The Cost of Championships

Yesterday was a bad day. Not only did my firm's insurance guy tell me how much money I will hemorrage when my wife has our first child in May, but I also received my request from UGA for my annual "donation" for football tickets. Only several more hundreds of dollars for the right to see the Dawgs play in Athens maybe once next year. I guess I will have to sneak that payment by my wife.

I have to hand it to the UGA Athletic Department because the brochure is a great little document. On page 13, they have shown the athletic budgets for each SEC school and the number of conference championships each school has won since the 1991-1992 school year.

With these budget numbers, I decided to see how much each school pays for a conference championship. Using the athletic budget numbers provided by UGA, I divided each budget by the number of conference championships each school won in the 2005-2006 school year. (I'm including co-champions for regular season champions and tournament champions to spread the wealth.) I guess my point in this calculation is just to see who gets the most championships out of their athletic budget. Call it the Championship Efficiency Quotient (CEQ). I should be happy if my athletic department spends its dollars efficiently, wrenching championships out of each dollar better than the other guys.

Here are the numbers in descending budget size:
-Tennessee spent $13.98 million per SEC champion ($69.9 million budget, 5 championships)
-Florida spent $13.86 million ($69.3 million, 5 championships)
-LSU spent $30.85 million ($61.7 million, 2 championships)
-Georgia spent $7.69 million ($61.5 million, 8 championships)
-Kentucky spent $61.2 million (1 championship)
-Auburn spent $27 million ($54 million, 2 championships)
-Alabama spent $26.6 million ($53.2 million, 2 championships)
-Arkansas spent $13.2 million ($39.6 million, 3 championships)
-Ole Miss spent $30.7 million (1 championship)

Everyone else didn't have a championship team. So, Georgia had the highest CEQ last year, followed by the Hawgs. Historically, the Hawgs and Gators are the most efficient and Vandy is the least efficient.

So, I guess I shouldn't complain too much. The Dawgs win with the money I send them.

Your athletic departments wants it, needs it, please give it to them!