I will say this, yes, basketball in this area has been more successful as far as teams winning championships and going deep in the playoffs than what football has done. But to suggest that basketball generates the same amount of money as football is ridiculous.
I know from personal experience that we here at SETXsports can get way more sponsors for football than we ever thought about getting for basketball. It's almost apples and oranges. There are the exceptions to the rule (HJ, Silsbee) but trust me, I have tried other schools for basketball sponsors and it just ain't happening. Football on the other hand, well, they actually come to us most of the time. So, as a product that one needs to sell, football is definetly KING here locally over basketball.
As for the gate reciepts, just ask any local football ref or basketball ref and they will tell you were the money is, it's football. I'll just use my home town school Silsbee as an example. Tiger football on average has about 5,000 or more attend their home football games. That's at least 25,000 home attendance for the season. For basketball, Silsbee normally gets 10 home games (only had 7 this year) and they average about 800-1000 for those games. So the most would be 10,000 home attendance for Silsbee basketball. The ticket prices are lower for basketball games than football and football in Silsbee has season ticket holders, guarenteed money even if they don't show up. It's not close as far as the money generated from these two sports. Football wins.
I am pretty sure it's that way for 90% of the schools in our area, sans the HJ's, Kountze's, and Spurger's.
Football generates more revenue, case closed. It may cost more than basketball, and in some cases basketball may profit more, but the arguement was what generated the most revenue and well, it's not even close.