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LSU’s athletics department released data a few weeks ago showing that Louisiana’s flagship public university raked-in more than $200 million in sports revenues over the past year. The athletics department also spent all but $3 million of the money. It turned a profit of $3 million.
About 40 miles west of Baton Rouge, the athletics program at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette is currently fighting for survival. The school’s athletics department recently cut 35 staff positions to trim its budget from $46 million to $42.7 million per year.
Why is UL-Lafayette’s athletics program losing money?
The Ragin’ Cajuns’ athletics programs have lost upwards of $5 million in each of the past few years. Much of the shortfall can be attributed to the school’s football program.
The UL-Lafayette Ragin’ Cajuns have fielded winning teams in four of the past six football seasons. Local fans are quite aware that their local team had become a top competitor within the Sunbelt Conference.
UL-Lafayette (like so many mid-major and smaller universities) is having trouble keeping pace with the rising costs in college athletics. Fan support at home athletic events has not significantly increased as costs have skyrocketed.
Big money support from the school’s alumni and corporate base has also failed to move the revenue needle enough to cover the increasing costs.
In fact, the Ragin’ Cajuns have a lot of company in dealing with a growing phenomenon called “donor fatigue.” It is the economic reality that most mid-major athletics programs simply cannot expect to compete for national titles with the giants of major universities.
UL-Lafayette’s annual athletics budget is 25% of nearby LSU
LSU’s rabid fan base fills-up 102,000 seat Tiger Stadium for most football games.
A seemingly never-ending demand exceeds the annual supply for prime seating in Baton Rouge. LSU athletic donors are effectively bidding against themselves for better accommodations by donating more and more money into the school’s athletic funds.
A quest for national championships by LSU in football, basketball (well, at least the women’s team), baseball and gymnastics has driven sports fanaticism. LSU’s athletic supporters have (thus far) been willing to dole out incredible amounts of cash to support that drive for success. Of course, those same donors get to retain prime seating accommodations at the school’s athletic events.
The incredibly deep pockets of key athletics donors agreed to cover LSU’s massive $54 million buy-out of football coach Brian Kelly last fall.
That same huge war chest of funding helped to guarantee the hiring of new coach Lane Kiffin at a price of $90 million over the next seven years.
Louisiana’s second-largest public university is struggling to pay the bills
UL-Lafayette has nearly 20,000 students. It is the second largest public university in Louisiana behind only LSU (34,000 undergrads plus 7,000 graduate students).
The football team for UL-Lafayette plays in the $65 million recently-renovated 30,000 seat Cajun Field.
This ambitious stadium upgrade took nearly two years to complete and was put into service last fall. The football stadium was originally constructed in 1971.
The revamped Cajun Field offers better outdoor seating options, luxury boxes, and other improved aesthetics to provide a better fan experience. Funding for this upgrade came from the school’s largest donor groups and a few key corporate sponsors.
Donors were provided the opportunity to spend money for naming rights within the upgraded stadium. You could have placed your name on the stadium’s new scoreboard for $3 million.
The “SwampSwamiSports.com” concession stand would have cost me a cool $250,000 to have my name on it (ha ha – good luck with that one!).
You could even place your name on the stadium’s four oak trees for a pledge of $50,000.
Last fall’s initial season in the Cajuns’ upgraded football stadium produced an average home attendance of 19,981 per game. That is 2/3 of capacity. UL-Lafayette’s game against nearby McNeese State produced the season’s largest crowd of 26,067.
Ten years earlier, UL-Lafayette’s 2015 average home football attendance was 21,596 per game.
In other words, the athletic support from the school’s home market seems to have remained relatively flat from year-to-year.
The Ragin’ Cajuns $40 million annual athletics budget is near the bottom of the Sunbelt Conference
UL-Lafayette has been a member of the Sunbelt Conference since 1991. The league was comprised of 14 members last fall for the 2025 football season.
Last year’s Ragin’ Cajuns athletics budget of more than $40 million placed it ahead of only Arkansas State, Georgia Southern, Southern Miss, and in-state rival UL-Monroe ($20.9 million).
The Sunbelt expanded in the year 2022 to include James Madison University and Old Dominion University in Virginia plus Marshall University in West Virginia.
A road trip from Lafayette, Louisiana to each those schools requires more than 1,000 miles each way. That means that air travel is needed for not just football but basketball, baseball, softball, and other team sports playing on the road at those destinations.
One source estimated that the increase in travel costs to play the recently-added Sunbelt members added a few million dollars in transportation expenses (mostly via air) for the Ragin’ Cajuns.
Should UL-Lafayette try to increase athletics revenues, cut costs, or both?
Playing in the Sunbelt Conference brings both UL-Lafayette and in-state rival UL-Monroe more than $2 million apiece in media revenues from ESPN and other sources. A departure out of the Sunbelt Conference to drop back into the FCS level would mean an immediate loss of media revenue for athletics.
A very significant near-term problem for Louisiana’s mid-major football programs is the SEC’s decision to play nine conference football games beginning this fall. Going from eight to nine SEC games leaves just three non-conference opportunities available in the football schedule for LSU and other regional SEC teams.
The LSU Tigers have been quite generous in scheduling Louisiana-based teams to come play at Tiger Stadium for non-conference games in recent decades. Those road teams generally pocket more than $1 million to become “Tiger Bait” for their three hour fall visit to Baton Rouge playing in a non-conference football game against LSU.
UL-Lafayette’s Ragin’ Cajuns played only one big “money game” last fall at the SEC’s University of Missouri.
In-state Sunbelt rival UL-Monroe played two payday road games in 2025 – at SEC powerhouse Alabama and at the Big Ten’s Northwestern University.
The Warhawks’ athletics war chest (half the size of UL-Lafayette) depends heavily on at least two money games per year to keep the school’s athletics budget adequately funded.
SEC football teams will now have one less spot to fill in their football schedule. That means increased competition among today’s mid-major football programs seeking for the chance to land one or two payday games every season.
This will likely to drive the monetary guarantees for these games down in the years to come.
LSU Director of Athletics Verge Ausberry will have even more football teams knocking on his door to fill future non-conference games in Baton Rouge. Those paydays are likely to decrease for Louisiana’s current Sunbelt Conference members such as UL-Lafayette and UL-Monroe.
Do students want to pay additional fees to help cover the growing costs of athletics?
UL-Lafayette’s last increase in annual student fees dedicated to cover athletics came about 20 years ago. It added just $10 per semester per student.
Sunbelt member James Madison University (21,000 students) is similar in size to UL-Lafayette. The Virginia-based school charges students a whopping $2,456 (correct) per academic year to pay for college athletics.
This provides JMU with $50 million directly from students – whether they attend sporting events or not.
Even UL-Monroe passed an increase in student fees dedicated to athletics from $20 to $75 per year beginning in 2025. It will add about $600,000 annually to the Warhawks athletics budget.
Getting UL-Lafayette’s students to kick-in additional cash for athletics may be a hard sell. Don’t go looking-up many of the school’s primary athletics donors, either. They are proudly pointing at the Ragin’ Cajuns’ $65 million renovated football stadium as proof of their recent philanthropy.
What is happening at UL-Lafayette is not unique. It is occurring all across the country as many universities struggle to determine if they should remain playing in the upper tier of college athletics.
The rising costs necessary to sustain expensive college athletic programs are causing university administrators to (finally) take a much harder look at the economic realities.
Many college athletics programs are currently on life-support.
Who’s next?