasingly competitive league.

“That’s the future of Mississippi and Mississippi State, is to be associated with football success by being members of the SEC conference,” Hirko said. “The more money that’s going to be made, the more money they will spend in their football program to keep up with the Joneses, to keep up with Alabama.

“How do you get to even or above even? Spend more money. You think Alabama’s going to spend less, or Georgia? Of course not, they’re going to spend more. So, it’s almost a self-defeating prophecy in that, unless there’s some miracle and Mississippi becomes the hotbed of tourism or some other type of industry that’s going to raise the standard of living to be able to have those individuals invest back into the athletic program and raise donor contributions, where else is the money going to come from to make a difference?”

Improvements at both schools will still continue, however.

Ole Miss is set to finish renovating the Manning Center this month, with a final price tag of $45.7 million. Improvements to its baseball stadium and a new softball stadium are on the way, as well. The school has delayed renovations to Vaught-Hemingway Stadium.

Mississippi State recently renovated Davis-Wade Stadium to add balconies, and the possibility of closing in the horseshoe-shaped stadium remains. Mississippi State’s Humphrey Coliseum also is receiving a facelift, and the softball complex has renovations ongoing. 

But while there may be concerns about the two Egg Bowl schools’ ability to keep up with the rest of the conference, there will always be value in just being associated with the SEC.

“The future for Mississippi and Mississippi State is to be associated, is to be associated as a member of the Southeastern Conference, to be able to draw that type of interest, to raise their prestige the best they can with what they have,” Hirko said. “That’s not going to change.”

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