The NCAA is considering making some potentially significant changes to its membership financial reporting system ( MFRS ), the accounting system used by colleges to annually report their athletic department’s revenues, expenses, and capital. The organization has updated the MFRS over the past ten years, but there is growing pressure to handle both the onset of the new age of university performer payment and address long-standing criticisms about the game’s perceived shortcomings.
The MFRS, which was first introduced in 2003 and relies on the program to determine the injunctive relief and the proposed settlement in House v. NCAA, is now under investigation. Which MFRS groups should be taken into account when creating the earnings “pool” has recently been the subject of expert testimony discussion.

Beyond that, a number of MFRS categories lack quality, leaving many understanding to the schools, such as with the catch-all type “other running income”. There is so much room for error in the process that a few schools manage to get a properly balanced budget on a buck basis, as Sportico previously reported.
Following the recommendations of an NCAA economic data target group that, among other adjustments, sought to end large interpretations and the rewriting of some revenue and expense categories, the MFRS underwent its most recent major changes in 2015.
Mario Morris, the NCAA’s chief financial officer, told Sportico that one of his main concerns is how the program could better explain athletic department expenses that go straight to athletes, including cost-of-living adjustments and the “education-related” benefits provided for in the NCAA v. Alston Supreme Court ruling.
Overall, Morris says he thinks the current MFRS captures “75 % to 80 %” of an athletic department’s true economic picture but would like to find a way to “get it to 90 %”. Prior to joining the NCAA two years ago, Morris, who previously held the position of executive deputy athletics director at Notre Dame, claims he has n’t had much input on this. He intends to work with CFOs in the sport office as soon as the governing body releases its most recent economic reporting guidelines by spring 2025. Those would then use to the FY25 reports expected by Jan. 15, 2026.
A task force was established to present the NCAA with its recommendations regarding MFRS at the beginning of this year’s college athletic business management association ( CABMA ), a trade association affiliated with the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics.
” So many more individuals are going to be looking at this than ever before”, said Katie Davis, a companion at finance company James Moore &amp, Co. who is helping to organize CABMA’s work force. The NCAA and the CFO parties need to reevaluate their positions and start fresh.
This time, a review of athletic department company commanders was conducted by James Moore &amp, Co., which is contracted by a number of Division I institutions. The majority of those surveyed stated that they wanted more precision in the explanations of MFRS categories.
According to her,” there needs to be more steady and clarified financial reporting so that those making judgments are aware of the data on which they are based.” ” You’ve got]college ] presidents and chancellors at the table. You have lawyers, activists, and all of these people who may not fully comprehend what the finances are telling them because it is unclear how the NCAA has defined some of the classes.
For instance, Davis cites Alston finances provided to sports, which the MFRS guidelines recommend being allocated towards “other running costs”.
Morris, a member of the NCAA, agrees that financial reporting for schools should focus more on how athletics ‘ funds are spent. ” We have been able to provide a lot more benefits]to athletes ] over the last 10 years”, Morris said. ” We have arrived there in various way.”
He cited as examples cost-of-attendance incentives, the restructuring of foods, Alston rewards, NIL and profit sharing. ” We need to be able to show that account”, he said.
Moreover, Morris claims that there is still room for improvement when determining how much money flows between sports and schools ‘ main campuses. Now, the MFRS has categories for “direct” and “indirect administrative help”, and a category for the latter that breaks out sport facilities debt service and lease expenditures. However, these categories allow for significant interpretation that make apples-to-apples comparisons between institutions nearly impossible.
The research used to create Sportico’s college sports finances database, as well as those from public universities’ MFRS reports, are based on those from USA Today and the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics ( in conjunction with Syracuse University ) and are based on those data collected from public universities’ MFRS reports.
The NCAA does not itself publish the information, nor does it require its members to post their reports online, though some do voluntarily. Morris said that he would “personally” be in favor of the NCAA making the data public,” but it’s not my call”.
The proposed House settlement, submitted to a federal court in July, utilizes the MFRS in making two calculations, one for past damages and the other for the injunctive relief “benefits pool”. The revenue-sharing formula behind that pool includes only eight of the 19 MFRS revenue categories: ticket sales, game guarantees, media rights, NCAA distributions, conference distributions, conference distributions from football bowl revenue, royalties/licensing, and football bowl revenues.
Among the most significant excluded categories are “institutional or government support”, “other operating income” and” contributions”. These excluded categories account for tens of billions of dollars in combined revenue over the four-and-a-half-year period in which the revenue figures are being compiled.
The expert witness for the House plaintiffs ‘ lawsuit has previously stated in court documents that the NFL, NBA, and NHL’s collective bargaining agreements with players serve as the “yardstick” for the selection of MFRS revenue categories to be included in the calculations.
In his calculation for potential damages, Rascher uses what he refers to as a “middle-ground approach”, and includes revenue from “programs, parking and concessions” and 50 % of the contributions. ( This category is referred to as “donations” in Sportico’s database. ) Rascher advocates that at least half of that money should be included because schools require payment for season ticket privileges as donations.
Earlier this month, Ted Tatos, an expert retained by the plaintiffs’ in the rival Fontenot v. NCAA antitrust case, filed a declaration in the House case arguing for the “economic justifications” of including seven of the 11 MFRS categories that Rascher excluded.
The result of this would be to nearly double the revenue figure ($ 82.2 billion ) from what Rascher ($ 46.4 billion ) tallied, a figure Tatos argues is “artificially restricts college athlete compensation”.
Tatos relied on financial data schools provided to the Department of Education for its Equity in Athletics Data Analysis ( EADA ) because he could n’t access the MFRS reports for each Power Five conference member. The MFRS is more thorough than the EADA, and it is generally regarded as being superior to it.
Rascher argued in a reply declaration filed last week that Tatos ‘ dissent was inappropriate because it “in any way comparable to the professional league revenues that are included in ( CBAs )” and that his fellow economist “inappropriately includes categories of cash flow to athletic departments that are not revenue.”
Davis, for her part, disagrees with the inclusion of the NCAA distributions category, claiming that a large portion of that money is already being used on athletes to fund scholarships and Special Assistance Funds. Nevertheless, she commends the House settlement for the way it considered each of the various MFRS categories.
The plaintiffs ‘ attorneys are required by the settlement agreement to receive annual MFRS data by May 15 of each year, and the class counsel are permitted to “reasonably audit” the reports. Additionally, it anticipates that significant MFRS changes could occur over the next ten years, should the parties cooperate in good faith to ensure accurate reporting of the revenue categories used to determine shared revenues and the pool.