Clemson athletics nears $200 million in revenue ... and expenses. A closer look
Clemson athletics continues to make and spend money at record levels.
The Tigers athletic department generated roughly $198.6 million in revenue during the 2025 fiscal year, according to Clemson’s most recent NCAA financial report obtained by The State through public records request.
That’s a school record and about a $5 million increase from the previous fiscal year.
But it was more or less offset by record spending in the same period: Clemson athletics’ total operating expenses in the most recent fiscal year were roughly $197.7 million — also about a $5 million increase from last year.
For Clemson, the end result was a net profit of $893,714 during the 2025 fiscal year, which ran from July 1, 2024 to June 30, 2025.
Notably, this was Clemson’s last fiscal year before the school pivoted into the revenue-sharing era, which will further increase expenses because of millions of dollars in direct payments to athletes.
The 2025 fiscal year covered the 2024 Clemson football season, when coach Dabo Swinney’s team won 10 games and the ACC championship and returned to the College Football Playoff, losing at Texas. It also covered NCAA tournament seasons by the Clemson men’s basketball and baseball teams.
College athletics has long been a “break-even” industry, where schools generate millions of dollars in revenue but spend just as much, if not more, to fund their teams and scholarships. That remains the case for schools like Clemson in 2026.
But the numbers are staggering.
Clemson’s operating revenue vs. operating expenses
In fiscal year 2017, for example, Clemson athletics reported about $112.6 million in total operating revenues and $111.1 million in total operating expenses. Nine years later, the school is making and spending about 77% more than that — nearly $200 million in both categories.
The revenue-sharing era brought on by the House settlement — which began July 1 and allowed schools to share $20.5 million directly with their athletes — will only increase spending. Clemson has committed to sharing the maximum amount with their players, with the money heavily directly toward football.
Clemson athletic director Graham Neff said in October the school’s athletic budget for fiscal year 2026 (which ends this summer) will be $215 million, almost a 100% increase from the school’s budget a decade ago when it won a football national title.
Here are a few more takeaways from Clemson’s report:
Football is king … but spending at record levels
Swinney’s football team remains Clemson athletics’ revenue machine.
The football team generated about $88.7 million in operating revenues in 2025, roughly 44% of Clemson’s total revenue in the period. Clemson also made $33.9 million on football ticket sales, which was 86% of its total ticket sales revenue.
Clemson football also generated $25.7 million in media rights revenue and $9.9 million in conference distribution revenue from the ACC (which adopted a “success initiative” for football and basketball heading into the 2024 athletic year). By appearing in the 2024 Aflac Kickoff Game against Georgia in Atlanta, Clemson football also earned $5 million.
But the Tigers incurred $82.9 million in football expenses in the same period thanks to massive totals in head/assistant coach salaries ($21.5 million), support staff/administrative salaries ($13.9 million) and expenses like recruiting and team travel. Football spent $3.6 million on “meal allowance and player food/snacks.”
Clemson football’s operating expenses increased from $67.8 million in fiscal year 2024 to $82.9 million in fiscal year. Still, the football team generated $5.7 million in profit and was the only one of Clemson’s 21 varsity sports that didn’t lose money.
How basketball, baseball, other sports fared
Clemson men’s basketball was the school’s No. 2 revenue-earning team with $10 million in fiscal year 2025.
Coach Brad Brownell’s team helped drive $2.5 million ticket sales revenue and $4.5 million in media rights revenue during a 27-win season. But men’s basketball spent $12.8 million in the same period for a net loss of $2.76 million.
Clemson baseball, led by coach Erik Bakich, had $3.3 million in revenue and $7.9 million in expenses for a net loss of $4.5 million.
Women’s basketball under first-year coach Shawn Poppie had $1.1 million in revenue and $6.6 million in expenses for a net loss of $5.5 million.
Coaching salaries were a key expense for all three of those teams, as Brownell, Bakich and Poppie all have million-dollar salaries and Clemson also pays their assistants well. The Tigers’ men’s basketball team had $5.5 million in salary expenses, led Brownell. Bakich has a top 15 salary nationally.
Those numbers aren’t unique: The vast majority of college athletic departments nationally don’t generate any profit from sports outside football.
Excluding football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball, Clemson’s 18 other varsity sports teams combined for a net loss of $32.5 million, per its financial report, with team travel and coaching salaries as top expenses for most teams.
This story was originally published February 11, 2026 at 10:41 AM with the headline "Clemson athletics nears $200 million in revenue ... and expenses. A closer look."
