The University of South Carolina’s sports department just shared some big news: they actually finished the 2025 fiscal year with $1.3 million left over. This is a pretty big deal because it’s their first surplus in six years. Usually, college sports budgets are super tight. So ending the year in the ‘green’ has to be a big-time win for the Gamecocks.

According to the Greenville News, total revenue for the year officially cleared the $200 million mark ($204.6 million, to be precise) for the first time. The most surprising part of this “win” is that it happened even though Shane Beamer’s football profits took a big $10.1 million hit. Mind you, the football program is still the undisputed king of revenue for the school, bringing in about $76.5 million total. It just got a lot more expensive to run than it ever had been before.

So, the school had to shell out way more for coaching salaries, travel costs for bowl games, and “guarantee” payments to other teams. Because expenses for the football team jumped by over $8 million in a single year, the net profit dropped from about $30 million down to roughly $20.7 million. That kind of put them in harm’s way.

To save the day, the university clutched up with a $16 million increase in direct support. This brought their total contribution to $42.5 million for the year.This happened because of a big shift in how college sports work today with NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness) deals. Many wealthy donors are now giving their money directly to the players through “collectives” instead of giving it to the school.

To balance things out, the university reshuffled its own budget to make sure the sports programs had enough cash to keep running while everyone figures out this new way of paying athletes.

Even with the school’s help, the Gamecocks had to work hard to find other ways to make money, and luckily, the fans showed up in a big way. People bought more tickets than the year before, bringing in $33.3 million, and the Gamecock Club (their big fundraising group) had a record-breaking year, pulling in over $107 million in donations.

Where did they get additional help to pull this one off?

On top of that, the SEC’s television deals paid out a massive $44 million to the school just for the rights to show their games on TV. When you add all of those ticket sales, donations, and TV checks together and so on, it gave the school the boost it needed to cover those rising costs and still come out ahead.

Lastly, the financial report pulled off some interesting numbers for the basketball teams. The men’s basketball team actually did pretty well. Word is, they apparently grew its profit to about $4.3 million. On the other side, the women’s basketball team, which is arguably the most famous team on campus, actually saw its deficit grow to $6.3 million.

This doesn’t mean they aren’t successful; it actually means the school is “betting big” on them. They are spending a lot of money to keep legendary coach Dawn Staley and her staff around because the team wins so much. Even though that team costs more to run than it makes right now, the school is happy to pay for that excellence, and it all balanced out to a total surplus for the year.