What Schools Are Saying About Their Revenue Sharing Plans

Last Updated on July 28, 2024

Athletic departments have already begun preparations for revenue sharing with college athletes based on what we know about the House settlement so far. Behind the scenes, they’re making decisions on if they will participate, how much they will commit and how they will allocate those funds to athletes.

Some athletic directors, presidents and conference commissioners are already committing to participate fully, while others are still trying to figure out their budget, the Title IX implications and more.

I’ve compiled the public comments made thus far by administrators below and will be updating this post as more schools make their plans known, so bookmark this post.

Schools Committing to Revenue Sharing Publicly

The schools that have publicly committed to revenue sharing are listed below in alphabetical order.

Fresno State

Incoming Fresno State AD Garrett Klassy didn’t fully commit to revenue sharing, but I decided to include his initial thoughts where he said they will likely participate in revenue sharing “at some level.”

“I actually don’t start till July 23 and we’re speaking on July 9, so I haven’t done a deep dive into the budget yet because I think that’s going to determine a lot of things. But the reality is it doesn’t matter if you have Michigan’s budget or Fresno State’s budget or any other budget. There’s a need for revenue, and so I think you always have to be creative looking for revenue streams. And [with] the permissive cap you get from the House settlement, there’s a lot of factors to be determined. Is Title IX going to be applied to it? It looks like the $2B going back the last six years may go [to] a higher percentage of football and men’s basketball players than everyone else because they’re responsible for a lot of the TV revenue but we don’t know how that’s going to be applied moving forward. If there’s a 50-50 split, there’s going to have to be different approaches.”

Iowa

Iowa AD Beth Goetz said in July: “We are committed to competing at the highest level. A lot of work to do in the meantime, a lot of things to think through, but we’re committed to doing that and making sure our football program and all our teams continue to be successful.”

Specifically asked if Iowa will fully fund revenue sharing, Goetz said the goal is to “make sure you have the resources available to compete. … In some ways, you’re sort of rebuilding this whole plane while you’re trying to fly it. … We want to understand where should we put our resources that it’s really going to help up win. And that’s when we’ll make a decision about what those numbers look like, where we put them and what adjustments we might have to make.”

Ohio State

Ohio State athletic director Ross Bjork said his department will fully participate in revenue sharing at the maximum amount and stressed the importance of complying with Title IX. However, exactly how money is allocated to athletes is still a looming question.

“This is the equation that everybody’s got to figure out,” Bjork said. “If you have $11 million for men’s sports, how much goes to football? We have a lot of basketball tradition-laden programs in the Big Ten. There are basketball powerhouses that don’t have football. They could spend all $11 million on basketball.

“But if we also have to do football here at Ohio State, which we will, what does that leave for basketball? Those are all the challenges that we have to map out.”

USF

“We’re in the fight,” USF head football coach Alex Golesh said during the AAC’s media days. “We’re going to max out everything that we’re legally going to be allowed to max out.”

Utah

Utah Ad Mark Harlan said at Big 12 Media Days that the Utes will be embracing revenue sharing. “We are all-in on wherever the settlement falls. We certainly have a straw man of what it’s going to look like, but until it’s ratified…but we’re all-in, we’ve been preparing for that. We’re blessed to have an incredible fan base, donors, corporate program. We’ll get there and we plan on carrying our sports. I think that how we’re going to get there is just a lot of really good work in the community, continued work to explain how important that is for our student-athletes to continue to move forward in that way. And again, we’re just very lucky. We have some amazing supporters that really get it and want to help us.”

Drew Watson, Director of Development for the Crimson Collective, said earlier in July: “We want to hit that [$22M] cap. If we can get a jump start on it, we want to leave them in the best-case scenario. What will happen is either the collective employees could go up to the university and help fundraise there, but a lot of these universities are going to need third-party groups to come in and help fill in the gaps, right? And so the Garff Family (head of the Crimson Collective) down here, they’re already working on strategies to help fill in those gaps, and they want us involved.”

Utah State

“Absolutely, we will get there. I think we will get there perhaps a little bit slower, or a more thought out process, than the Power Five. It would be easy for them to dip into some coffers to get it started. You know, we don’t have a lot of reserves. We don’t have that financial fund just ready to go. Every day we eat what we can kill, and we have to do a better job of having more reserves, so that we can plan for that,” said athletic director Diana Sabau.

She says recruits are “comparing who’s going to give them more resources. When you talk about revenue sharing, it’s going to be here’s your compensation package. It’s your cost of attendance, your NIL, your revenue sharing, your Alston money (education-related funds for athletes). It’s our total compensation package now. That’s what people are driving for.”

West Virginia

West Virginia AD Wren Baker said even though the House settlement hasn’t cleared hurdles yet, he’s planning to participate fully in whatever it looks like in the end: “For us, you are trying to think through all the contingent scenarios. People are talking about the settlement like there is a settlement, but right now there’s a proposed settlement and the judge still has to agree on the initial terms and the people can object. There’s already been some people and institutions who have said they are going to object, so the finalization of this settlement really won’t be until after the turn of the calendar year and may be much longer than that. It’s really hard to have a definite plan for something you don’t know how it will exactly look.”

“I’ve said this millions of times. Our program is important more than for just the brand representation of the university. We are very much joined with the state of West Virginia in advancing the brand and reputation of our state. So, we cannot afford to not compete at a high level and that means we will be participating in those opportunities. If you look at it historically, when Alston came around, we participated in it. So as we look at this permissive cap on revenue share, we will be fully participating as allowed by the rules, the court decision and the settlement.”

Other Comments on Revenue Sharing

Administrators from a number of schools and conferences have made other interesting comments on revenue sharing, which I’ve compiled below in alphabetical order.

American Athletic Conference

AAC Commissioner Tim Pernetti said in late June, “Our conference gets it. It’s like, look, it is what it is, we’re moving forward, let’s try to understand what we’re going to be impacted by and let’s figure out ways to be able to manage it. And even in the conference office we’re trying to figure out ways based on revenues inbound and what we can do to try to soften the blow on the campuses. I think that will start to play itself out over the next couple of months.”

In July, Pernetti addressed the House settlement again: “I think some institutions in our conference are resourced in different ways than others. What we want to try to avoid is creating competition and gaps in our own league. For instance, and I’m just throwing it out there, the idea of us discussing as a membership, which I think we will, the prospect of revenue sharing within our conference. And should we have an agreed-upon conference cap for revenue sharing to try to create as much of a level playing field as we possibly can. Nothing’s off the table on that front.”

And in late July, Pernetti mentioned his conference might institute a floor, requiring members to make a minimum spend on revenue sharing: “To be part of this conference, we expect you to invest at a minimum level,” Pernetti said. “Understanding what coaches need to have access to with NIL and on campus to invest, will give us a steer on maybe what the right floor is. But that’s the conversation we’re going to spend our time on.”

Arizona State

Arizona State AD Graham Rossini said in July 2024 that he believes we’re on track for revenue sharing in 2025, but stopped short of saying what it would look like for his school: “ A lot of (the discussion) is tied to what compensating student-athletes will look like. We don’t know what that will look like. That’s a conversation that will happen over the next several months. It’s going to start from identifying roster caps (and) some scholarship limits will evolve in the roster class. What that does is allow us to understand sport by sport, what is the roster cap and the corresponding investment each school will have and the ability to distribute that throughout.”

BYU

BYU AD Tom Holmoe wasn’t ready to commit to fully funding revenue sharing when asked about it in July: “I think that every team, especially the power autonomy conferences, are saying that [they will fully participate in athlete revenue sharing]. I’ll believe it when I see it. I think each team will have to go through that first year and maybe the second year of transition. I figure for BYU, we’ll do our very best to get there. […] You’ve got to be careful not to react or overreact too fast and get yourself into something that you don’t want. I think our take is gonna be to get out of the blocks. You’ve gotta be out there and see what’s going on but try to move in a direction it’s gonna be best for us.”

Mark Comer and Lon Henderson of the Royal Blue Collective believe there will still be the need for a collective to facilitate NIL deals, even with revenue sharing:

The school is, “constrained by the profitability of the various universities and the athletic department,” they said. “So there’ll always be a delta between that amount you need to go out and recruit, [and what you can pay]. So because there is that delta, I think it’s a natural conclusion of how is that delta fulfilled? And we think that’s probably a place for NIL to put together the right solution for that.”

Colorado

Colorado AD Rick George spoke on revenue sharing following the July 26th filing of the House settlement: “You share 22 percent of your revenue (with the student-athletes) probably starting in 2025-26, so you have to prepare for that. How do you get to that point? The one thing I am really proud of is every time the NCAA has changed a rule, we’ve met the challenge. We’ll meet this challenge. I consider it an opportunity to relook at our department, our business, and get another pathway moving forward that starts in ’25-26. It’ll look a lot different than it does today.”

Florida

Florida football head coach Billy Napier spoke on how much of revenue sharing he expects football athletes to receive: “Do the math. We’re talking $20M (in allotted revenue sharing). In most athletic departments, football is 70-75% of the revenue. That’s $12.5-15M. That’s the number we anticipate.”

LSU

LSU football head coach Brian Kelly said the amount of revenue sharing dedicated to football may be informed by the backpay in the House settlement: “It depends on how the court pays back the $2.8B. If it’s paid back percentage wise 85 (men) and 15 (women), then the ADs have cover moving forward (on an unequal split) with rev share.”

Memphis

Memphis AD Ed Scott said Memphis will opt-in to revenue sharing, but noted he thinks Memphis is situated differently than others in the Group of Five. “I think we’re at a different place than most at this level,” he said. “We’re favored, from what I’ve read so far, to be the best Group of Five football program this year. Depending on what happens in other conferences, that may open up some opportunities for us as well.” “I’m really concerned, honestly moving forward, about Title IX,” Scott said. “If you split it up a certain way, you have a chance of getting sued for Title IX infractions, because we’re a public institution that receives federal funding, but if you don’t give enough for football and men’s basketball, you could be sued that way too. So I think you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”

Middle Tennessee State

Middle Tennessee State AD Chris Massaro isn’t a fan of the backpay portion of the House settlement: “I didn’t think it was fair, in terms of who pays. In essence, the rest of us are funding some of the Power Five athletes from the last 10 years. That is up to the plaintiffs, but it’s interesting to see their formulas. Our runs in the NCAA (basketball) tournament and extra shares, those will be dinged. Starting next summer we won’t get as much NCAA distribution to pay for this. Everybody will have to pay that for the next 10 years of a reduced income from the NCAA.” Massaro adds, however, that the settlements will at least provide some sense of clarity. “We have a bit of a path, a bit of a direction. We’re not just some rudderless ship out there just riding the current, which is what I felt like we were doing over the last four or five years. I think there is a direction that we can go, and that is a positive. The positive for MTSU is our location, our economics and our resources. What we’ve accomplished and those things, and where we’ve positioned ourselves. We’re in good shape. I’m not scared of our future. It will just look a little different. I think the future at MTSU is going to be great.”

Kansas State

Athletic director Gene Taylor told the Salt Lake Tribune that “coaches are coming to me on a regular basis asking, ‘What are we doing? What’s it look like? And, to give them a concrete answer, right now, I just don’t have one. We’re looking at everything from a financial perspective. We’re talking to our collective. What’s that look like in the future? Do those dollars ultimately come in house? Do we control them? Do we create a third-party marketing group to manage it? I mean, all these things are part of the conversation. And, we’re just now kind of working through the details of each of those options.”

Missouri

Missouri AD Laird Veatch said in late June, “A lot of it right now is speculation, as you know, so it’s trying to anticipate what this could look like and a lot of modeling and strategic discussions in the background with the department and key individuals in the conference and others. A lot of what you’re trying to do is predict what it may be and how we could position ourselves.”

Veatch adds, “In many ways, I do see that sort of next era of NIL support really needing to come from the corporate sector, which is what NIL is intended to be on the front end. … We need to really lean into that. I think it’s a huge opportunity for Mizzou, in part because we’re in such a big state.”

Oklahoma

Oklahoma AD Joe Castiglione said in early July, “I think there is fairly universal agreement that we should rightly compensate players through a mechanism that is transparent, equitable and sustainable and, importantly, allows collegiate athletics to preserve Title IX.” 

Purdue

Purdue AD Mike Bobinski had a wide-ranging interview with GoldandBlack.com that covered many aspects of the House settlement. Here’s what he said about Purdue’s situation in terms of coming up with the money:

“I don’t think there’s a single answer, ‘Oh, there’s a $22 million solution just sitting over there waiting for us to grab it.’ It’s got to be repeatable and, reliable and recurring. This is not a one-shot, ‘Hey, we have a huge problem and how do we triage this problem?’ This is a structural adjustment that’s going to have to be made with a long-term view. I think lots of things will be on the table.

“We’ve been very successful raising money but to presume we can raise another, in perpetuity, $21.5 million in annual operating dollars and growing. Our annual fund has gone from $6.5 million in 2016, which is what I’m familiar with, to $15 million. It’s probably not in the cards to do that and then some right away and then repeat it every year. That’s asking an awful lot of a lot of people. Do I think there’s some more capacity? Yes, I do. How we present this will speak to a lot of our people. We want to provide the very best opportunities, and we think this is an opportunity. While it’s a huge challenge, those numbers are sobering in scope, but there is an opportunity to be had here if we are able to find our way there. I think this leveling of the field a little bit and a more balanced and competitive opportunity is good for places like ours. It just is. It behooves us to get an answer as quickly as we can, and we’ll be working on that in the months ahead pretty diligently.”

Southern Miss

Southern Miss AD Jeremy McClain said in July: “I think it’s too early and so in my mind it’s more of just kind of the mindset of let’s make sure we’re doing everything we can to maximize fundraising, to put ourselves in the right position financially to prepare to make some adjustments in scholarships if that’s what comes through.”

Comments on Cutting Sports Because of Revenue Sharing

One concern as revenue sharing is ushered is in whether it will lead to sports being cut. Below is what administrators have been saying about plans at their schools (in alphabetical order).

Illinois

Illinois AD Josh Whitman addressed whether the House settlement would lead to cutting sports in July 2024: “It puts us in a position where we’re evaluating every line item in our budget, trying to find those dollars so we can make that strategic investment and at this moment, kind of like when we were in COVID. We’re not foreclosing any options and so there’s a lot of different levers at our disposal and one of them is which sports are we sponsoring? Obviously that’s a last resort for anybody in my situation and we want to make sure we have exhausted other possibilities before we would pull on that lever.”

Iowa

Iowa AD Beth Goetz said in July: “We’re not having any discussions about cutting sports right now.”

Iowa State

Iowa State AD Jamie Pollard told the Salt Lake Tribune, “Fundamentally, our goal is not to eliminate opportunities. Those opportunities are probably going to have to look different going forward, because there’s not unlimited resources. And it’s critical that football and basketball are healthy because football and men’s basketball fund 90 to 95% of what we do in college athletics.”

Louisiana Tech

Louisiana Tech AD Ryan Ivey told D1.ticker/Connect at the 2024 NACDA Convention: “When it comes to protecting non-revenue sports, Ivey says: “I’m a firm believer in the educational benefits and values of the athletics department and athletic opportunities. So, what are we doing to create and instill those opportunities and protect those opportunities for everyone, whether that’s a football player or a bowling or a tennis student-athlete? What are we doing to protect those opportunities? So I think those things are going to be important to us…but again, it’s going to be looking at it from that standpoint of how do you manage all those wants and needs across the board – and it’s nothing that we probably haven’t been doing before, but it’s really more hyper-focused now than it ever has been.”

Minnesota

Minnesota AD Mark Coyle told the Minnesota Board of Regions in July there may be some changes for Olympic sports:

“There’s no doubt there’s going to be some financial pressures as we try to navigate the new chapter of college athletics. We’ll have to take a hard look at all of our sports and what we provide our student athletes.” Travel and facilities for Olympic sports were noted as areas where budgets could be reduced.

“I think you can see in our Olympic sports, for example, some of the experiences our student athletes have might look different. All programs are trying to figure out how to manage the back payments for the House settlement and how to determine the revenue share model moving forward.”

Regent Mary Turner specifically about anticipating sports cuts because of Minnesota’s elimination of men’s gymnastics, men’s tennis and men’s indoor track and field in 2020.

Coyle’s response to Turner was to say, “As we face these new challenges, ideally when you look at our 22 sports programs, we need to focus on what we provide our student athletes. I think it’s going to look different.”

Ohio State

Ohio State President Ted Carter said Ohio State will not cut any sports due to revenue sharing.

“We’ve just got to make sure that we maintain, even with this revenue-share model, that we can do everything that we can to be self-sufficient. This program has been self-sufficient, and we anticipate it will be self-sufficient going forward. And I would argue if you look across the entire landscape of college football, you’re going to find only maybe three to five programs that are going to be able to say that in the next model.”

“We made one big, bold statement, and that is we’re going to maintain 36 Division I sports. I watched during COVID-19 what schools like William & Mary and Stanford went through. Even in the state of Nebraska, which happened before I got there, the University of Nebraska at Omaha cut football and wrestling at the Division II level to move into the Summit League. Heavily criticized at the time. And as I’ve watched the college landscape and think about what it means to maintain these sports, it’s important once you get them to do everything you can to hold on to them. You don’t want to lose that. It’s too important to the student-athlete. So we’ve made a declarative statement that we’re going to hold on to that.”

However, former athletic director Gene Smith said back in June that conversations were ongoing with coaches from several sports about cutting expenses in order to shift into the new budgets that will be required to cover new athletic department expenses going forward.

South Carolina

University of South Carolina President Michael Amiridis spoke on the issue of potentially cutting sports: “On the potential of eliminating sports: “I can tell you that there is a strong desire across the conference to protect Olympic sports, to protect women’s sports. … We have seen these attempts by others in the past and you know exactly what the reaction was and how, immediately, within weeks they reverse the decision. It happens across the country. It happened during COVID as well. That’s not the idea. The idea is not to decrease the number of student-athletes.”

Utah

Utah AD Mark Harlan said at Big 12 Media Days that the Utes will not be eliminating any sports: “We have a president that’s all-in. We have a board of trustees that’s all-in, and we have a fan base that has proven time and time again they’re all-in. We’re going to learn, we’re studying Title IX as it relates to the settlement. … We cannot have any of our Olympic sports do anything else but go forward.”