Latest news with #Power4
Fox Sports
2 days ago
- Health
- Fox Sports
Deion Sanders Is One of One — and His Fight Is a Lesson in Purpose
With a kind of joy, sincerity and charisma that can only come from Deion Sanders, Colorado's head coach sat at a press conference on Monday, fighting back tears beside two medical professionals he credited with helping save his life. They told the world that Sanders was diagnosed with bladder cancer earlier this summer, underwent a procedure to remove it after a malignant tumor was found, and is now cancer-free. Dr. Janet Kukreja, director of urological oncology at the University of Colorado Cancer Center, voiced the two words that fans of Coach Prime and Colorado athletics wanted to hear: "It's beaten." For weeks, speculation and rumors had run amok about the health of Sanders, one of the most prominent and ubiquitous figures in the sport. But there was no arguing he'd become reclusive at a moment when coaches were out recruiting and politicking for the game. The 57-year-old Sanders had largely been out of the public eye since the conclusion of spring practice. Sanders' oldest son, Deion Sanders, Jr., was the first and only family member to tell the public that his father was in the midst of a battle he could only reveal so much about, posting a video on social media earlier this month when he was heard saying his father was dealing with a health concern and making it clear that any prayers would be welcomed. For the coach who brought Colorado its first nine-win season since 2016, its first Heisman winner since 1994 and a national presence and relevancy that the program hasn't enjoyed since winning a share of the 1990 national championship, the return of questions about Sanders' health was challenging. This is especially true after Sanders, who had life-saving surgery to remove blood clots just two years ago, signed a contract to stay in Boulder that will see him make more than $10 million annually. However, his sons no longer play football for a team he coaches. Travis Hunter, the 2024 Heisman winner, is at NFL training camp with the Jacksonville Jaguars. If Sanders were to walk away and manage his health, even for a little while, the sport would've felt his absence. After all, there is not another coach in the country who could succeed in hosting his own talk show on Tubi, earn late-night television spots during the offseason to promote his book and coach a program at the Power 4 level. We know this is true because he's the only person who has done it. Just like he is the only person to play in the World Series and the Super Bowl. Just like he's the only Power 4 coach to begin his career as a college football head coach without a single stop as an assistant at the NFL or college level. Sanders is one of a kind. He is unique. He is truly one of one. However, from the first week of May through the last week of July, Sanders only met the obligations he had to, including an appearance at Big 12 Media Days, where he dismissed questions about his health and mustered a robust argument for a salary cap in college football. "I'm not here to talk about my health," Sanders said at Big 12 Media Days. "I'm here to talk about my team." He did that, while breaking protocol in the process. Traditionally, coaches who are overseeing a QB competition elect not to bring either, allowing folks who write and talk about the sport for a living to draw their own conclusions. Instead, he brought both Kaidon Salter and Julian Lewis, setting the narrative that he truly feels good about either of them starting Week 1 against Georgia Tech. And he did all of that while recovering from the kind of surgery that can be life-threatening, making the decision not to tell anyone outside a close group of family and friends about it. "I'm truly thankful that God is so good," Sanders said as he stared up at the sky, put his hands in a prayer position and took a deep pause to gather himself. "You have no idea how good God has been for me to be here." Sanders got to tell his story, but I hope he won't forget that only he has the ability to call a news conference on a Monday afternoon in late July to tell the world about his fight with cancer, and we all came running. I hope he will remember we were here to celebrate his victory with him. Hold him in our prayers, walk through life doing the best we can for each other, live our lives as he has. Coach Prime has lived his life with passion, with drive. He has decided he will make the rest of his life about coaching the sport he played better than almost everybody else who has ever touched a football because he believes it is the best way to reach the most people and develop the best men the world could know. "I always knew I was going to coach again," Sanders said on Monday. "It was never in my spirit, in my heart, that God wouldn't allow me to coach again. (I) never thought like that." Let what Sanders endured over the past couple of months and his ability to find purpose in everything he does serve as a reminder to us all. This life we live can feel unbearable, unfair and unkind. It takes from many more than it gives. But, today, we learned once again, it can give back. It can give us back perspective when we can't see past our inconveniences and our tragedies. It can give us purpose if we feel we have no merit, no position to play in its game. It can give us back our heroes when it lays them low so that we might watch them fight back with grace, honor and integrity. Coach Prime, one of the biggest names in college football, has his values personified and his faith displayed constantly. He beat cancer with a full-time job in one of the most pressurized environments sports has to offer. Because of course he did. Because he's Prime. RJ Young is a national college football writer and analyst for FOX Sports and the host of the podcast "The Number One College Football Show." Follow him at @RJ_Young . Want great stories delivered right to your inbox? Create or log in to your FOX Sports account , and follow leagues, teams and players to receive a personalized newsletter daily! FOLLOW Follow your favorites to personalize your FOX Sports experience College Football recommended Item 1 of 3 Get more from the College Football Follow your favorites to get information about games, news and more
Fox Sports
10-07-2025
- Politics
- Fox Sports
Greed. Selfishness. Lack of Integrity. Big 12 Coaches Propose Change in NIL Era
Eight head coaches sat in a roundtable setting at Big 12 Media Days on Wednesday, nodding in agreement that college athletics' NIL system is not just flawed, it's impossibly screwed up. It's not sustainable. It wreaks of sycophants, selfishness and greed. The money isn't the problem. The money is a symptom. Led by the voice of Colorado head coach Deion Sanders, the youngest among the eight in coaching years, the group agreed: a fix is needed, and it's quite simple. This is a group of coaches that are anti-Gordon Gekko. Greed isn't so good. It's a group of coaches that are all millionaires … several times over … but change the stage at AT&T Stadium into a boardroom in a high rise on Wall Street, and you can feel like Jeremy Irons' John Tuld as he asks question after question to his staff in "Margin Call" and each of their answers are essentially the same. No matter who he asks and how he asks it, the market is doomed. Business as usual no longer applies and will not apply ever again. College football coaches now use national letters of intent like cudgels, even though those letters of intent must be renewed and scholarships are one-year contracts. Players are no longer forced to sit out a year if they choose to transfer within the highest subdivision in football. And, of course, players are now paid a lot more than they used to be, up to seven figures in many cases. On Wednesday afternoon, the college football world watched as half the coaches in a Power 4 league pleaded for change … and fast. Coaches know they can't keep total control of the sport, but they do believe they still have some level of control. Big 12 coaches want a salary cap. They want enforceable termination and buyout clauses. They even want a collective bargaining agreement, knowing players would need a union for such a thing to exist. They want a system that is not littered with back-dealing, tampering and payment to players they don't feel have earned it. They want to be able to compete with programs that simply have no bottom to their bank accounts. And they want it now. "I wish there was a cap," Sanders said on Wednesday. "I wish that the top-of-the-line player makes 'this' and if you're not that type of guy, you know you're not going to make that. That's what the NFL does. "The problem is, you got a guy that's not that darn good, but he could go to another school and give him half a million dollars, and you can't compete with that." Houston coach Willie Fritz has coached college football since 1978, beginning at Pittsburg State in Pittsburg, Kansas. In other words, he's seen it all. From the split between Division I-A and Division I-AA to the inception of a 12-team tournament to crown a national champion, he believes the integrity of the sport is under attack. Fritz went 4-8 in Year 1 in a city he called "the epicenter of football in the world." This happened because he couldn't afford to pay enough to incoming players, as well as monitor the players he is committed to paying, all while stopping others — namely boosters, NIL collectives and agents — from aggressively poaching players even after deals are done. And that could be mitigated. TCU coach Sonny Dykes got started coaching college football at Navarro, a school more known for its cheerleading program than its football team, and he was one of the first coaches hired by Mike Leach at Texas Tech in 2000. At the time, the Red Raiders made it work with a plucky attitude and the most eccentric offensive system anybody had ever seen in major college football. This past offseason, Dykes watched Texas Tech spend more than $10 million on portal additions to its football roster, $1 million on a softball player, and open a state-of-the-art football facility. He also recognizes tampering as a problem the men on that stage could fix. "There are obviously conversations that have taken place and guys have known each other for a long time," Dykes said. "But I do think that's a thing we should be able to communicate with each other. You should be able to call anybody up here and say, 'This happened' or 'I'm not comfortable with this. What can we do to make sure this doesn't happen again?'" It's difficult to make that call when you're not just trying to keep your own job, but the jobs of everyone you hired to work for you. When money becomes a symptom you can no longer ignore, integrity and character get tested, but putting food on the table is a test many of us don't get to fail. So the status quo will remain until the market fails. Mike Gundy has been the head coach at Oklahoma State for 20 years. He has seen the creation of and the realignment of the Big 12 Conference. He has always been great at evaluating under-recruited, under-valued players, from Wes Lunt to Ollie Gordon, but he draws the line at who gets paid what. "We really need to get some guardrails to eliminate the things that are going on from a tampering standpoint," Gundy said, "and players that are coming out of high school getting way too much money before they ever make a play on game day." Here is a good time to remind you: Michigan QB Bryce Underwood is set to make a reported $12 million, and he has yet to play a single snap in college football. [Related: Top 25 college athletes with highest NIL valuations] Kansas coach Lance Leipold climbed up to Lawrence, Kansas, using the rough side of the mountain with a career that began in 1987 at Division III Wisconsin-Whitewater. That means he has seen most of it, from the change of the Bowl Alliance to the Bowl Championship Series to conference realignment. He has turned one of the sport's doormats into a program you don't want to play late in the season – just ask Iowa State, BYU and Colorado – three ranked teams that all fell to the Jayhawks in consecutive weeks in 2024. Leipold is also one of the coaches who is a proponent of change, speaking on players who are already hunting for a better deal than the one they just signed. "We've got people out there that are trying to fight around the system, getting the players, getting the agents, third parties, high school coaches, whatever it is, to put feelers out, and then next thing you know, they're talking dollar figures with a young man," Leipold said at Big 12 Media Days. "That's not the way to do business. I think we as coaches and leaders have to set the example of doing this with integrity once we get everything settled." The problem is, it isn't theirs to settle. West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez hopes that's not going to be the case going forward. "My hope is that the coaches, athletic directors and commissioners are at the forefront of making decisions for what's best for college sports and college football," he said. Rodriguez, who has been the head coach at multiple schools — from Michigan and Arizona to Jacksonville State — wants voices like his own to lead the way rather than the federal government. The issue with that is, so far, not even the commissioners want to touch this quagmire 156 years in the making. Sanders left it blunt when asked what he'd like to see done, while seven other coaches in the league nodded in agreement. "All you have to do is look at the playoffs and see what those teams spent, and you understand darn well why they ended up in the playoffs," Sanders said. "It's kind of hard to compete with somebody who is giving $25, $30 million to a freshman class. It's crazy. "We're not complaining because all of these coaches can coach their butts off and, given the right opportunity with the right players, a play here and there, you'll be there [the CFP], but what's going on right now doesn't make any sense." Just last year, Ohio State reportedly spent more than $20 million on its 2024 roster, and the Buckeyes won the national title. There will be more jawing — lots more jawing. There will be more grandstanding, handwringing and lip service from a bunch of individuals who claim to know how to get their million-dollar hands dirty. But it will come back to not just winning, but who owns the ground we're all playing on. It always does. The sport has never been fair. The rich have always gotten richer, and fans have always wanted to see Ohio State and Notre Dame play for a national title more than Boise State and Southern Methodist. And most coaches will stomach that. What they won't stomach is losing even more control over an institution for which they were once the most powerful figure in every room. Now, with all these new faces on the land — agents, collectives, attorneys — they want what John Dutton took in Yellowstone, Montana. Remind everyone, once and for all, who really runs the valley. And it's not you. RJ Young is a national college football writer and analyst for FOX Sports and the host of the podcast "The Number One College Football Show." Follow him at @RJ_Young . Want great stories delivered right to your inbox? Create or log in to your FOX Sports account , and follow leagues, teams and players to receive a personalized newsletter daily! FOLLOW Follow your favorites to personalize your FOX Sports experience College Football recommended Item 1 of 3 Get more from the College Football Follow your favorites to get information about games, news and more
Fox Sports
10-07-2025
- Politics
- Fox Sports
Greed. Selfishness. Lack of Integrity. Big 12 Coaches Purpose Change in NIL Era
Eight head coaches sat in a roundtable setting at Big 12 Media Days on Wednesday, nodding in agreement that college athletics' NIL system is not just flawed, it's impossibly screwed up. It's not sustainable. It wreaks of sycophants, selfishness and greed. The money isn't the problem. The money is a symptom. Led by the voice of Colorado head coach Deion Sanders, the youngest among the eight in coaching years, the group agreed: a fix is needed, and it's quite simple. This is a group of coaches that are anti-Gordon Gekko. Greed isn't so good. It's a group of coaches that are all millionaires … several times over … but change the stage at AT&T Stadium into a boardroom in a high rise on Wall Street, and you can feel like Jeremy Irons' John Tuld as he asks question after question to his staff in "Margin Call" and each of their answers are essentially the same. No matter who he asks and how he asks it, the market is doomed. Business as usual no longer applies and will not apply ever again. College football coaches now use national letters of intent like cudgels, even though those letters of intent must be renewed and scholarships are one-year contracts. Players are no longer forced to sit out a year if they choose to transfer within the highest subdivision in football. And, of course, players are now paid a lot more than they used to be, up to seven figures in many cases. On Wednesday afternoon, the college football world watched as half the coaches in a Power 4 league pleaded for change … and fast. Coaches know they can't keep total control of the sport, but they do believe they still have some level of control. Big 12 coaches want a salary cap. They want enforceable termination and buyout clauses. They even want a collective bargaining agreement, knowing players would need a union for such a thing to exist. They want a system that is not littered with back-dealing, tampering and payment to players they don't feel have earned it. They want to be able to compete with programs that simply have no bottom to their bank accounts. And they want it now. "I wish there was a cap," Sanders said on Wednesday. "I wish that the top-of-the-line player makes 'this' and if you're not that type of guy, you know you're not going to make that. That's what the NFL does. "The problem is, you got a guy that's not that darn good, but he could go to another school and give him half a million dollars, and you can't compete with that." Houston coach Willie Fritz has coached college football since 1978, beginning at Pittsburg State in Pittsburg, Kansas. In other words, he's seen it all. From the split between Division I-A and Division I-AA to the inception of a 12-team tournament to crown a national champion, he believes the integrity of the sport is under attack. Fritz went 4-8 in Year 1 in a city he called "the epicenter of football in the world." This happened because he couldn't afford to pay enough to incoming players, as well as monitor the players he is committed to paying, all while stopping others — namely boosters, NIL collectives and agents — from aggressively poaching players even after deals are done. And that could be mitigated. TCU coach Sonny Dykes got started coaching college football at Navarro, a school more known for its cheerleading program than its football team, and he was one of the first coaches hired by Mike Leach at Texas Tech in 2000. At the time, the Red Raiders made it work with a plucky attitude and the most eccentric offensive system anybody had ever seen in major college football. This past offseason, Dykes watched Texas Tech spend more than $10 million on portal additions to its football roster, $1 million on a softball player, and open a state-of-the-art football facility. He also recognizes tampering as a problem the men on that stage could fix. "There are obviously conversations that have taken place and guys have known each other for a long time," Dykes said. "But I do think that's a thing we should be able to communicate with each other. You should be able to call anybody up here and say, 'This happened' or 'I'm not comfortable with this. What can we do to make sure this doesn't happen again?'" It's difficult to make that call when you're not just trying to keep your own job, but the jobs of everyone you hired to work for you. When money becomes a symptom you can no longer ignore, integrity and character get tested, but putting food on the table is a test many of us don't get to fail. So the status quo will remain until the market fails. Mike Gundy has been the head coach at Oklahoma State for 20 years. He has seen the creation of and the realignment of the Big 12 Conference. He has always been great at evaluating under-recruited, under-valued players, from Wes Lunt to Ollie Gordon, but he draws the line at who gets paid what. "We really need to get some guardrails to eliminate the things that are going on from a tampering standpoint," Gundy said, "and players that are coming out of high school getting way too much money before they ever make a play on game day." Here is a good time to remind you: Michigan QB Bryce Underwood is set to make a reported $12 million, and he has yet to play a single snap in college football. [Related: Top 25 college athletes with highest NIL valuations] Kansas coach Lance Leipold climbed up to Lawrence, Kansas, using the rough side of the mountain with a career that began in 1987 at Division III Wisconsin-Whitewater. That means he has seen most of it, from the change of the Bowl Alliance to the Bowl Championship Series to conference realignment. He has turned one of the sport's doormats into a program you don't want to play late in the season – just ask Iowa State, BYU and Colorado – three ranked teams that all fell to the Jayhawks in consecutive weeks in 2024. Leipold is also one of the coaches who is a proponent of change, speaking on players who are already hunting for a better deal than the one they just signed. "We've got people out there that are trying to fight around the system, getting the players, getting the agents, third parties, high school coaches, whatever it is, to put feelers out, and then next thing you know, they're talking dollar figures with a young man," Leipold said at Big 12 Media Days. "That's not the way to do business. I think we as coaches and leaders have to set the example of doing this with integrity once we get everything settled." The problem is, it isn't theirs to settle. West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez hopes that's not going to be the case going forward. "My hope is that the coaches, athletic directors and commissioners are at the forefront of making decisions for what's best for college sports and college football," he said. Rodriguez, who has been the head coach at multiple schools — from Michigan and Arizona to Jacksonville State — wants voices like his own to lead the way rather than the federal government. The issue with that is, so far, not even the commissioners want to touch this quagmire 156 years in the making. Sanders left it blunt when asked what he'd like to see done, while seven other coaches in the league nodded in agreement. "All you have to do is look at the playoffs and see what those teams spent, and you understand darn well why they ended up in the playoffs," Sanders said. "It's kind of hard to compete with somebody who is giving $25, $30 million to a freshman class. It's crazy. "We're not complaining because all of these coaches can coach their butts off and, given the right opportunity with the right players, a play here and there, you'll be there [the CFP], but what's going on right now doesn't make any sense." Just last year, Ohio State reportedly spent more than $20 million on its 2024 roster, and the Buckeyes won the national title. There will be more jawing — lots more jawing. There will be more grandstanding, handwringing and lip service from a bunch of individuals who claim to know how to get their million-dollar hands dirty. But it will come back to not just winning, but who owns the ground we're all playing on. It always does. The sport has never been fair. The rich have always gotten richer, and fans have always wanted to see Ohio State and Notre Dame play for a national title more than Boise State and Southern Methodist. And most coaches will stomach that. What they won't stomach is losing even more control over an institution for which they were once the most powerful figure in every room. Now, with all these new faces on the land — agents, collectives, attorneys — they want what John Dutton took in Yellowstone, Montana. Remind everyone, once and for all, who really runs the valley. And it's not you. RJ Young is a national college football writer and analyst for FOX Sports and the host of the podcast "The Number One College Football Show." Follow him at @RJ_Young . Want great stories delivered right to your inbox? Create or log in to your FOX Sports account , and follow leagues, teams and players to receive a personalized newsletter daily! FOLLOW Follow your favorites to personalize your FOX Sports experience College Football recommended Item 1 of 3 Get more from the College Football Follow your favorites to get information about games, news and more
USA Today
30-06-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
The Athletic's Stewart Mandel ranks Clemson, other conference champions by repeat chances
Stewart Mandel of The Athletic($$$) sees Clemson as the safest bet among defending conference champs to keep its crown in 2025. In a recent piece ranking Power 4 champions by their chances to repeat this season, Mandel put the Tigers at the very top of the list. 'The Tigers won last year's ACC by the skin of their teeth, sliding into the title game only when Miami got upset at Syracuse, then edging SMU on Nolan Hauser's 56-yard field goal,' Mandel wrote. 'But this year's team appears to be the clear top of the class.' Mandel pointed to the return of Cade Klubnik — 'one of the nation's top returning quarterbacks' — and standout receiver Antonio Williams as big reasons Clemson should lead the pack again. He also highlighted a defensive line headlined by T.J. Parker and Peter Woods, which could be one of the country's best, plus the expected impact of new defensive coordinator Tom Allen. 'That's not to say Miami and SMU can't contend as well,' Mandel added, 'but if it's Clemson vs. the field, I'll take Clemson.' If Dabo Swinney's group pulls it off, it would mark a ninth ACC championship in the last 11 seasons dating back to 2015. Georgia, Oregon, and Arizona State rounded out Mandel's ranking in that order, but none felt as certain to him as Clemson. The Tigers kick things off against LSU on August 30 in primetime before opening ACC play at Georgia Tech on September 13. Contact us @Clemson_Wire on X, and like our page on Facebook for ongoing coverage of Clemson Tigers news and notes, plus opinions.
Yahoo
07-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
What I'm hearing about NCAA revenue sharing: $40M football rosters, unintended consequences
The House v. NCAA settlement, granted final approval Friday, has been touted as a means of restoring order to this Big Money Era of college sports. Starting this summer, Power 4 and other Division I schools can begin directly paying their athletes via an annual revenue sharing pool capped at roughly $20.5 million per school in year one. But because schools have been preparing to navigate this new world order — and how to gain a competitive edge under it — many in the industry expect the budding NIL arms race to continue at the top of the sport, and at a price point much higher than the cap. Advertisement 'The top (football) teams are going to cost $40-50 million a year,' said one power conference personnel director. 'That's where this is going. Anyone who thinks different is nuts.' That projected 'budget' includes additional NIL (name, image and likeness) payments from collectives and outside organizations to athletes on top of the capped revenue sharing from the school. It would be a steep increase from the market-setting $20 million in NIL money Ohio State funded its roster with last season on the way to a national championship. But most significantly, a number of industry sources believe that $40 million-$50 million rate will continue beyond this upcoming season, where a number of top-end rosters have been uniquely built with front-loaded, pre-settlement NIL deals. This cuts directly against the intent of the settlement, which is designed to stamp out the unspoken pay-for-play deals that have hijacked the NIL marketplace and keep ballooning roster budgets in check. 'No chance,' the personnel director said. Advertisement It's one of the many changes, intended and unintended, coming to college sports under the House settlement. Schools opting in have spent the past year bracing for the financial reckoning this settlement will bring, including where the revenue share money will come from and how it will be distributed. College athletics have been trending in this direction, and to the benefit of most athletes, particularly those in revenue sports who will receive a bigger cut of the billions in television, sponsorship and ticket revenues that pour into power conference athletic departments. Many of those same departments, however, are already struggling with the challenges of this transition. 'We're all just trying to figure it out as we go through it,' said one power conference head football coach. 'The whole deal is to make it a level playing field, but I don't think that will ever be realistic.' Advertisement spoke with more than a dozen sources across each of the Power 4 conferences about how they plan to approach this new revenue sharing model and all that will come with it — including in-fighting between coaches at the same school, why 'tanking' could factor into college sports and how programs will continue to bend rules and find competitive advantages in a post-settlement era. The sources include athletic directors and administrators; coaches, general managers and personnel staffers in football and men's basketball; and others involved in NIL and collectives. All were granted anonymity in exchange for their candor. 'F— Deloitte. This is going to get even crazier' The $20.5 million revenue sharing cap goes into effect July 1 and covers every sport under a school's athletic department. The most prominent football programs expect to have about $15 million of that pool at their disposal, with top programs supplementing that budget with third-party, 'over-the-cap' NIL deals. Advertisement But not so fast, my friends. The settlement includes a new oversight and enforcement arm — named the College Sports Commission — that requires outside deals from collectives and other associated companies and organizations to reflect a valid business purpose and fall within an approved range of compensation. The settlement establishes a clearinghouse, dubbed NIL Go and managed by the accounting firm Deloitte, which instructs athletes to self-report any third-party NIL deals worth $600 or more for review. The idea is that any of those deals that fail to meet a valid business purpose and/or fall within an approved range will be flagged, and must be adjusted or taken to arbitration. From the perspective of the NCAA and power conference leadership, this new enforcement is meant to bring competitive balance and transparency to a lawless, untenable NIL marketplace. But among those who have witnessed the NCAA's inability to police that marketplace in the past, there's a lot of skepticism that the settlement will change things. 'It all sounds great in theory, but how will it actually work?' asked one power conference athletic director. Industry sources familiar with the clearinghouse and enforcement plan insist it will have more (and swifter) latitude and punitive power than the NCAA wielded in the NIL era. Until it actually drops that hammer, it's done little to scare off coaches and recruiting staffs with passionate, deep-pocketed donors. Advertisement A number of sources questioned whether athletes will even report their third-party deals, or do so accurately. Others suggested that deals getting challenged by the clearinghouse — or the fact that they have to be disclosed at all — could spark more antitrust legal action from collectives. Other sources were outright dismissive. 'If you tell a booster or business owner they can't give a star player $2 million, there will be lawsuits,' said the personnel director. 'There's no enforcing this. Fair market value? F— Deloitte. This is going to get even crazier.' A legit enforcement arm with some teeth — perhaps in the form of suspensions or ineligibility — might change that sentiment, and multiple athletic directors suggest that if the clearinghouse merely serves as a minor deterrent to egregious pay-for-play payments, it will be better than pre-settlement circumstances. But others think the undertow of NIL and collectives is too strong to turn back now. 'There are a lot of rich people that can't buy a professional sports franchise, but they can give a ton of money to their alma mater,' said a power conference administrator. 'And if you're telling millionaires and billionaires what they can and can't do with their money, you're probably going to lose that battle.' Finding the money The over-the-cap arms race is for high rollers only. It will attract the premier programs that expect to win national championships, but for most schools, even in the power conferences, their focus is on how they will fund a new $20 million budget item. Advertisement Power conference athletic departments operate as self-sustaining organizations with $100 million budgets, where expenses more or less line up with revenues. Operating this way, even as millions upon millions in annual television revenue flowed in, is how the conferences and NCAA became ensnared in so much legal trouble to begin with. Untangling those norms is an admittedly first-class problem, but will require significant budgetary adjustments, including new revenue growth and cost cutting. Most schools are leaning on fundraising and seeking new or increased assistance from campus subsidies or student fees. Virginia Tech, for example, recently announced it will increase student fees and direct a larger portion to athletics to help fund revenue sharing, a path plenty of other schools are considering. Iowa State athletic director Jaime Pollard referenced as much in a recent interview, while noting that Cyclones athletics receive no financial subsidies from the university. 'Iowa State does not have that (additional) $20 million, but if we don't pay it for this coming year, we have big problems, right? So we're going to pay it,' said Pollard. 'Would you pay a bigger fee (as a student) … to go to school here so that a member of our men's basketball team could get paid $1.5 million in addition to their scholarship, their room and board, and all the services they get for being a student on campus? That's the fundamental question we're going to have to ask ourselves. Because if we don't do that, then what we're saying is that we're not going to have the athletics program that we're having.' Even with increased fees and fundraising, there will also be widespread belt-tightening on things like administrative staffing and athlete benefits within athletic departments, such as eliminating Alston payments and reevaluating meal offerings in the facility. Advertisement 'If a player is making $500,000 a year, why am I still paying for three meals a day?' said another power conference administrator. There could be new revenue streams from things like on-field logos or naming rights. Long term, departments might get creative, whether that's an in-stadium restaurant that's open year-round, purchasing its own housing complexes for athletes or inviting private equity. Last December, Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy and Florida State coach Mike Norvell each restructured lucrative contracts, returning a portion of their salary to the school after disappointing seasons. Kentucky recently announced it is transitioning its athletic department to a nonprofit LLC. Fans will feel it too. Schools such as Tennessee and Arkansas have already increased ticket or concession prices to fund revenue sharing. Some may pass processing fees onto customers, or explore local restaurant and hotel taxes. And the fundraising calls won't stop. Fully eliminating non-revenue varsity sports is another last-resort option for most athletic directors, but it's already begun, at least outside the power conferences. UTEP discontinued women's tennis. Cal Poly did the same with men's and women's swimming and diving. Saint Francis (Pa.) announced plans to reclassify all athletics from Division I to Division III, just one week after its men's basketball team played in the NCAA Tournament. Utah shuttered its women's beach volleyball program, though it did not mention the House settlement and rather cited conference realignment. Advertisement 'I know for a fact schools are definitely talking about it,' said an administrator. By any route, the ability for schools to spend the full amount of that annual revenue sharing cap — which will be essential to staying competitive, particularly at the highest levels — is a significant financial undertaking, and one few athletic departments can cobble together without upending their standard operating procedure. 'Right now it feels like Monopoly. We're planning to spend to the cap, but we have to figure out how we're getting there,' said the power conference athletic director. 'If you cut a million somewhere, sure that helps, but if you cut $5 (million) or $10 million, you're really hurting your department.' Everyone wants their share Generating the money is the first hurdle. Then schools have to decide how to distribute it among their sports. Most FBS athletic departments plan to use the settlement's backpay formula as a blueprint, with roughly 75 percent earmarked to football ($15 million), 15-20 percent to men's basketball, 5-10 percent to women's basketball and whatever is left to the non-revenue sports. Advertisement Certain universities, like Texas Tech, have been transparent with the percentage of funds going to each sport and how those are calculated. But because there are no stipulations for how the pool must be allocated, it will vary between schools. And could create some dicey internal dynamics. 'There is absolutely in-fighting (between coaches),' said an administrator. Head coaches at the same school are essentially vying with one another for a bigger chunk of revenue share. One power conference administrator said their school plans to direct as much as 25 percent to men's basketball, which means less for football. There have also been rumblings about how this could benefit the best-resourced basketball programs in the Big East or WCC that don't have to share with football. 'There are going to be some challenging and difficult conversations,' said another power conference AD. 'Coaches will be paying more attention to the revenue figures of their program than ever before. Everybody wants to make a case why their rev share should increase.' Agreements and innovative approaches Once a school allocates its revenue share dollars, it's up to teams to build out the roster accordingly. 'Rev cap management,' as one AD phrased it. Advertisement Many schools have already signed athletes to preliminary revenue share agreements — whether through collectives or the actual university — specifying that payments will transfer to the athletic department on July 1. In addition to the wave of frontloaded NIL deals in recent months, as collectives emptied the coffers ahead of the settlement, schools are inserting notable caveats into these agreements. Some have buyout clauses, where athletes would have to pay money back to a school if they leave before the end of the agreement, similar to coaching contracts. Some suggest that because compensation is based on NIL, it can be adjusted up or down based on performance and/or playing time. Others have strict injury clauses. 'With some negotiations, we were very direct that if you're not healthy, you're not getting the money,' said another power conference personnel director. Whether any of these stipulations hold up in a legal sense remains to be seen, but it's clear that after years of schools and coaches feeling they were on the short end of the NIL power dynamic, they are attempting to wrest back that control. Still, numerous people consulted for this story said the vast majority of initial revenue share agreements will be for one season until there's clarity on how legally binding these agreements truly are. Repeats of the Nico Iamaleava holdout saga might be less likely for the time being, but there could be standoffs over payment disputes. Unlike in the NFL, where there is a rookie salary scale and fairly transparent free agency, college football teams are still navigating best roster-building practices. How much money do you set aside for high school recruits? For transfers? Which positions do you value most in your particular system? How should you structure a player's payments? This could lead to more GM hires in the mold of Andrew Luck or pro-style executives who have administrative power over head coaches and can maintain philosophies across coaching changes. Advertisement Further complicating matters is the fact that the settlement and revenue share calendars operate on the academic fiscal calendar, which runs July to June. This means each football season is split across two separate rev share budgets. 'If you spend all $15 million on players for the 2025 season, then you aren't going to be able to pay anyone for the 2026 season until July 1, 2026,' explained the personnel director. This will require thoughtful budgeting, and could spark some innovative approaches — some more palatable than others. 'Tanking' has been an issue unique to professional sports, but revenue sharing could usher it into the college ranks. If a team has glaring roster holes at quarterback or other key positions, it could elect to save its revenue share money and go all-in on the transfer portal when the season ends, with a bigger war chest than most of its competitors. 'I do think you will see teams try to manipulate the cap in different ways,' said another power conference personnel director. Ongoing issues From a legal perspective, the lawsuits and court battles won't stop in the wake of the House settlement. A number of states already have NIL laws that contradict the settlement, and the Johnson v. NCAA case regarding athlete employment is still ongoing. Advertisement From a competitive perspective, the dollars going up means the competitive imbalance will too. This isn't a new problem in college sports, but a settlement negotiated with heavy input from the power conferences isn't going to change that, regardless of how well the clearinghouse works. 'It's going to separate, even more, the haves and the have-nots,' said an administrator. Big picture, athletic departments will be forced to adapt, financially and operationally, as college sports lean further away from amateurism and toward a more professional model. 'For the longest time, these athletic departments acted like nonprofits,' said another administrator. 'Now they have to act like businesses.' Advertisement In the meantime, power and non-power programs alike are hoping for some degree of stability in an industry that has had very little in recent years. 'At some point,' said a personnel director, 'maybe we'll get two years in a row where we know what's going on.' This article originally appeared in The Athletic. College Football, Men's College Basketball, Sports Business, Women's College Basketball 2025 The Athletic Media Company
