Part 1: Ticket Sales Show Hogs Fans More Than Carry Weight in SEC
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Welcome to the first in a series of stories that will delve into the Razorbacks finances in search of where Arkansas excels and what holds the program back from competing at the highest possible level in the SEC.
The first of the areas to be explored is ticket sales. Common sense says the Hogs start behind the eight ball in fall because, even if Arkansas is having a great season in football, Razorback Stadium is roughly 30% smaller than the stadiums at places like Tennessee, LSU, Alabama and Texas A&M.
Football tickets are by far the most costly of any of the sports, so having 20,000 to 30,000 fewer seats than a lot of their SEC counterparts creates a major deficit. It automatically puts Arkansas behind by tens of millions of dollars from the start.
However, when it comes to the remaining sports, the Razorbacks have strong enough support to make up a lot of ground. Basketball regularly leads the nation in attendance or finishes second and dwarfs the rest of the SEC other than Kentucky. A bad season at Arkansas way outdraws other schools in the conference, even when those schools have great seasons, because Bud Walton is so much bigger.
The same goes for baseball. Baum-Walker is a massive facility that spends much of the year packed out. Sure, the tickets aren't going for a price comparable to football, but with basketball and baseball having so many games, it adds up quickly.
Factor in softball, which does well in its own respect when compared with much of the league, and gymnastics, which many schools in the SEC don't even have, and there's opportunity to chip away at those massive leads created by football.
So, let's keep things simple at first and take a look at how Arkansas compares to Alabama and Georgia in ticket sales. Both schools have dominated the college football scene for quite a while at the same time the Razorbacks have gone through the darkest decade in school history.
The Bulldogs don't have much else other than football going, but Alabama draws good crowds for basketball as of late. This comparison will test the theory of how impactful it is to have a well-rounded athletics program like Arkansas when it comes to ticket revenue.
To generate these numbers, the Knight-Newhouse College Data Base will be utilized. It doesn't have numbers from this past athletics cycle, but there is almost 20 years worth of information to explore as the graphs begin as far back as 2005.
As can be seen by the chart below for 2023, despite having nowhere as good of a football season as Alabama and Georgia, Arkansas did more than enough in basketball, baseball and other sports to easily outpace both the Tide and Bulldogs despite Kirby Smart making a national championship run in Athens.
The Razorbacks bested Alabama by $10 million and blew Georgia and it's one sport program out of the water by roughly $13 million. The rest of the FBS median falls $40 million behind.
To clarify, that means half the schools at the FBS level start their finances with $40 million less than Arkansas before sponsors, television money and donations are even factored in. The SEC median showing the same amount as Georgia means half the SEC begins its books at least $13 million behind.
It's an advantage that favors Arkansas regardless of year or how bad or great the football and basketball team happen to be. When Razorbacks fans argue they already show their support to the program by way of ticket sales, they truly have an argument.
Since 2005, there have only been four instances where Arkansas hasn't drawn more ticket revenue than Alabama and Georgia. The fallout from the John L. Smith experiment followed by an abysmal start to the Bret Bielema era led to three consecutive years where the Tide barely edged out the Hogs while Georgia continued to lag far behind.
The only other time it happened was a result of a fan revolt in response to the final season of the Chad Morris era. That's the only year both Georgia and Alabama had more ticket revenue than Arkansas as "Left lane, hammer down!" sent sales plummeting to the middle of the pack in the SEC.
Outside of those four outliers, Arkansas has dominated by millions. Neither Alabama, nor Georgia, has ever hit $50+ million in ticket sales and 16 times since 2005 the Bulldogs have trailed by roughly $10 million or more, most of which were in the $12-$15 million range.
When the rest of the SEC is considered, not much changes. Most often Arkansas finishes second or third and the ever-changing first place team edges the Hogs out by a few hundred thousand dollars.
For even more perspective, in 2007, the Razorbacks led the conference with $28.8 million in ticket sales. Mississippi State had $6.8 million and Ole Miss had $10.4 million. Half the SEC didn't break $20 million, including Kentucky, Georgia and Florida.
While Arkansas regularly views itself as competing with not only the Mississippi schools, but also Missouri for bottom of the barrel in financial perception in the SEC, it's no contest. Not only do the Hogs regularly blow both Magnolia state schools out of the water, but Mizzou is laughably far behind also.
In 2022, the Tigers took in $13.9 million. Arkansas took home $48.1 million. With such a massive head start, it creates extreme curiosity as to what numbers keep the Razorbacks from being the cream of the crop in the SEC in all sports.
Sure, Arkansas tends to dominate the Mississippi schools and Missouri in all the other sports, but this first dip into the numbers make it hard to understand why it's even a contest in football beyond mentality and perception. It can't be blamed on NIL because these numbers far predate the arrival of pay for play.
Here's how the Hogs have finished in ticket revenue versus the entire SEC. It reads as if recapping college baseball finishes rather than what one might expect from a financial report as far as the Razorbacks are concerned. The top-ranked team is in parenthesis if it isn't Arkansas.
2005: No. 2 (Tennessee)
2006: No. 3 (*Texas A&M)
2007: No. 1
2008: No. 3 (*Texas A&M)
2009: No. 2 (LSU)
2010: No. 2 (Tennessee)
2011: No. 1
2012: No. 1
2013: No. 1
2014: No. 4 (LSU)
2015: No. 4 (Texas A&M)
2016: No. 4 (Texas A&M)
2017: No. 3 (Texas A&M)
2018: No. 3 (Texas A&M)
2019: No. 3 (Texas A&M)
2020: No. 7 (Texas A&M)
2021: No. 1
2022: No. 2 (Texas A&M)
2023: No. 2 (Texas A&M)
* Not yet in the SEC
As can easily be ascertained, Arkansas is second only to Texas A&M in leading the SEC in first place finishes in ticket revenue. However, the Razorbacks are perceived as one of the poorest programs financially in the SEC while the Aggies are seen as stacking piles of gold deep in the bowels of Kyle Field.
On its face, with the Hogs getting out to such a huge lead on the first line of the financial books, it's stunning to believe Arkansas has always felt like a massive underdog when it comes to the pocket book. The fans appear to have more than done their part to make the Razorbacks' athletics program one of the top in the country, so all the recent grumblings about them not doing their share with NIL added on doesn't carry as much weight as it did prior.
Whether this is a self-inflicted perception allowed to spread into truth by various Arkansas administrations or if there is some other financial factor out there driving the athletics program into the financial abyss when compared to the rest of the SEC will hopefully be uncovered in the stories that follow in this series.
HOGS FEED:
• Hogs begin to build momentum in rebuilding 2025 class
• Calipari has to win big at Arkansas to hold off Pitino in race for most wins in college basketball
• Richardson broke Razorback football's color barrier with his arrival in late 60's
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KENT SMITH
Kent Smith has been in the world of media and film for nearly 30 years. From Nolan Richardson's final seasons, former Razorback quarterback Clint Stoerner trying to throw to anyone and anything in the blazing heat of Cowboys training camp in Wichita Falls, the first high school and college games after 9/11, to Troy Aikman's retirement and Alex Rodriguez's signing of his quarter billion dollar contract, Smith has been there to report on some of the region's biggest moments.