2015-16 Purdue Sports Financials

First off, I have to credit the Lafayette Journal & Courier for getting the raw numbers used for this piece. They submitted an open records request for Purdue’s athletic financials for the 2016-17 financial year and they are… interesting, in a word:

· Purdue is expecting to get $77.1 million in revenue. This includes about $38 million from the Big Ten in the final year of the current TV rights deal. This comes in a year when football attendance is at a record low.

· Last season Purdue averaged 37,508 fans per game, which was last in the Big Ten. Every week I get a media release full of stats from the Big Ten. Among those stats are attendance figures. Purdue has had 106,749 fans for three home…