EADA Data (2020)

The 2020 Equity in Athletics Data Analysis (EADA) is out. EADA is the public data that indicates how each school spends their money on sports. The data includes all divisions and all sports but, as always, we’ll focus on DIII volleyball here. The file I downloaded has 393 schools with 277 of those reporting expenses due to women’s volleyball in 2020. Some schools don’t have to report their numbers (Mills College never reported because they were a women’s only institution.) 2020 was also volleyball’s Covid year so a number of schools didn’t play and therefore didn’t report numbers. (On the other hand, a number of schools that didn’t play volleyball, did report numbers.) As a comparison, the 2019 file had 421 schools with 412 playing volleyball. The drop in schools is interesting and we know a number of schools closed their doors that year but to get a full picture we need to see the 2021 number. It does appear that schools that didn’t play any sports in 2020 are missing from the file.

I will once again start with Total Expense as it tells us what the school spends on the sport. Now this can include everything related with volleyball, which means that summer camps fall into this category, too. Other items that are more obvious are salaries and travel expenses. Here are the schools that spend the most on their volleyball programs in 2020:

1. Benedictine University $309,026

2. Colorado College $260,832

3. Trinity University $221,434

4. Pacific University $181,973

5. Washington & Lee $175,418

As stated last year, I believe Benedictine rolls both of their campuses into one line item as they indicate their “team” has 37 players! (Only their Illinois campus is DIII.)

On a whole, these numbers are about half of what was spent in 2019, which makes sense since the programs that did play, played a reduced schedule with little to no flights involved. The SCAC was probably the main exception and it shouldn’t surprise to see Colorado College (in essence) leading the spending. They had to fly down to Texas and Louisiana to play their conference season and they also subsidized other conference teams’ flights (paying half) when they came to their home arena that season (the SCAC Tournament played at the higher ranked school and, well, Colorado College was the #1 ranked team that season). Actually, kind of remarkable the Colorado College expenses weren’t a lot more! Trinity comes in second and a large chunk of their expenses would have been their two flights to Colorado College that season. Pacific comes in fourth and you have to remember that they also support a JV team that is included in these figures. Washington & Lee rounds out the nation-wide Top 5 as they played a 16-match schedule that season.

From last year, Benedictine repeated as number 1 overall. Wis-Oshkosh (2^nd) didn’t play in 2020-21 but still came in 77^th with expenses of $110,910. As I sort of rift through this article trying to figure out if the numbers reported (because of the Covid season) are valid or not, I have to wonder why every school didn’t report numbers regardless of whether they played or not. I mean, they still had to employ the coaches, you would think? Did schools that didn’t report numbers just fire everyone and then rehire them a year later? (Joke) Emory was 3^rd last year but didn’t play in 2020-21 and had no women’s volleyball expenses reported. Colorado College was fourth last year and Millikin College was 5^th. Millikin came in 8^th this go-around at $170,586.

The total amount spent on DIII volleyball programs in 2020 across all of the schools was $24,421,699. This compares to $45,548,292 in 2019. The average per school was $88,164 as compared to $110,020.

Looking at the West Region, here is their Top 10:

1. Colorado College $260,832

2. Trinity University $221,434

3. Pacific $181,973

4. Cal Lutheran $152,119

5. Mary Harden-Baylor $152,036

6. Southwestern University $151,485

7. Redlands $143,650

8. LeTourneau $136,216

9. UT-Dallas $131,430

10. Whitworth $128,681

I usually go into each school here and then talk about the bottom 5 spenders but it doesn’t seem right for this particular year. I’ll also forego my look into the Operating Expenses.

One thing to point out is that I don’t know what facility/equipment improvements each program underwent in 2020-21 as some of those costs could be in what is reported. Of the above 10 teams, Redlands is interesting because they only played one match in 2020-21. Cal Lu didn’t play any and still came in fourth. Bottom line, I don’t think all of the schools reported in the same way so another reason to cut this article short.

I usually like looking at these numbers because it shows what programs are putting money into volleyball. As a potential recruit (or, I guess now, a “Super Senior” looking for that 5^th year), this information can be helpful in that decision. Not sure the 2020-21 numbers can be used for anything. I mean CMS didn’t report any numbers so obviously they don’t care about volleyball and have poor facilities, right!?! In the end, I’ll look towards when the 2021-22 numbers get released and we can compare against the 2019-20 numbers.