Very telling things about the current state of college soccer

Those numbers probably include scholarship $$$, Coaches' Salaries, etc. Interesting that 7 of the top 10 are Big Ten Schools - i wonder if they report their expenses differently, or if it is a by-product of massive revenue for football being shared with Olympic Sports.

 

I'd guess it's at least partially the latter. If that's the case, you'd have to wonder if the schools will keep providing that kind of money as they have to find more to finance football and hoops and pay those players.

I'd also like to see what a school like Vermont spends. I'd assume nowhere near what Clemson and the rest in that top 10 are spending.

 

Yeah that is nothing for those schools.

 

I doubt they look at it that way, particularly in the rapidly changing current environment (the university system I work in doesn't have men's soccer at its largest school, but I promise you the athletic department doesn't feel like it has money to throw around).

The most recent college athletics numbers I can find are from '23, but if you look here at Wisconsin -- just as an example since they're No. 3 on that list of soccer programs -- the athletic department is just barely in the black, by a little over $2M on $150M in revenue.

Going forward under the House settlement, DI schools will now be able to directly pay their athletes $20M a year. If Wisconsin wants to compete in the Big Ten in football and basketball (likely hockey, too, at UW), it'll need to pay every penny of that every year. That's money it doesn't now have.

Can you find $20M a year every year going forward from donors to cover that? They'd no doubt cover some of it initially, but that's a big ask year after year, particularly when you're also asking them to fund facilities upgrades to keep pace w/the conference (and pay for pricey season tickets, ...). Can you pull it from the academic side of the institution? Almost certainly not -- state support in Wisconsin has been shakey at best over the past decade and families (or politicians who hold the purse strings) won't tolerate major tuition increases (though some places are increasing students fees to help cover some of this).

That $2.5M UW invests in men's soccer every year (along with the money spent on the rest of the non-revenue sports) has to be a pretty attractive target for cuts when football and basketball say they need to max out what they're paying their athletes. The AD has already said you can expect changes in what non-revenue sports receive, though he's at least so far committed to not cutting any sport.

 

jeez i'm gonna get my kid into football now

in all seriousness he did a flag football camp this summer and killed it. mostly they ran a bunch of routes. he did great running and catching. playing soccer i'm sure is a big reason he can adapt to football. he plays baseball too.

but there's no rush to play tackle football. he can start that 8th or 9th grade.

The other downside with soccer and baseball is the high number of games (at least for baseball in college, 56 games reg season). In the pros soccer and baseball have grueling seasons. Football is 18 games and has the longest off season.

Now with these rediculous conferences, you have kids flying tens of thousands of miles per year to play sports. How do you juggle that with class work?

 

It's affiliated with the Swedenborgian Church.

 

Its sad that soccer has a super low "return on investment" in the USA. Yeah I know you're not supposed to care I guess. But its hard to overlook. The amount that parents spend on it... with the minuscule prospects for scholarships or pro money, is downright criminal.

At least with baseball and football you can play Little League and High school and still have a chance to go D1. When I was growing up sports were cheap.

For a Brazilian kid its a good return on investment. Because its alot more organic and cheaper. And countries love to buy Brazilian players. And even recruit to US colleges for soccer these days. Literally American kids are losing both college and pro spots to foreigners more and more, while outspending all of them in youth development.

 

"Cal will need to fly approximately 4,132 miles on average for each of their five road games in the ACC during the regular season. This translates to a total of 20,720 miles traveled for those away games, according to FootballScoop.com. If they make it to the ACC Championship game in Charlotte, NC, they'll add an additional 4,586 miles to their travel schedule."

The specific distances for each game, including roundtrip miles, are:

• Auburn: 4,196 miles
• Florida State: 4,440 miles
• Pittsburgh: 4,512 miles
• Wake Forest: 4,618 miles
• SMU: 2,954 miles

 

I used to follow the Cal Bears closely as my cousin was their captain but lost track after Stefano Bonomo, Nick Lima and Jonathan Klinsmann all graduated.

The players told me they all got an allowance to buy groceries as well as living expenses but that was it.

I’m wondering how much they would all be getting now with this new law?

No one back then, really cared about soccer and Cal games were sparsely attended at Edward’s Stadium so the program didn’t profit.

There was talk the soccer team was going to build a stadium at the baseball field because that program was going to disband for lack of money but then some boosters came in and donated and saved the team.

Coach Kevin Grimes , who lasted from 2000-2022, was the only one I knew who was really making any money.

He also ran soccer camps though and that help fund the program.

Grimes now lives in Barcelona and is a USYMNT scout so I’m not sure who is in charge of the Bears today.

As far as juggling classes was concerned, I heard the student athletes all had tutors , were helped out a lot with writing papers and exams so that’s how they kept their academic eligibility.

 

I've posted things from this guy before, but I thought this was interesting. These are the Top 10 non-football/basketball programs in DI by ticket sales revenue. He has almost all of DI available behind a paywall. No soccer here, which isn't too shocking.

https://www.extrapointsmb.com/p/wha...t-from-selling-tickets-i-crunched-the-numbers

School, FY24 Ticket Sales, Sport
University of North Dakota
$4,977,131
Men's Hockey

University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
$4,081,423
Baseball

University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
$3,978,770
Men's Hockey

Texas A&M University, College Station
$3,584,214
Baseball

Louisiana State University
$3,510,507
Baseball

University of Wisconsin-Madison
$3,407,371
Men's Hockey

University of Oklahoma
$2,658,749
Softball

University of Nebraska -Lincoln
$2,569,620
Women's Volleyball

University of Mississippi
$2,469,296
Baseball

Mississippi State University
$2,413,042
Baseball

 

I wonder what the highest soccer revenue programs are, does anyone know?
Maybe UC Santa Barbara, Wake Forest?

 

Didn’t mention it here, but it’s making waves. Elon and Queens are merging beginning August 2026.

Not sure this will be a thing for long, there’s not much precedence for two private DIs being one entity but multiple athletic departments.

 

https://t.co/c9fQWDDZvs

 

I don’t really judge my view on college soccer on a message board — since it’s largely a dying thing anyway.

But, most fans ever at a College Cup tonight, 10,300+. Sure, it helps with NC State being 5 miles away. But, nice atmosphere for some not-so-great weather.

Also, great to see another first-time champ.

 

It's all a balancing act I think. Obviously, those of us passionate about college soccer always want "more" and believe that there is capacity to be more than what we are. Likely true in many ways.

There's this dangerous narrative that's easy to latch on to that everything is wrong with something & focus on all the negatives (making them the story). Equally important is always recognizing all the great that's associated with something.

College soccer isn't perfect. It's also still got a lot of amazing things going for it. The quality of play is good, the facilities are amazing, and the investment has increased consistently over the years. Players are granted the opportunity to get an education, be a part of a collegiate team & all the benefits that come with it, and often at a greatly reduced cost (heck some schools even pay a little!)

In the last two years we've seen what should be viewed at amazing competitive parity + excitement:
2024:
9 conferences produced seeded teams
5 seeded teams lost in 2nd round
Road teams were 2-2 in Elite 8
NC was unseeded and won 3 road games before the college cup
1st Time NC (Vermont - America East)
2025:
8 conferences produced seeded teams
6 seeded teams lost in 2nd round
Road teams were 4-0 in Elite 8
NC was unseeded and won 4 road games before the college cup
1st Time NC (Washington - Big10)

13 different conferences had seeded teams in the 2 years
7 different conferences had a college cup representative:
America East
Summit
Sun Belt
SoCon
A10
ACC
Big10(2)

Only 5 teams were seeded in both tournaments (IU, SMU, Georgetown, Stanford, UVA)
-None made a College Cup
Only 28 teams played in both college cups (68 different teams represented)

Both College Cups were well attended, had good atmosphere, and produced dramatic games / finals
Campus site games were largely packed and also produced good atmospheres

As mentioned above, we can't judge college soccer on a message board (so maybe no one will even read this!). 100% would love to see college soccer grow, evolve, and continue to become a bigger deal on the national stage. Also think we should celebrate a pretty amazing thing that we already have going on.

If people want it to be more "pro".....then they should go play / work in the pros!

 

The biggest difficulty is the time of year. I would love to someday see the College Cup played in late May (weekend after Memorial Day ?) and if US Soccer can work with the NCAA to make that happen - well we can dream - maybe build TST around it. I thing Cary has a good thing going and demand would force them to add more seats. The fact that tickets were being scalped is a good thing. First time since probably the first year at Richmond in 1995.

 

Tickets for the College Cup final were several hundred dollars on the secondary market.

I wouldn’t necessarily correlate the sparse amount of posts about the College Cup on this forum with “nobody caring about college soccer”. The crowds I saw at UW this season, at Maryland, and throughout the NCAA playoffs say otherwise. Perhaps it is more a reflection that this forum has lost steam.

I get all of the financial arguments. They are logical from the outside. But, having spoken to multiple ADs, I get the sense that many look at their mission more holistically. Financials matter, no doubt, but many seem to feel that their academic institutions are better served by preserving these “Olympic Sports”.

 

Presented without comment:

College Coaches, if you want to survive in the New Era/New Normal of College Soccer:

1. You have to be willing to cut players who can’t play. Do you want to feed their family or your family?

2. Raise NIL funds or get left behind.

3 Embrace the transfer portal or get left…

— College Soccer Truth ™ (@ImCollegeSoccer) December 27, 2025

 

First of all that guy is a fraud, gives bad advice and he mostly talks about Women's Soccer. Think he is a D1 Women's Assistant. It is VERY difficult to cut players at some schools since scholarships are given out for four years. You may let the player go from the team but they get to keep their scholarship and their $$$ counts towards your scholarship limits and also count towards your roster spot. At schools that offer a one-year renewal a little easier and especially if that player wants to play someplace else. For some kids on the end of the bench, they are like yeah I'm good, I'll graduate here get my money and not have to do anything so you end up keeping them for practice purposes.

 

Well, there's a reason why I presented it without comment! But it's definitely not a good look if a D1 women's soccer assistant is out there giving bad advice and generally acting in a fraud-like manner.

 

He’s not the only person on social media presenting themselves as an expert and people blindly listen.

 

Dow strikes quickly in the transfer market to start his PSU program:
https://www.topdrawersoccer.com/col...026-mens-division-i-transfer-tracker_aid55358

 

Dow Jonesing?

 

It probably isn't a record but 16 reported incoming transfers to U.Memphis is quite a number, the first week of Jan.
I assume these were all portal guys but I don't know if these days you can just leave. If you have the permission of the former coach allowing you to play, at a new school.