Rutgers' Athletic Debt Is 'Quite Concerning,' Gov. Murphy Says

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ — A bombshell NorthJersey.com report revealed this week that ever since Rutgers entered the Big Ten athletic conference in 2014, the school has been accumulating enormous debt to keep its sports teams afloat, particularly its football program.

To date, Rutgers and other institutions have poured more than $430 million to pay for Rutgers' athletic programs, according to the news report. The money comes from New Jersey taxpayers, students' tuition and fees.

Currently, Rutgers Athletics owes $265 million in outstanding debt, the report found.

Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway was interviewed for the article and he called the spending on RU Athletics: “Unsustainable, but I don't have an answer as to what is the sustainable piece going forward."

A Rutgers spokeswoman declined to comment further to Patch.

In the article, Rutgers also said a big problem is the lack of revenue Rutgers football and other sports teams bring in: Out of 52 public universities, and other schools in the Big Ten Conference, Rutgers was last for ticket sales, generated revenue and donations from alumni to its athletic teams.

When asked by a reporter Wednesday, Gov. Phil Murphy weighed in, saying the details of Rutgers Athletics debt were “quite concerning."

“Just having read what I read — it takes your breath away,” Murphy said at a press conference.

Murphy also said he would “defer a more formal reaction” until he has time to “understand the facts.”

The debt woes of Rutgers athletics were unearthed by the Rutgers faculty union, the Rutgers AAUP-AFT, which has long said that Rutgers spends too much money on its sports programs instead of investing in academics or boosting salaries and wages for its professors.

It was only after the AAUP-AFT filed an Open Public Records Act (OPRA) request earlier in 2021, seeking a full review of Rutgers' finances, that a New Jersey superior court judge ordered Rutgers release details of the tens of millions of dollars it funnels annually to athletics.

According to the professors' union, Rutgers' athletics "remains a perennial financial drain."

“Everyone in the Rutgers community — students, their parents, faculty, staff — is paying a steep price for athletics, but no one’s been given a chance to consider whether the price is worth paying,” said Rutgers AAUP-AFT President Rebecca Givan in a statement. “We think it’s time the administration came clean about the financial situation of Rutgers Athletics and have an honest discussion about priorities at our university.”

Rutgers AAUP-AFT general vice president Todd Wolfson said that the union has been demanding answers about what he called "the financial black hole" of Rutgers Athletics for years.

"They need an enormous subsidy every year to keep operating — a much bigger subsidy than any other Big Ten school makes to athletics — and on top of that, they’re taking out massive loans,” Wolfson said.

In 2019, Rutgers head football coach Greg Schiano was signed to an eight-year, $32 million contract, with Rutgers paying him $1 million more per year than he got as head coach in the NFL for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Schiano's contract makes him one of the highest paid college football coaches in the country, according to Fox News. At $4 million a year, he's the highest taxpayer-paid employee in the state of New Jersey.

“That’s a conscious choice,” said Mark Killingsworth, an economics professor and member of Rutgers AAUP-AFT. “These people have decided that Rutgers has got to be in big-time athletics, and they will spare no expense — particularly if it comes out of someone else’s pocket to do that.”

Read the entire NorthJersey.com report on how Rutgers finances its athletic program: ‘Unsustainable’: How Rutgers athletics quietly racked up $265M in debt

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