The last time most Ohio State students attended a men’s gymnastics meet or a women’s soccer game was, well, never.

OSU has one of the largest athletic budgets in the country. For the fiscal year of 2000-01, the OSU budget for athletics was more than $50 million. The athletic budget is self-sufficient so all funds brought in are produced by revenue the athletic department generates.

Revenue from sports – aside from football and men’s basketball – is not much. “We don’t measure sports by profit and loss,” said OSU athletics director Andy Geiger.

Geiger went on to say the athletic department does not look at whether a sport brings in a positive net revenue stream. He compared it to colleges in the university – does OSU worry if the English department makes money, he asked?

Probably not. But is enough done to promote smaller sports at OSU and in the Big Ten conference?

“No,” said OSU men’s gymnastics coach Miles Avery. “But I don’t know that most other sports feel that way. I feel that if you have a sport that is Big Ten and national champions, people should know when their next meet is. It is not hard to know when the next basketball or football game will be. The next softball game? I don’t know. I don’t think the department needs to work as hard on those sports.”

Avery’s men’s gymnastics team won the Big Ten and national championship last season, but apparently not many people around Columbus realized it.

Let’s go inside the numbers. For the 2000-01 fiscal year, the football team brought in $16,000,000 from ticket sales that includes the public, students and faculty. The men’s basketball team brought in $3 million from ticket sales.

The two sports combined to bring in $25 million in revenue to fuel the $50 million budget.

Every other sport at OSU loses more money than it brings in.

America’s pastime – baseball – brought in $100,000 in ticket sales in the 2000-01 fiscal year with not one of those dollars coming in the form of a faculty season ticket. Women’s basketball sold $450,000 in tickets but had a net loss of $1,042,317 for the 2000-01 fiscal year.

Men’s wrestling, while popular at the high school level, had a net loss of $343,269 while selling only $12,000 worth of tickets. Men’s track and cross country lost $527,831, but did bring in $700 from the concession stand.

While the greatest net loss for sports is due to grant-in-aid ($150,000-$200,000 on average) their operating expenses far outweigh their revenue incomes.

Some have suggested more publicity from inside the athletic department could spur greater attendance at sporting events.

“I don’t agree,” Geiger said. “We have had great crowds. People have a lot of things to do. They are not always going to come to every meet. For certain sports like baseball, certain times people just don’t show up.”

Susan Henderson, associate athletic director, said the OSU athletic department does a lot to promote sports, such as producing media guides for every sport and advertisements for athletic events.

It could be that no matter what an athletic department or public relations staff does, sports such as gymnastics and soccer are never going to become popular with the mainstream public. Those sports have not had much success at the professional ranks either. But sports such as baseball and ice hockey, which struggle with popularity at OSU and in the Big Ten, are large revenue producers at the pro level.

Former OSU women’s soccer player Brynn Catino believes that the soccer program has been growing slightly each year, and as the program gets stronger – with help from the new Jesse Owens facility – it will only continue to grow. Catino felt for what the women’s soccer team brings into the university, it gets a fair amount of publicity back.

Others like Avery believe that if the athletic department cares about smaller sports, it needs to show it.