College Sports Money · Division I FBS

Auburn University

Auburn, Alabama · Football Bowl Subdivision · public university. Auburn University reported $205.3M of athletic revenue in 2024-25 against $195.9M of expenses. That is 1.8 times the $116.0M median for the 128 Football Bowl Subdivision programs, and it ranks 15th of 128 in the FBS and 15th of 358 across Division I. Revenue rose 6.1% on the prior year’s $193.4M.

Analysis by , Chief Technology Officer at Civly · All 358 Division I schools

$205.3M
athletic revenue, 2024-25
$195.9M
athletic expenses
$9.3M
revenue less expenses
+6.1%
revenue against the prior year
15th of 128
by revenue in the FBS
15th of 358
by revenue in Division I
555
athletes · 330 men, 337 women
25,177
students enrolled

What the numbers say

Everything below is the school’s own filed figures for 2024-25, read against the 128 programs it is grouped with.

The cap against this budget

What maxing direct pay to athletes would cost

Paying the full $21.3M revenue-sharing cap for 2026-27 would take 10.4% of everything this department took in. The cap is a ceiling on what a school may pay its athletes directly, not a spending figure and not an obligation, and third-party name, image and likeness money is uncapped and does not count against it.

Who is on the rosters

Participation and enrollment as surveyed

555 athletes were counted at the school in the survey year, filling 330 men’s and 337 women’s roster spots across 12 sports. The two counts differ because an athlete who plays two sports fills a spot in both. Enrollment is 25,177. Football is the largest single line, $121.4M of revenue against $58.7M of expenses, which is 59% of what the department earned.

Sport by sport

What each sport brought in, what it cost, and how many athletes it carried.

SportRevenueExpensesNetMenWomen
Football$121.4M$58.7M+$62.7M1210
Basketball$27.4M$26.3M+$1.1M1821
Baseball$4.1M$7.6M−$3.4M430
Equestrian$3.8M$6.3M−$2.5M045
Softball$885k$3.7M−$2.8M025
Track and Field and Cross Country (combined)$801k$6.4M−$5.6M86107
Golf$796k$4.2M−$3.4M108
Gymnastics$779k$3.1M−$2.3M022
Swimming and Diving (combined)$528k$5.6M−$5.0M4446
Soccer$457k$3.1M−$2.7M035
Tennis$405k$3.6M−$3.2M810
Volleyball$351k$2.6M−$2.3M018

The 12 sports at Auburn University that reported money or participants in 2024-25. Sports the school surveyed but left empty are not shown. Revenue and expenses attributed to no single sport, which at most departments is the larger share of both, sit in the department totals above and not in this table, so these rows do not add to those totals. Sort by any column.

Who funds the athletes

The organization we have verified as funding this program, and what its own tax return says it raised.

Tigers Unlimited Foundation

Booster foundation · EIN 364538203 · Auburn, AL · tax year 2024, for the period ending 2025-06-30
Total revenue
$91.3M
Contributions
$88.1M
Total revenue, year before
$62.5M
Contributions, year before
$57.4M
Change in revenue
+$28.8M

“To Provide Support for Auburn University Intercollegiate Athletics”

The link to Auburn University was verified by hand. Auburn's booster foundation, Auburn AL. Filed under NTEE T11 (philanthropy), not a sports code.

What to hold against these numbers

Three things that change how the figures above should be read.

1

The survey year comes before revenue sharing started

The revenue-sharing cap is a ceiling on what a school may pay its athletes directly ($20.5M for 2025-26, $21.3M for 2026-27), not a spending figure and not an obligation. Third-party NIL is uncapped and does not count against it. No federal athletics survey covers a revenue-sharing year yet; the first lands around spring 2027.

2

What the survey is

Every college that takes federal student aid and fields a team files this survey each year under the Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act. It is a federal filing obligation rather than a public-records request, which is why it covers private universities that the NCAA-based databases cannot reach. The figures are the school’s own reported numbers for 2024-25, not audited by the Department of Education. Reported revenue includes direct institutional support and student fees, so every department in the survey reports revenue at least matching its expenses. A surplus here is not profit.

3

What a tax return can and cannot show

A Form 990 shows what an organization raised. It never shows what any athlete was paid. No figure in the funder section is anyone’s compensation or the value of any deal. There is also no single donor-money line on the form: some organizations book donor money as contributions, others as program service revenue or fees for services, which is why total revenue leads.

Source: U.S. Department of Education, Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act survey, 2024-25; IRS Form 990 e-file releases for donor entities. Analysis: Civly.

Know who funds a program before you deal with it

This page is what the public record gives up for free. Civly Athletics vets the athlete, and Collective Prospecting finds and qualifies the donors behind a collective, each name traced to a filing or a public post.