Western South Dakota News

Pennington County's institution invested $1,352,282 on their football teams in 2024, a 14.9%% decrease in funding from the previous year, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

This represents 22.1% of all money invested on sport teams at South Dakota School of Mines and Technology during 2024.

The average sports expenses at Pennington County have grown 216.2% since 2010.

College football is one of the biggest sports in the U.S., with some college teams eclipsing NFL teams in terms of attendance and profit.

College athletes can now be paid directly by schools after a settlement approved in early July, which also requires the NCAA to pay $2.8 billion in back damages over 10 years to athletes who played from 2016 to the present. 

In 2022, after years of legal and legislative pressure, athletes also gained the right to profit from their names, images and likenesses through state laws and an NCAA policy change.

Year	Football Team's Expenditures	% from grand total sport team expenditures
2024	$1,352,282	22.1%
2023	$1,588,123	32.3%
2022	$1,440,490	27.8%
2021	$1,303,689	33.8%
2020	$1,671,860	34.6%

Information in this story was obtained from the U.S. Department of Education. The source data can be found here.