These are some interesting financial numbers...

...involving the UGA football program that seemed to get glossed over in all the pre-bowl game discussion, but the University of Georgia football program ranked second only to Texas in football program profit for last season. The team was third overall behind Texas and Alabama in terms of revenue.

There was little change in the rankings of the most profitable schools. The University of Texas football program was once again the leader in both revenue, with $94 million, and profit, with $68 million.

Alabama is good enough to rank No. 2 in revenue and No. 7 in profits, while Georgia ranked No. 3 in revenue and No. 2 in profit.

Profits didn't always translate to victories on the field. Texas finished the season 5 wins and 7 losses, and players will be watching the bowl season on television this year. Georgia and Alabama are in small-dollar bowls this year.

Here is the chart showing the top profit-generating programs:

Granted, this only takes into account the football programs. But there is even more better (so to speak) information about the UGA program financially:

Ohio State spends the most money nationally on its football program -- $31,763,036. But Alabama was right behind the Buckeyes, spending $31,118,234.

The other SEC teams in the top 10 were Auburn at No. 4 ($27,911,713), LSU at No. 5 ($25,566,520), Florida at No. 6 ($24,457,557), South Carolina at No. 7 ($22,794,211) and Arkansas at No. 9 ($22,005,014).

So, Georgia ranks #2 in the country in football profit, but isn't even in the Top 10 in the country, or even the Top 6 of the SEC (astounding), in football program expenses. That's pretty amazing.

I know more goes into the budget that this, and I'm not sure if the revenue/expenses of the UGA Athletic Association is taken into account here (my amateur understanding is that the Athletic Association is separate from the public nature of the UGA Athletic Department), my guess is that it is not. And my understanding is that the Athletic Association is tied into the compensation of coaches, among other things. But this tells me a lot about the financial health of our football program, and probably the athletic department in general. Not to mention, being part of the profit-sharing model of the most competitive football conference (the SEC) sure helps.

And it could be that the Athletic Assocation (whose finances are presumably unknown) is the organization responsible for coaches contracts and buy-outs and such.  If anyone knows how that works, I'd love to hear it.

But my conclusion (and I know this is an over-simplification): Wouldn't we be in a much better position to handle the buy-out of, say, a particular head coach or defensive coordinator than, say, Georgia Tech?
Not only that, but sounds strange that the Top 2 programs in the country, in terms of profit, had losing records this season, and that only one of those two foresee any staff/personnel changes prior to the next season?  (Hint:  It's not UGA who is making the changes.)  It is worth noting that all of those schools in the chart above had below-average years in football success, and it will be interesting to see what the 2010-2011 school year numbers look like. 

Hard to believe that the second-most profitable program in the country had such a poor season and has such floundering fan support heading into 2011.  I wonder how those numbers change the next time around...