If the school/AD withdraws money from the IPTAY bank, I would imagine they have to report it as revenue. They are no different in that regard than a wealthy private individual whose assets are not controlled by the school, but whose assets are donated to the school for athletics uses.
I think that's correct, so that means that the spending numbers are largely accurate, IPTAY or no IPTAY.
But what it doesn't accurately reflect is the true revenue raised in terms of money at Clemson's disposal. So if Clemson shows $70M revenue and $70M expenses, it doesn't mean Clemson is "maxed out" and reflect poorly on it's financial health. It just means that IPTAY just transferred over enough money to cover expenses. Plenty more revenue was likely generated through IPTAY.
I think that's why FSU's jumped so much, a large transfer of money from the boosters to pay for the IPF.
That said, Clemson's budget seems a little small to me. Seems like they should be spending more money, based on the strength of their ticket sales, power of their booster club, and their aspirations. Maybe that's money that's missing from other sports and not so much from football, but if Clemson fancies itself in league with the FSU, Georgia, Florida, Auburns etc of the world, doesn't seem like they should be spending in line with the Maryland, Mississippi State, Virginia, Purdues of the world.
Again, maybe they're not underspending in football, but I'm not seeing too many elite football programs with athletic budgets in the $70M range, especially when they're packing in 80k a game and have a booster group like IPTAY.
