Florida State reported $437 million in athletics-related debt in its FY 2024-2025 annual report to the NCAA, a $200 million increase from the prior fiscal year, and a higher total than any public FBS program reported in 2024.
Sportico, which reported the update, noted the Seminoles are likely “atop the list of most-heavily leveraged athletics department in the country.”
The Seminoles fell out of the top spot a short while later Sportico noted: Since this story was published, Penn State released its FY25 NCAA financial disclosures reporting athletics-related debt of $534.7 million—a number that dethrones Florida State as the known FBS debt leader.
On a phone interview with Sportico, Josh Turner, FSU’s deputy athletics director and chief finance officer, said: "The increase stems primarily from revenue bonds issued to fund renovations for Doak Campbell Stadium and the construction of a new football operations center, as well as debt service associated with earlier projects backed by FSU’s athletic booster organizations.”
That sounds exactly right.
While important reporting, there's no new news here. This is not operating debt, it's well-documented facilities debt, the same as Penn State’s $534.7 million report which is primarily driven by financing major capital projects with new bonds, most notably renovations of Beaver Stadium and other campus infrastructure.
And there was no surprise on either campus as these projects have been well reported over the years, as the went through each step of the approval process, from the FSU’s president, to the FSU Board of Trustees, Florida Board of Governors, and ultimately the Florida's Division of Bond Finance.
These projects have been under study and review for at least 12 years.
Throughout the decades of the 1990s through 2010s, FSU incurred upwards of $200 million of bond debt to build or make improvements on numerous athletic facilities, including the Softball-Soccer complex - home to six national champions - the Scott Speicher Tennis Center, Morcom Aquatics Center, Dick Howser Stadium, a variety of football projects within the Moore Athletics Center, Mike Long Track and more.
During those years of facility growth, FSU was very likely “atop the list of most-heavily leveraged athletics department in the country” as Penn State now finds itself.
Back then facility construction was viewed as progress and the debt incurred was considered ambitious.
With each project, the athletics department and Seminole Boosters followed similar protocol, receiving approvals from the University President, Board of Trustees, the Board of Governors and ultimately the scrutiny of the Florida's Division of Bond Finance, where both the cost of construction was reviewed as well as the source of funding the bond debt.
Over the years since, the bond debt on those projects has been paid down, leaving what Turner referred to as “debt service associated with earlier projects backed by FSU’s athletic booster organizations.”
Again this is facility, not operating, debt.
Florida's Division of Bond Finance lists $306.335 million in Florida State University Athletics Association revenue bonds tied to building athletics facilities at FSU.
The BOG resolution on the football operations facility describes a plan to issue revenue bonds up to $116 million for a roughly 150,000-square-foot football operations building, with all of the expected amenities. A separate BOG document on debt service coverage references a $265 million football stadium renovation project and lays out projected pledged revenues and debt service coverage assumptions.
While you’ve heard the “FSU is broke” hue and cry I was pleased to read a clear eyed report in “Canes Warning” where a rival reported the following: “Essentially, Florida State is doing what a lot of power-conference programs have done for two decades: borrowing heavily to renovate stadium space, add premium seating and build football infrastructure, then trying to pay it back with a mix of tickets, donations, sponsorship-type revenue and conference distributions.”
Exactly right.
And to FSU’s critics in Gainesville… Wait, your day is coming as construction begins on the $398 million Ben Hill Griffin Stadium project scheduled to start in April 2027 with completion in 2030.
Increased institutional funding
In that same Sportico article, they reported that athletic spending also rose 22.6% from FY24 to FY25 … “Roughly 16% of its expenditures were covered by campus subsidies —$33.9 million in direct institutional support … This kind of funding is atypical for FSU.”
Institutional support has been atypical but Sportico explains why the university did it if you read far enough in the story.
“In June, FSU became the first school to take advantage of a new state law enabling schools in Florida to shift funds from other campus sources to athletics to cover athlete revenue-share payments provided for in the House v. NCAA settlement.”
The BOG gave approval for state universities to transfer up to $22.5 million of auxiliary funds to athletics in order to pay revenue-share with those student athletes. The BOG approved it on a three-year trial with the goal of keeping state universities in Florida — where taxpayer dollars cannot be transferred to athletics — competitive with schools in states where taxpayer dollars can be shared with athletics.
Turner explained to Sportico that the balance of $33 million of institutional money transferred to athletics was in part related to Title IX, in part to legal fees for the ACC lawsuit as well as enhanced accounting and new reporting practices.
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