Every week, PowerMizzou.com publisher Gabe DeArmond answers questions from Tiger fans in the mailbag. This format allows for a more expansive answer than a message board post. Keep your eye out each week to submit your question for the mailbag or send them to powermizzou@gmail.com. On to this week's inquiries.
pentagon asks: Why is the AD broke? We have had SEC $ for a few years now, so what happened?
GD: This is what we warned about when the move to the SEC was made. Yeah, they have more money coming in. But relative to their conference mates, they're still very low on the totem pole because everyone else makes that same amount of money. The extra money that has come in is being spent. Travel costs more to begin with. They're investing in all these facilities. Basketball attendance has been down outside of last year. Football attendance has declined five years in a row. Donations to TSF have certainly not risen enough to cover that. I believe the numbers last year were revenue of $97 million and expenses of $102 million. So there was about a five million dollar shortage last year. That has to be made up from somewhere (and oh by the way, there is still a lot of the South end zone project that was bonded from the University).
