COLUMBIA, Mo. _ Michael Porter Jr. knows his 53-minute Missouri career left Tigers fans with "mixed emotions," but one thing is clear: the financial gain made by the basketball program in his lone season.
Season-ticket sales, which were already trending upward from the hire of coach Cuonzo Martin, surged after Porter Jr.'s commitment in March 2017. Missouri sold out of season tickets and led the country with its season-to-season attendance increase after Mizzou Arena sat mostly empty the previous three years.
The Kansas City Star recently obtained the financial numbers for Missouri basketball's 2017-18 season and found the Tigers collected $5,287,785.15 in total revenue, a 70.9 percent increase from the previous season's figure of $3,094,448.62. The numbers are encouraging for an athletic program that operated in the red during the previous fiscal year for the first time since it joined the Southeastern Conference.
In Kim Anderson's final season at Missouri, the program made a little more than $3 million in ticket sales and just less than $60,000 in concessions. This past season Missouri sold more than $5.1 million in tickets and almost $142,000 in concessions.
"We didn't predict that it was going to sell out and get the hype it did," said Tim Hickman, Missouri's deputy athletic director and CFO. "That beat our expectations. That shows you the strength of our fanbase."
It is impossible to know just how much of that revenue boost was caused by Porter Jr., of course. And perhaps Missouri's total revenue would have been even greater had he played more than two minutes at Mizzou Arena all season.
There aren't strong examples of other No. 1 recruits playing at non-blue blood programs located in areas similar to mid-Missouri, either. Ben Simmons went to LSU, Markelle Fultz to Washington and Anthony Bennett to UNLV. Las Vegas and Seattle are some of the country's biggest cities, and Baton Rouge, which had a population of 227,715 in 2016, has nearly double the amount of citizens as Columbia.
And in contrast to Mizzou _ which made the NCAA Tournament mostly without Porter _ Washington and LSU missed the postseason in the lone college seasons Fultz and Simmons respectively played.
Simmons' season at LSU led to a 24 percent increase in ticket sales and saw revenue jump from roughly $7.9 million to $8.6 million, according to the Equity in Athletics Database.
Hickman said had Porter played the entire season, attendance for midweek games could have increased, which would have led to greater concession revenues. Midweek attendance is a college basketball-wide problem though, and not one unique to Missouri.
Missouri didn't even roll out a marketing campaign unique to Porter after his commitment, because it already had one out after Martin's hire. It didn't really need one, as Porter's announcement alone was enough to cause a waiting list for potential season-ticket holders.
"I think Cuonzo is the glue making that all happen," said Jim Sterk, Missouri's athletic director. "I think the momentum that we have, between hiring Cuonzo, having Michael come here, on the academic side the new system president and chancellor getting settled, I think all of those things have helped build it back."
Sterk pointed out that while Porter's season was a huge financial boost for the program, it wasn't unprecedented.
In 2014, Frank Haith's final season with the Tigers, the program had $5,419,624.20 in revenue, with $5.2 million coming from ticket sales and $215,404.90 coming in concessions. That team featured future NBA players Jordan Clarkson and Jabari Brown and lost in the second round of the NIT.
With Porter Jr. off to the NBA, it's now up to Missouri to stay on the financial incline that he and Martin helped start. In the year after Simmons left, LSU banked $8,135,734 in revenue, roughly a $500,000 decrease. The program also parted ways with coach Johnny Jones after LSU's season with Simmons ended.
"The growth that you see from the previous year is phenomenal," Hickman said. "Not too many places will count on that kind of growth over a year to year."
In 2013-14, when Bennett was a rookie with the Cleveland Cavaliers, UNLV saw its revenue drop from $10 million to $8.5 million.
Washington has yet to release its numbers for this past season, which didn't include Fultz, who went No. 1 overall to the Philadelphia 76ers in the 2017 NBA draft. Washington also went through a coaching change after Fultz's season ended.
Nicholas M. Watanabe, a sports and entertainment management professor at University of South Carolina, who works closely with the Equity in Athletics Database, said Missouri's numbers from Porter Jr.'s short career are as good as they can be, given the circumstances.
"I think this is about as much as you can expect," he said. "Now it depends how many renewals they got for season tickets before he declared."
Missouri has something none of the other three schools had after their star player departed: another one in the waiting. Both Sterk and Hickman said Jontay Porter's return for his sophomore season could help Missouri avoid the financial dip that other schools went through. Jontay Porter is projected as a potential lottery pick in next summer's NBA draft but isn't in the mix for the No. 1 pick like his older brother.
"It's very early in our process," Hickman said. "We're in the very early stages of (season-ticket) renewals. I think the hype of having the potential No. 1 pick isn't there. But it's still a lot of talent. We'll see."
Sterk said Missouri still has a waiting list for season-ticket holders. Should some current holders elect not to renew, those on the waiting list could take their place, which would help Missouri maintain its ticket sales figures.
Hickman looks at Porter's lone season as one that brought the program back to the state it was in before former coach Mike Anderson left for Arkansas. Anderson left Haith a roster that would win 30 games and win the Big 12 Tournament.
"This last year showed from our fanbase that they want good basketball," Hickman said. "I think we're back on track."
