Tennessee Football: Can Tennessee realistically bounce back from losing millions last year?

The University of Tennessee athletic department lost $6.5 million last fiscal year, but the athletic department expects to bounce back.

That big of a loss begs the question, can Tennessee realistically bounce back from losing millions last year? The short answer is yes but let me get us through how we got here first.

The fiscal year ends on June 30th so with the fiscal year coming to a close the Vols are prepping for the next year.

Blake Toppmeyer of the Knoxville News Sentinel looked into the athletic department’s financials and broke down the numbers from the previous year.

The athletic department experienced an operating loss of $6.5 million this past year and currently have $10.8 million in their reserve fund, which is one of the lowest numbers in the SEC.

Tennessee saw this significant drop due to firing the previous football coaching staff and former athletic director John Currie. All the buyouts combined for $13.8 million this past fiscal year.

Tennessee Athletic Director Phillip Fulmer said the university needs to focus on building up its reserve fund. Fulmer said when he was a coach at Tennessee, it was a priority for the university to build its reserve fund.

But the university didn’t lose all that money just from the buyouts. They could’ve recovered some of that last fall, but Tennessee fans weren’t willing to buy into the football program just yet.

It was evident in Jeremy Pruitt’s first season the fans weren’t sold on him and weren’t willing to invest in the program until Pruitt proved otherwise.

Tennessee struggled to put 100,000 people in Neyland Stadium seats even against rivals Florida and Alabama.

Late in the season attendance always takes a dip due to it being cold in November and Tennessee experienced a more significant drop than they could afford in November even after beating Kentucky.

The athletic department would’ve lost even more if the basketball program would’ve flopped.

Men’s basketball attendance alone proves that Tennessee fans are itching to be successful again and will pour money into whatever program is winning.

So if you ask me could the athletic department recover from their loss this past year then it’s a definite yes.

If Pruitt can come out and win games that he’s supposed to win then, I think we could see a decent jump in attendance in 2019.

But that’s the key. Can Pruitt be successful enough in 2019 to make people want to come to Neyland Stadium?

He will, of course, need to win the games he’s supposed to win for that to happen and probably beat a team like Georgia at home to get fans to come out to their next two home SEC games against Mississippi State and South Carolina.

If Pruitt struggles and can’t make the big year-two jump, then the athletic department will have to rely on the basketball program to make up for some loss during football season.

Regardless of what happens Tennessee shouldn’t have to be worried about paying over $13 million in buyouts, so they are already on the right track they just need a couple of things to go their way this fall to see the jump they need.