Fairleigh Dickinson Basketball: Deeper look at historic upset over Purdue

Budgets

Just to set the level before we get into this, I do realize that the team with the higher budget doesn’t always win but looking at the budgets is going to further drive home the point of the talent gap. Purdue plays in the Big Ten and is every bit of a power five school. The Boilermakers have a lucrative NIL deal, they have the revenue from the Big Ten Network and their merchandise is everywhere. Purdue is known as a household name and virtually everyone had picked them to win the game.

Fairleigh Dickinson is a team that I can guarantee the casual fan had never heard of before they saw their name in the bracket. Their claim to fame is now beating Purdue in the NCAA tournament but before that it was always known as the alma mater of ESPN personality Seth Greenberg. They will always be remembered now for winning the game against Purdue no matter how every other season finishes out. Head coach Tobin Anderson is now former head coach Tobin Anderson as he showed enough to work his way into the Iona job. Fairleigh Dickinson is now being coached by Jack Castlebury who was an assistant this season.

Lets get into the budgets now. Purdue turned a profit of $17,258,457 in their entire athletic department last year, the majority of that is football but the mens basketball team made a little under 10,000,000 overall. Head coach Matt Painter was guaranteed $3.55 million dollars this season. Per his contract that amount of money will increase to $3.67 million next year and $3.75 million in the 2024 season. The Boilermakers players have a NIL collective that features future NFL hall of famer Drew Brees. There is also an NIL collective with the Trueblood Real Estate Group. Purdue is able to go to all of their games on airplanes, stay in the nicest hotels, treat recruits to dinners, and fly to see them at their houses and at their high school games. It is the complete and total opposite at Fairleigh Dickinson.

The athletic department did not turn a profit last season, which is not uncommon for a low major the good thing for the Knights is that they did not experience a net loss which a lot of the Northeast conference programs can not say the same. The totals brought in by the Athletic Department were $10,750,891. The total revenue brought in by the Knights athletic department is still 7 million less than Purdue made in profit. The Basketball team does not turn a profit and coach Anderson made only $40,000 this season. The Knights do not have a NIL collective and it is hard for them to earn money, where it is easy for Purdue basketball players to earn money.

Outside of the recent new merchandise by Homefield Apparel there is nowhere to find any good Fairleigh Dickinson merchandise. The recruiting budget is small, they do not take planes to road trips, and they do not have the money to give all of their recruits the VIP treatment. The Northeast conference doesn’t have a TV deal. The disparity in money is real. That hinders the talent pool that Fairleigh Dickinson can get and usually most of their roster is made up of players from New York, New Jersey and Maryland. Those are the closest states to New Jersey and places that can be driven to. The Knights don’t have a national name, and don’t have the money to spread their name around like Purdue does.

The wins by the Knights will help out their entire conference as well. In case you all didn’t know, every team that wins a game in the NCAA gets money, also known as a win share, to distribute evenly amongst the members of their conference. This season Fairleigh Dickinson won two games and received 2 win shares. That will obviously help the conference but one team in their league just folded theri athletic department and the rest of the league, including Fairleigh Dickinson, are still going to have to take buy games to operate this season.

Even though they will live on in the annals of history the wins won’t do much to turn a profit for the Athletic Department. Purdue will still make millions of dollars on their basketball program even with the loss. Neither team will be any worse off.