Data from the Knight-Newhouse College Athletics Database shows UNR has spent marginally more than other Mountain West schools on academics, and markedly less on athletics between 2017 and 2021. At the same time, the Wolf Pack generally ran larger debts year-to-year than the Mountain West median, often between $2 million and $2.8 million annually. Those figures inverted in 2022, when data show UNR athletics spending jumped from roughly $34.8 million to $45.2 million. University administrators explained the increase as a shifting of the university's cost burdens — paying off debts — from the end of the year to the beginning. It was paid for at the start, they said, with money available through a federal higher education aid relief fund passed as part of larger COVID relief bills. With that money gone, administrators have since said the funding will come from other institutional pots of money.
