Andy Bitter wrote a great article yesterday comparing Virginia Tech’s financial situation to that of Clemson. Will Stewart followed that up with his own piece showing how the Hokies lag behind Clemson and Alabama in terms of football support staff. So, if it’s a simple matter of spending the money to hire more support staff, why don’t the Hokies go ahead and pull the trigger? This article tries to explain why by examining an aspect of athletics that you perhaps never thought about before.

Virginia Tech sponsors 20 varsity sports. Is that a lot? Too few? We didn’t know the answer until we actually sat around the office one day and ran the numbers. On average, ACC schools sponsor 20.3 varsity sports, so the Hokies are right on par with the rest of the league. However, that simple analysis is much too shallow. A better question is how do the Hokies compare with the schools who compete for national championships, such as the SEC, Clemson and Florida State?

When you dig deeper, you’ll see that Virginia Tech is not in as favorable a situation as those programs, and one of the reasons is because the Hokies sponsor more sports. (Please note that the revenue numbers from the USA Today are a year old.)

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