MSU has Big Ten's 4th-most profitable athletic department

Yesterday, The Business of College Sports revealed revenue and expense data from Big Ten athletic departments for the 2010-11 season.

MSU came in as the fourth-most profitable department in the conference. From the story, "The data was obtained from the Department of Education and is from 2010-11.  While the data from the Department of Education is not perfect, it is the only data publicly available for both public and private institutions."

Here are the profit numbers. You can check the expense and revenue numbers in the link above. 

1. Penn State $31,619,687.00

2. Michigan $26,649,499.00
3. Ohio State $18,630,964.00
4. Michigan State $13,512,269.00
5. Purdue $6,773,110.00
6. Iowa $5,296,068.00
7. Indiana $5,293,816.00
8. Nebraska $5,170,608.00
9. Illinois $1,815,596.00
10. Wisconsin $655,421.00
11t. Minnesota $0
11t. Northwestern $0

MSU's total revenue was $80,963,182 and expenses were $67,450,913. The revenue was ranked seventh in the Big Ten and expenses were ranked eighth. Ohio State led the conference in revenue and expenses. Considering MSU has 25 varsity teams, which is fourth in the conference, it's surprising MSU has been able to keep the expenses so low. MSU's "Championships Build On Memberships" campaign has been an attempt to increase the money coming into the department, which in turn would be put back into teams with some new facilities.