Bunker Hill Community College in Boston, Massachusetts, reported spending $46,391 on its men’s basketball teams in 2024—placing it $686,518 below the Massachusetts state average of $732,909, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
This spending represented 6.8% of the institution’s total athletic team budget for 2024.
Since 2010, the college’s total athletic expenditures have risen 380.2%.
Basketball stands as one of the leading college sports in the U.S. alongside football, with leading NCAA programs drawing significant fan followings and television audiences comparable to those of the NBA. Major tournaments such as March Madness bring in millions of viewers each year.
Recent changes in college sports have created opportunities for student-athletes to receive direct revenue sharing after a federal settlement permitted schools to share earnings with players for the first time. The agreement further requires the NCAA to pay $2.8 billion in back damages over 10 years to athletes who participated since 2016.
In 2022, after lengthy legal and legislative debates, athletes also received the ability to profit from their names, images and likenesses through new state laws and an updated NCAA policy.
The NCAA earned about $900 million in March Madness and related Division I men’s basketball tournament media rights revenue for fiscal year 2024, making men’s basketball its most lucrative source of income.
| Year | Basketball team’s expenditures | % from grand total sport team expenditures |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | $41,860 | 17.6% |
| 2021 | $0 | 0% |
| 2022 | $24,045 | 10.2% |
| 2023 | $41,587 | 21.7% |
| 2024 | $46,391 | 6.8% |
Information in this story was provided by the U.S. Department of Education. The original data is available here.
