Lew Perkins brought a reputation with him from the University of Connecticut when he arrived at Kansas University in June 2003.

He’d overseen success in men’s and women’s basketball, with both winning national titles. And he’d just taken a football team from Division I-AA to the pinnacle of college football, Division I-A.

Though it never was declared Perkins’ primary focus at KU, reviving the football program – which had seen just three bowl appearances since 1981 – was a high priority.

“One of the things that we worked hard at was to have an athletics department that pursues success in a number of different sports,” said KU Chancellor Robert Hemenway. “We know we’re always going to have great strength in basketball. We’re going to be seen as a basketball powerhouse. We want to reach that same level of competition in football, baseball and any other sport that we get involved in.”

While fan interest in the program has risen – particularly this season – Kansas has proven to be one of the more economical teams in the Big 12 in terms of cost per win in all sports. And yet, being economical won’t cut it, now that KU has boosted its revenue in almost all areas as high as they can go. Basketball revenue, apparel revenue, multimedia revenue – Perkins has strengthened them all since his arrival.

Now he has just one major revenue stream left to tap into if the university hopes to remain competitive in the Big 12: football. And in that sense, KU’s 11-0 start in football couldn’t have come at a better time.

KU is big business

Kansas reported total football expenses for the 2006 season of $9,869,815, according to the U.S. Department of Education Office of Postsecondary Education. That translates into $1,644,969 per win.

Consider football’s operating expenses – which don’t account for costs such as coaching salaries – and KU’s football team has been operating on one of the leanest budgets in the Big 12.

But true comparison among schools is difficult. Schools take different approaches to determining what to include in their federally reported numbers. New facility construction, bowl games and other factors can significantly skew data from individual years or sports.

Truth is, there’s no reason for KU to calculate how much it’s shelling out per victory – and it doesn’t. No reason to cut back, pinch pennies or anything else of the sort.

In the fiscal year before Perkins came to KU, the athletic budget came out to $27 million, a number that has risen every year since. In fact, it’s nearly doubled.

The budget for the 2007 fiscal year, for example, was $49,017,857. And in June, the budget saw another substantial bump – to $52,985,681 for 2008.

“When Lew and I talked about what needed to be done at KU, I think we agreed that we needed to make sure that our athletic department was being run on a businesslike basis, and we were increasing revenue because we were competing in the Big 12,” Hemenway said.

Raising revenue

When Perkins arrived, one of the first places he found new dollars was men’s basketball. A priority points system implemented in 2004 was a way to funnel quick cash into a budget that was among the lowest in the Big 12 – and to establish a system to encourage more donations each year.

Since then, Perkins has negotiated a $65 million, 10-year multimedia deal with Host Communications. A new apparel contract that moved KU from a Nike school to one outfitted by Adidas also helped to infuse the athletics department with cash and clothing that it previously had to pay for.

But those sort of short-term fixes have been nearly exhausted. As of last year, KU was one of a handful of schools where men’s basketball generates more revenue – by about $2 million – than football. Though Duke also makes more from basketball, both North Carolina and Kentucky netted more from their football operations than their historically successful basketball programs.

And so, the only way for KU to generate more revenue is the program that drives most athletic department budgets: football. In terms of revenue generated by football in 2006-2007, KU ranked next to the bottom in the Big 12.

Right in front of Baylor.

Even Iowa State’s football program generated more: $13,720,271 vs. KU’s $11,258,988.

Winning your way to profits

KU has played to packed houses in football this year for one simple reason. The Jayhawks have been winning.

“I think nothing beats the performance on the field,” KU associate athletic director Jim Marchiony said.

Increased marketing campaigns – such as the four-four-four pack that packaged for sale four tickets to a men’s basketball, women’s basketball and the Iowa State football game all at a reduced price – also have helped.

But the best way to get KU to take another step in the growing dollars race in college athletics is simple: Keep winning.

“It is very important that we as an administration support our coaches and teams the best way we possibly can,” Marchiony said. “That certainly includes marketing. Marketing is an integral part of helping to build an athletics program. But it doesn’t replace wins.”

Men’s basketball obviously has seen regular postseason appearances since Perkins took over, but outside Bill Self’s squad, postseason success has been spotty. Football, baseball, softball and cross country have had nice runs. The football team has achieved bowl eligibility in four of the past five seasons, while baseball, softball and cross country each won Big 12 championships in 2006.

Now the key is finding consistency.

“I think if you look at the history of the University of Kansas, you’d come to the conclusion pretty quickly that a strong athletic tradition is very important to KU and to people’s sense of themselves as supporters of the university,” Hemenway said. “And how important is athletics? I think athletics is very important to a public university such as the University of Kansas.”

Sports growing

In the Big 12, the heavy hitters are the likes of Texas, Oklahoma and Texas A&M. But even though those three may never be outspent, the rest of the pack has to keep up somehow.

“I think we went to the business side of sports probably in the early 1990s, and it just kept on growing,” said Richard Lapchick, chair of the DeVos Sports Business Management Program at the University of Central Florida and a respected national source on the business of college athletics.

He cited the money involved with CBS’ ownership of rights to March Madness and the Bowl Championship Series in football, with the bowl association having broken away from the NCAA, as major accelerators of the money mill.

From there, it has been a domino effect.

“Those are the things that drove the popularity of organizations such as ESPN and all the dot coms that have emerged,” he said.

With the administration in place, enough money has been raised and budgeted that KU now can consider itself a part of the race, which may not have been the case before the arrival of Perkins, who could not be reached for comment on this story.

But no one is going to come out to games if wins aren’t piling up at a regular rate.

“They’re kind of chicken and egg,” Lapchick said. “If a team loses, they are not going to draw the revenue from the type of sources we’re talking about.”