Here are some ideas on how athletic departments can cut costs, Part I:

Good morning, and thanks for your continued support of Extra Points.

I’m not going to sit here and pretend I’m some sort of business genius. If I was, I certainly wouldn’t be working in online media, after all. But I know enough to know that if you want to improve the financial performance of your organization, you generally have two options. You can either increase your revenues, or cut your costs. 

Earlier this week, I wrote about some practical suggestions on how athletic departments can earn more revenue. Based on the myriad conversations I have with industry practitioners, I also have a few practical suggestions on how to cut costs. And no, this won’t just be a list of obvious stuff, like, “don’t guarantee a football coach $15 million dollars and then fire him in year two”, or “don’t sign up to send your soccer team to play four time zones away multiple times a season.” You don’t need me to tell you stuff like that. 

Here are four things athletic departments can do, without having to dramatically negotiate all of their existing coaching contracts.

Shop in bulk

You know what our household does to try to save money on stuff we have to buy all the time? Like every other red-blooded dad with a basement and trunk space…I go to Costco. 

Why walk to the gas station down the block to buy an energy drink for three dollars, when I can buy an industrial-sized pallet of energy drinks for $1.80 a can? Why buy one jar of peanut butter, if my kids use it for 70% of their meals, when I could buy eight? 

Does this sometimes create incentives for me to buy stuff that I don’t really need, like a 48-pack of beef jerky? Of course. But on the balance, even with all of those post-checkout slices of pizza, I think we come out ahead. Buying stuff in bulk saves money. 

I don’t think athletic departments are going to save a lot of money by buying all their office supplies and office beverages at Costco, and Kirkland isn’t in the athletic uniform business (yet). But there are things that athletic departments could potentially buy in bulk that they aren’t already, which could save them money.

Take software, for example. Most D-I schools pay for some type of NIL education/compliance solution, like Opendorse. These software suites can be expensive, but they’re hard to replicate entirely in house. But if everybody in a conference (or university system) decided to use the same software vendor, then the conference office could put everybody on one credit card, negotiate a bulk discount with the vendor, and then bill everybody out of their conference distributions. 

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