PantherNOW Editorial Board
With FIU’s ever-growing budget poured into the football team, more often than not other athletic programs are left behind.
Ever since FIU football’s rapid ascendancy to Division 1 status in 2005, it has received the majority of financial, institutional and marketing support from the university compared to every other sport.
While football is the largest sport in the United States and is highly profitable, historically the football program’s lack of success hasn’t warranted the large budget.
According to College Factual, which cites data legally disclosed by public universities such as FIU, FIU sports brought in over $39 million across 18 different teams.
Football produced $13 million in revenue while having nearly $12 million in expenses, with a net profit of $1.48 million. This indicates FIU athletics is more than the sum of its parts.
It’s also important to note, like most universities, football’s spending operates independent of other programs as part of FIU Athletics.
Of course, this isn’t a knock against Athletics.
But after years of heavy investment with limited results it calls into question who should keep running the books, so to speak.
FIU has struggled to be consistently competitive, with its last winning season prior to 2025 coming in 2018, when the Panthers finished 9-4.
This past season was…surprisingly good. Not as flailing and anemic as previous seasons performance-wise, and FIU’s status as a D1 team is still very tenuous, but finishing 7-5 after nearly a decade of being in the red is nothing short of a miracle.
The real story of last season is that expectations for FIU football are so low now, that this turnaround is unfortunately quite impressive by current standards.
And championed it is – Willie Simmons received a year-long extension on his contract as well as his annual salary increased to $850,000 a year. We truly thank Coach Simmons for his efforts, and who knows how bad things would have gone without him, but this seems like FIU is popping the champagne a bit early.
Meanwhile, sports programs that consistently win championships and break records often do so with less funding and publicity.
For instance, the women’s tennis team continues its reign over Conference USA with its third consecutive championship title, while the women’s soccer team secured both CUSA regular-season and tournament titles in 2024.
The women’s swimming and diving program continues to be a powerhouse, winning their first-ever American Athletic Conference championship in 2024 after a dominant stretch of eight consecutive CUSA championships from 2015 through 2022.
On the men’s side, the soccer program has reached the AAC tournament final three times since joining the conference, including a championship victory in its debut year, 2022.
These programs achieve excellence with a fraction of the budget, limited fanfare and less institutional support from FIU.
While we’re glad to see FIU Football at least finish with a positive record, it’s no phoenix rising, not yet at least. While it gets back on its feet, it’s time we feature and support some of the other incredible athletes here on campus right now.
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