NDSU’s Dominance in FCS Football Doesn’t Extend to Bison Spending

North Dakota State’s football team isn’t among the highest spenders in FCS—far from it in fact. But the school’s dominant 15-year run continued on the field Monday night, as the Bison upset top-ranked Montana State 35-32 in Frisco, Texas, to win the FCS national championship.

It’s NDSU’s 10th title since 2011, and the school reached the semifinals or finals in three of the other four years they didn’t win it all during this dynastic stretch.

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As dominant as NDSU has been on the field, however, its budget looks significantly more average. The school spent $6.4 million on football in fiscal 2023, which ranked 26^th in FCS, according to data submitted to the Department of Education. Montana State, by contrast, was No. 1 at $8.9 million. (Fiscal 2023 is the most recent year where DoE numbers are available.) One year prior, NDSU was 20^th at $6.1 million.

In fact, according to the numbers, as NDSU has progressively racked up the trophies, it has spent less relative to its peers than it did near the start of its run. Its 2023 expenditure ranking was the school’s lowest over the past decade. The highest was 16^th in 2018.

All along, the school has faced constant pressure from fans and alumni to move up a division to FBS. That’s been the fate of many top-spending FCS schools in the past decade, including Liberty, James Madison and, soon, Delaware.

Unlike the ongoing College Football Playoff, which crowns an FBS national champion, the FCS football playoffs are under the control of the NCAA. The media rights are sold under the NCAA’s 40-championship deal with ESPN, which was extended last year for $920 million over eight years.

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