A year after Auburn’s athletics department operated at a deficit for the first time since the 2013-14 fiscal year, the program experienced a major financial bounceback.

Auburn athletics reported record revenue and profit numbers for the 2021-22 fiscal year, according to a copy of the department’s annual NCAA financial report obtained Tuesday by AL.com through an open-records request. Auburn reported an operating revenue of $174,568,422 against an operating cost of $151,590,763 during the last fiscal year, which ran from Oct. 1, 2021, to Sept. 30, 2022.

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The result was a reported profit margin of $22,977,679 — the highest annual mark in Auburn athletics history. The previous record for reported profit by the athletics department came during the 2007-08 fiscal year, when Auburn reported a profit of $19,470,624, while the previous record for annual revenue was during the 2019-20 fiscal year, just before the pandemic, when the program reported an operating revenue of $153,703,749, according to AL.com records.

Auburn’s record year financially comes after the program experienced the true effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Auburn athletics operated at a $9.7 million deficit during the 2020-21 fiscal year, as revenue fell by $30 million year over year. It was the first time in seven years that the program operated at a deficit.

The program’s rebound during the most recent fiscal year can be attributed to an increase in ticket sales, as full capacity returned to Jordan-Hare Stadium during the 2021 football season and to Neville Arena for the 2021-22 basketball season, which was one of the most successful in program history. Auburn reported $34,140,396 in ticket sales for the 2021-22 fiscal year, which up nearly tenfold from last year’s financial report, when the program reported just $3.7 million in ticket sales due to the pandemic. For comparison, Auburn reported $33,820,864 in ticket sales for the 2019-20 fiscal year.

The latest report included $30,555,705 in football ticket sales, which was up exponentially from $3.2 million the year prior. For basketball, revenue from ticket sales increased from $180,757 to $2,299,783 in the most recent fiscal year.

Along with the revenue from full-capacity venues for Auburn’s two most profitable sports, Auburn saw a significant increase in donor contributions in 2021-22. After reporting $15.9 million in contributions in its last NCAA financial report, Auburn reported $35,791,591 in contributions this time around. Auburn also saw revenue from licensing, royalties and sponsorships more than double year over year, reporting $11.1 million in the latest report.

Meanwhile, one of the department’s biggest cost-savers during in the latest report was in severance payments. The program saw those costs cut in half, from $16.6 million during the 2020-21 fiscal year—when the football program fired Gus Malzahn and owed a considerable amount to he and his staff in buyouts—to just $8.2 million during the 2021-22 fiscal year. Of course, the buyouts owed to Bryan Harsin and his staff will be full reflected in next year’s financial report, since Harsin was fired a month into the 2022-23 fiscal year.

AL.com will update this post.

Tom Green is an Auburn beat reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Tomas_Verde.