Mississippi State baseball’s total operating expenses were right in the middle of the SEC in fiscal year 2025, while it generated the 11th highest revenue in the conference, according to each SEC school’s NCAA financial report.
MSU spent $7.58 million on baseball in FY 2025, the eighth highest out of the 15 SEC programs who reported their numbers (Vanderbilt is a private institution, and does not publicly disclose its numbers). State’s operating expenses were just under the conference average of $8.07 million, according to the documents provided to The Dispatch by Al.com reporter Matt Stahl.
Nearly 40% of State’s operating expenses went towards paying coaches. Former head coach Chris Lemonis earned $1,569,771 in salaries, benefits and bonuses paid by MSU and “related entities” as described by the report. Assistant coaches earned $1,445,014. The coaching expenses were the only baseball expenses to surpass six figures.
MSU spent $726,303 on travel, $717,463 on student aid and $553,954 paying its support staff. All of MSU’s 19 other operating expenses included in the report were less than $500,000.
SEC Baseball Total Operating Expenses in 2025
- Tennessee, $13,002,846 million
- LSU, $10,988,407 million
- Ole Miss, $10,561,988 million
- Arkansas, $9,895,654 million
- Texas A&M, $9,016,887 million
- Texas, $8,599,070 million
- S. Carolina, $8,046,167 million
- Miss. State, $7,586,164 million
- Auburn , $7,570,625 million
- Alabama, $6,668,905 million
- Oklahoma, $6,599,417 million
- Florida, $6,480,577 million
- Georgia, $6,315,754
- Kentucky, $5,139,374
- Mizzou, $4,591,972
Baseball generated $3.38 million in FY 2025. MSU’s revenue was close to $2 million short of the SEC’s average, which was $5.13 million across its 15 public institutions.
Ticket sales made up 80% of MSU baseball’s revenue. The program generated $2.7 million from ticket sales in FY 2025. MSU generated $244,107 in “program, novelties, parking and concession sales,” and $168,387 in “sports camp revenues.”
No other MSU baseball revenue surpassed $100,000.
SEC Baseball Total Operating Revenues in 2025
- Tennessee, $12,839,274 million
- Ole Miss, $11,742,871 million
- LSU, $10,066,800 million
- Arkansas, $6,750,930 million
- Texas, $6,416,428 million
- Texas A&M, $5,758,509 million
- Florida, $4,374,398 million
- Auburn , $4,134,769 million
- S.Carolina, $4,056,114 million
- Miss.State, $3,380,930 million
- Alabama, $2,196,935 million
- Georgia, $2,065,883 million
- Oklahoma, $1,712,323 million
- Kentucky, $1,221,582 million
- Mizzou, $321,034 million
The numbers for Tennessee, Ole Miss and LSU were inflated by irregularly large numbers from “contributions.” The report describes contributions as:
“Input contributions provided and used by athletics in the reporting year including:
• Amounts received from individuals, corporations, associations, foundations,
clubs or other organizations designated for the operations of the athletics
Program.
• Funds contributed by outside contributors for the payment of debt service,
lease payments or rental fee expenses for athletic facilities in the reporting
Year.
• Amounts received above face value for tickets.”
Tennessee’s “contributions” were $7.3 million, LSU’s were $4.2 million and Ole Miss’ were $4.1 million. MSU generated $80,303.
Auburn (1.3 million), Florida ($1.6 million) and Texas ($1.3 million) were the only other SEC programs to surpass $1 million in “contributions.”
Jake is the Mississippi State athletics reporter for The Dispatch.
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