On Saturday, LSU and Coastal Carolina begin a best-of-three finals to determine the 2025 Men’s College World Series champion. Financially, the matchup is a David and Goliath narrative.

LSU’s athletic department spent $219.3 million in the 2023-24 academic year, good for the seventh-highest among all FBS public schools, according to Sportico’s College Finances Database. On the flip side, Coastal Carolina’s expense total of $47 million—less than what LSU spent on its football team alone—ranked 82nd.

In baseball, the gap is smaller, but still wide. The Tigers’ $10 million baseball budget ranked third in the nation, while the Chanticleers’ $4 million total was the 33rd-highest. LSU paid head coach Jay Johnson $1.9 million in salaries, benefits and bonuses last year. That’s far more than the $795,000 earned by Coastal Carolina’s former manager Gary Gilmore, who retired before this season after 29 years at the helm.

In fact, LSU’s $3.5 million in baseball ticket sales, which also ranked third in the country, would have nearly covered the Coastal Carolina team’s entire expenses for the year. The latter earned only $333,000 from ticketing.

This is the largest spending disparity the Chanticleers have faced in the tournament thus far. They dispatched Auburn ($6.4 million baseball budget) in the super regional, then Arizona ($4.9 million) in the first round of the MCWS, Oregon State ($4.6 million) in the second round and Louisville ($5.6 million) in the semifinals.

Coastal Carolina might be a financial David, but it’s not a Cinderella. The team entered the finals on a 26-game winning streak, and outscored its opponents 64-25 in its first eight tournament games.

This also isn’t Coastal Carolina’s first rodeo. In 2016, the Chanticleers swept LSU in the super regional and then defeated Arizona for the national championship. That was the only time a program outside the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 or ACC reached the finals in the past 15 years.

But despite competing in the Sun Belt, Coastal Carolina isn’t a typical small conference program. It has had the largest baseball budget of any non-power conference school in each of the past seven seasons, and its nationwide rank of 33rd in 2024 is actually the lowest it’s been during that span—way down from 17th in 2018.

The athletic department spends 8.5% of its overall budget on baseball, the highest of any FBS public school. For comparison, the average school apportions 3.5% of its expenses to baseball. LSU allocated 4.6%.

If Coastal Carolina goes on to win the national title, be impressed by the program’s success despite its frugality, but don’t be surprised.

Game 1 of the championship is on Saturday at 7 p.m. ET.