That wouldn't surprise me terribly. $15 millions seems like a lot for a school without football though

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MBB Scholarship Chart

DePaul had an athletic budget of $24.2 million in 2013, in the middle of the pack in what is now the Big East. St. John's was $33.6, Butler and Xavier were $14.7. That's all athletics, including women's soccer, track and field, and all the non-revenue sports. It's entirely believeable to me that they only got $9 million in actual revenue from all their sports, leaving a $15 million deficit. But you have to partially look at athletics as an essential student/alumni amenity, a fundraising tool, advertising, and a draw for more and better applicants.

For comparison, Loyola's 2013 budget for all athletics in our last year in the HL (granted, we don't play some expensive non-revenue sports like baseball, or an expensive small revenue sport like football) was $10.3 million, which ranks second to last in the MVC, a couple hundred thou more than Evansville. SIU and WSU (no football) are at the top with $19.6 and $19.5 million. I'd like to see us get up to the $13-$15 million range, which would put us as the second highest non-football expenditure in the conference. Because we are in an expensive market like Chicago, we're a private school, we have one of the longer/farther travel requirements, I think that's what it would take to compete at a very high level in all sports in this conference.

That's part of the calculation of joining other conferences, the additional cost of competing against potential revenues. When you're talking about opportunity costs, presumed increase in student applications, TV revenues, chance of getting NCAA Tournament revenues, attendance, etc. there's a lot of guesswork involved on the revenue side.