2025 Finances

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annarborbear
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10:13a, 2/25/26
The financials for the 2025 season have been released.
The total loss for the women's basketball team increased to $6.2 million.
Revenue from ticket sales was only $261,000.
Combined coaching salaries were just under $2 million.
Due to ACC travel increases, travel expenses rose to $1.75 million versus $663,000 in 2024.

Given these further financial losses, I continue to believe that we must have some high performance accountability standards written into our coaching contracts. Making the NCAA tournament every year should be a basic minimum standard.
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smh
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In reply to annarborbear • 10:23a, 2/25/26
annarborbear said:
The total loss for the women's basketball team increased to $6.2 million.

"total loss" is unfortunate wording imo # bad visuals
prefer.. athletic department support
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wvitbear
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10:37a, 2/25/26
How much were donations? Last year it was said if we make the NCAA's , attendance would increase. Did that work for you?
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annarborbear
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In reply to wvitbear • 10:54a, 2/25/26
wvitbear said:
How much were donations? Last year it was said if we make the NCAA's , attendance would increase. Did that work for you?

Total donations went up to $2 million, which included donations toward $2.4 million in capital projects, which I presume was the upgrade to the locker room. But even with that, we lost $6.2 million.

In the Boyle/Gottlieb era, we went to the NCAA's 11 times in 14 seasons. But now making it once, maybe twice, in eight years, is acceptable in return for these much larger coaching salaries and expenditures?
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annarborbear
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11:10a, 2/25/26
In regard to attendance, I think we are now fighting a losing battle. With changing line-ups every year, it is hard to develop support for a roster that most people don't even recognize. We are also depending on a very old fan base for this sport at Cal. I now attend fewer indoor sports events myself due to my own health risks and problems.

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stu
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In reply to annarborbear • 11:58a, 2/25/26
annarborbear said:
The financials for the 2025 season have been released.
The total loss for the women's basketball team increased to $6.2 million.
Revenue from ticket sales was only $261,000.
Combined coaching salaries were just under $2 million.
Due to ACC travel increases, travel expenses rose to $1.75 million versus $663,000 in 2024.

Given these further financial losses, I continue to believe that we must have some high performance accountability standards written into our coaching contracts. Making the NCAA tournament every year should be a basic minimum standard.

To get to the NCAA Tournament every year we'll need to "lose" even more money to get the players. Should player contracts also have accountability standards?

(Edit) On a related note, we can't achieve high standards just by demanding them. Without adequate resources most coaches will fail and be fired, leading to a nearly endless cycle of rebuilding and failing. If one should succeed then they (and their players) would immediately run off to places where their success would be properly rewarded.
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annarborbear
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In reply to stu • 12:42p, 2/25/26
stu said:
annarborbear said:
The financials for the 2025 season have been released.
The total loss for the women's basketball team increased to $6.2 million.
Revenue from ticket sales was only $261,000.
Combined coaching salaries were just under $2 million.
Due to ACC travel increases, travel expenses rose to $1.75 million versus $663,000 in 2024.

Given these further financial losses, I continue to believe that we must have some high performance accountability standards written into our coaching contracts. Making the NCAA tournament every year should be a basic minimum standard.

To get to the NCAA Tournament every year we'll need to "lose" even more money to get the players. Should player contracts also have accountability standards?

Great idea. We used to do even battles with UCLA. Now they have won the Big Ten title, draw 10,000 fans per game, and have 4 potential WNBA first round draft choices on their roster. Their ability to pay NIL as well as connect players with other outside endorsement contracts makes an obvious difference.

So if no one on here has big dollars to contribute and we cannot compete, then why not drop down to a West Coast league (maybe except for football) that requires less money and where people stay to get a degree like UC Davis? Why pay these high coaching salaries, player salaries, and other expenses and not achieve anything significant? I do know that I would have been out the door in any of my own career positions if I had this track record.
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stu
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In reply to annarborbear • 12:54p, 2/25/26
annarborbear said:
So if no one on here has big dollars to contribute and we cannot compete, then why not drop down to a West Coast league (maybe except for football) that requires less money and where people stay to get a degree like UC Davis? Why pay these high coaching salaries, player salaries, and other expenses and not achieve anything significant? I do know that I would have been out the door in any of my own career positions if I had this track record.

Right now I'd say we seem to be competing in the ACC, like middle of the pack. If our players with remaining eligibility return we should be better next season. However we may not have the funds to make that happen.

If so, I agree we'd be better off in a West Coast Ivy-type league. I can imagine Cal, Stanford, UCD, UCSB, UCR, UCI, USCD, and Cal Poly SLO. Unfortunately that won't work for football, which we seem to have gone all in on (if I can end a sentence with two prepositions). Dunno if we can (or should) play different sports in different leagues.
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Woodacre
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1:26p, 2/25/26
Cal is 11th in the ACC in Home Conference attendance, at 2224. Cal is an above average team (that we love and care about) in what's turning out to be, at least this year, an average, at best, Power 5 Conference. Cal is middle of the pack in most team stats in the ACC, except towards the top in 3 pointers made and Assists, and towards the bottom of Blocked Shots, Turnover Margin, Offensive Rebounds and Steals. Individually, Lulu is 4th in Scoring, 4th in 3 Pt Percentage, 1st in 3 Pt Shots Made and 1st in Free Throw Percentage, Gisella is 10th in Rebounding and 15th in 3 pt Shots Made, Sakima is #1 in Field Goal Percentage, Mjracle is 7th in Assists and 6th in Steals. Lulu is 2nd in Minutes Played, Gisella is 4th, and Mjracle is 13th.
Despite the frustrations of would've, could've, should've, there is much to acknowledge and honor. As a family we will continue to donate, show up for games, bring a freakin' friend or two, and, if it ends up that Cal will host a WBIT game, we will be there for that too.
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SFCALBear72
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In reply to annarborbear • 2:37p, 2/25/26
annarborbear said:
In regard to attendance, I think we are now fighting a losing battle. With changing line-ups every year, it is hard to develop support for a roster that most people don't even recognize. We are also depending on a very old fan base for this sport at Cal. I now attend fewer indoor sports events myself due to my own health risks and problems.


Maybe it's not necessarily the roster but the current conference foes we're now facing that has impacted attendance.

We are only two years removed from when UCLA, $C, Arizona, UW, Oregon etc would come to town to play the Bears on a regular basis. They are familiar schools. Plus, we had a long history with them. Pac-8, Pac-10, Pac-12.

Now, it's Louisville, Boston College, Pitt, UNC, Florida State, etc. coming to town. Most Bay Area folks don't know a whole lot about these schools or the ACC as a whole.

Maybe we need to do a better job of talking about our membership in the ACC and who these new competitors are and why it's important to support the Bears now in this new environment.
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wvitbear
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2:40p, 2/25/26
Once i give up my season tickets, i won't watch them on TV. If they are not good enough to watch live, I'm not supporting them for others for free.
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bearchamp
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3:07p, 2/25/26
How much attendance is needed for the income to support the team? Does WBB split the gate wtih opposing teams?
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wvitbear
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3:19p, 2/25/26
According to the Big Ten attendance figures, UCLA is averaging 5,891 per game and USC slightly higher with 5,932. I bet they are both losing money. If they are should they drop women's basketball?
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annarborbear
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In reply to bearchamp • 3:27p, 2/25/26
bearchamp said:
How much attendance is needed for the income to support the team? Does WBB split the gate wtih opposing teams?

With our low ticket prices and freebies, there is no way we could generate millions of dollars more than last year's $261,000 in total ticket revenue. So if it comes down to money, we will have to do it on the expense side or will have to find a huge donor.
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annarborbear
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In reply to wvitbear • 3:31p, 2/25/26
wvitbear said:
According to the Big Ten attendance figures, UCLA is averaging 5,891 per game and USC slightly higher with 5,932. I bet they are both losing money. If they are should they drop women's basketball?

I will look up their finances if they are published. It is a lot easier to justify staying in if you are getting the best players in the country and competing for championships, along with more donors and much higher fan interest. In the past, UCLA has had many big donors. But it may be that some do not now want to put their money into this new professionalism of college sports. They also now have that huge B1G media contract, so have more money available in general from that.
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smh
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In reply to wvitbear • 3:36p, 2/25/26
wvitbear said:
Once i give up my season tickets, i won't watch them on TV. If they are not good enough to watch live, I'm not supporting them for others for free.

speaking as an idiot a person who had to give up attendance due to medical issues (darn it) folks might wanna wait and see to decide what they'll do when hard times strike, as can eventually happen.
signed, grateful for TIVO and/or [second best] streaming options.
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wvitbear
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3:40p, 2/25/26
So you support what the big Ten conference has become. i think they have ruined college sports.
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annarborbear
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In reply to wvitbear • 3:52p, 2/25/26
wvitbear said:
So you support what the big Ten conference has become. i think they have ruined college sports.

I dislike the professionalization, the near total turnover of yearly rosters, the now constant appeals for more money, and the non-competitiveness of teams who cannot compete due to limited finances. But I have been a Cal fan since 1958 when my dad took me to my first Cal football and basketball games. So I will probably be watching a Cal game on TV when I finally check out.

I also still watch some Michigan games. But I can't believe I am watching a quarterback to whom they are paying $10 million through a donation from Larry Ellison.

I like Stu's idea of a West Coast Ivy League. However, we will probably have to go totally broke before it happens.
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HearstMining
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In reply to annarborbear • 6:01p, 2/25/26
annarborbear said:
In regard to attendance, I think we are now fighting a losing battle. With changing line-ups every year, it is hard to develop support for a roster that most people don't even recognize. We are also depending on a very old fan base for this sport at Cal. I now attend fewer indoor sports events myself due to my own health risks and problems.


I've said this on the Men's Basketball forum and it applies to women as well. Cal should pick a game or two and send out free tickets to every high school girl's basketball coach in the East Bay for their team to come. This is the way you build fan support. FREE TICKETS! I remember Knowlton's comment that it devalued the tickets that season ticket holders paid for. WHAT NONSENSE! Airlines understand that an empty seat is worth zero once the plane takes off and the same thing applies here. Heck, think of the players' parents and siblings who will buy tickets to attend! You'll probably sell an average of three tickets for every free one and then there's the additional concession revenue. The Warriors used to do this way back in the 1970s.
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wvitbear
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6:15p, 2/25/26
I could never watch a Michigan game. They are the scourge of college sports.
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Shocky1
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6:56p, 2/25/26
sfbear72, that's delusional thinking to hypothesize that the abysmal cal wbb attendance is due to the conference affiliation change form the pac 12 to the acc

there is virtually NO fanbase right now, the bears could play in the big 10 and it would not change attendance

losing $6,200,000+ a year is not sustainable, need to terminate JENNIFER SIMON-O'NEIL & start targeting students with innovative marketing to build the fanbase...and the head coach needs to be held accountable for reaching the ncca tournament in the vast majority of seasons, unfortunately the current hc doesn't even play her best 5 players in the starting line up
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annarborbear
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In reply to wvitbear • 7:14p, 2/25/26
wvitbear said:
I could never watch a Michigan game. They are the scourge of college sports.

Didn't you root against Cal back in 1959 when West Virginia and Jerry West played and lost to Cal in the NCAA championship game? Glad that you eventually switched over to being a Golden Bear fan.

I agree that Michigan needs to clean up its act and get a new AD,

I do like that Michigan has similar colors to Cal so that I didn't have to root for anything red while I was there.
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wvitbear
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12:40a, 2/26/26
West Virginia has same colors as Cal. I started rooting for Cal when I came to California. Took graduate courses here but mostly i started going because it was so close. At first I attended St. Marys mens games.

I thought Cal should have had a home and home with Cl in 2009 to celebrate the 1959. Would have been the 50 the anniversary of that game. Jerry /west was with the Warriors at that time and could have been invited. Don't remember if Newel was still alive but his son was.

Of course the school i went to in my under graduate days was the only school in the nation besides Cal that was called the Golden Bears. That school was West Virginia Tech (an engineering school.

I don't root for West Virginia now. Saw Jerry West play against our high school in person. Saw Jerry West play in College in person.
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ClayK
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In reply to HearstMining • 6:53a, 2/26/26
HearstMining said:
annarborbear said:
In regard to attendance, I think we are now fighting a losing battle. With changing line-ups every year, it is hard to develop support for a roster that most people don't even recognize. We are also depending on a very old fan base for this sport at Cal. I now attend fewer indoor sports events myself due to my own health risks and problems.


I've said this on the Men's Basketball forum and it applies to women as well. Cal should pick a game or two and send out free tickets to every high school girl's basketball coach in the East Bay for their team to come. This is the way you build fan support. FREE TICKETS! I remember Knowlton's comment that it devalued the tickets that season ticket holders paid for. WHAT NONSENSE! Airlines understand that an empty seat is worth zero once the plane takes off and the same thing applies here. Heck, think of the players' parents and siblings who will buy tickets to attend! You'll probably sell an average of three tickets for every free one and then there's the additional concession revenue. The Warriors used to do this way back in the 1970s.

Basically, a high school team can get free tickets to any game -- but when exactly would they go?

High school teams practice and play six days a week. The girls know nothing about college or pro basketball. They wouldn't know Gisella Maul from Moll Flanders -- and don't know either name.

And OK, so the team decides to go. The head coach, who works like a dog pretty much year-round, now has to arrange transportation, supervision and carve out time in everyone's schedule to make it work.

A great idea on the surface, but the details are an issue. We promote Cal games through the West Coast Jamboree, and had 96 teams this year. The Cal staff reached out to those teams to come on Sunday, when there were no games in the WCJ. I heard about six teams showed up.

The market for Cal women's basketball has to be the student body, and as I mentioned in the men's thread, the academic demands on students to get into Cal are so great that few have the time to be sports fans. The men only drew 4,400 for a huge game against SMU and didn't sell out in a must-win game against Stanford on a weekend.

Sadly, times have changed ...
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CalWSportsFan
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8:19a, 2/26/26
Did a bit of research, it seems like Nebraska volleyball is the ONLY women's team in college sports to be somewhat profitable at this point:Nebraska Keeps Raising the Net on Women's Volleyball Spending

Quote:
According to the school's latest NCAA financial disclosures, obtained by Sportico, the Huskers' volleyball program was the school's third-most costly sport following football ($72.7 million) and men's basketball ($13.4 million). Women's basketball spending was fourth at $6.3 million. In FY24, Nebraska became the first FBS school in the country to spend more on volleyball than women's basketball.

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wvitbear
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8:26a, 2/26/26
I agree with Clay. with all the women's programs at Cal who support title IX, they should get some skin in the game and turn out for games.
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Finnish Oski
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11:26a, 2/26/26
Promotions and freebies will get people to come to a game. One. But to get butts in the seat regularly you need to have a nationally relevant team, in other words people want to see wins -- although folks will come back after a close loss against powerhouse. The sports market is saturated in the Bay Area and there is too much competition from the arts, recreation etc. It's a reality that people around here are more sophisticated and have more options than people in places like Nebraska. All the effective marketing in the world can't substitute for having a team like last year's that is competitive with everyone, plays exciting basketball and dominates at home.
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Shocky1
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11:37a, 2/26/26
finnish, your marketing dissertation is 100% inaccurate (and outdated), the valykries averaged 18,046 fans per game this season for a team with no track record of winning, championships, etc. in the women's basketball wildly supported san francisco bay area

and the bay area sports competition in the marketspace (particularly for an affordable product) has dramatically shrunk with the departures of the oakland a's (sacramento/las vegas), oakland raiders las vegas) & the san francisco 49ers (to san jose)...and the golden state warriors tixs are unaffordable except to the 1% affluent...there is a gold mine untapped market for cal wbb as a FUN affordable gameday!!

cal women's wbb has almost zero student turnout on gamedays which means a pipeline to future season tix buyers/donors is not happening under the failed leadership of jennifer simon-o'neil

the bears went to the ncca tournament last season & that didn't increase the fanbase by any signfiance

yeah winning helps but is not the key factor in today's 6 second attention span economy, agreed tho that the head coach needs to held accountable for making the ncca tournament in most seasons not just once in a decade
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polarbear
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7:07a, 2/27/26
I thought from the beginning that joining the ACC was a big mistake, bad for the players, for the fans, and for the finances.
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BearBint
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In reply to polarbear • 8:00a, 2/27/26
polarbear said:
I thought from the beginning that joining the ACC was a big mistake, bad for the players, for the fans, and for the finances.

Agreed. I dream of Cal's joining the WCC, of players staying more than two years, and at least half the team having a declared major.

(And, yes, I understand that these are mere personal wishes, and unlikely to happen, at least any time soon.)
"Don't get distracted, myself. Don't get distracted." Self-talk from a young relative
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Finnish Oski
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12:16p, 2/27/26
As to being in the ACC, the travel alone should be disqualifying, particularly given the huge carbon footprint we're leaving, not to mention players (who are not incidentally university students) having to switch time zones several times a year. How many trips will we have made to the East Coast this season? Six? Ridiculous.
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BearBint
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In reply to Finnish Oski • 8:51p, 2/27/26
Finnish Oski said:
As to being in the ACC, the travel alone should be disqualifying, particularly given the huge carbon footprint we're leaving, not to mention players (who are not incidentally university students) having to switch time zones several times a year. How many trips will we have made to the East Coast this season? Six? Ridiculous.

Quite. All that cross-country travel is ridiculous. And, for what it's worth, I fly long-haul at least twice a year. If anything, I manage east-west jet lag much better now than when I was a 20-something; people that age need a lot of sleep, which I no longer do.
"Don't get distracted, myself. Don't get distracted." Self-talk from a young relative
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ethan0l
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10:35p, 2/27/26
And yet, the ACC was the only lifeboat we had, and I sure am glad we are on it.
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westcoastdude
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2:10p, 3/1/26
The one consolation is that the Stanford program is a shell of its former self.
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