College sports, and the once, long-held belief that NCAA needed to do all it could do to preserve the spirit of amateurism in the sports, seems to be in peril. As more Indiana stories being to pop up, and as Texas schools push football funding into the $40 million dollar plus range, something needs to change. Recently, Iowa State decided to abandon their gymnastics program due to increasing funding needs for other high-revenue sports (when even Title IX can’t save things, it’s a problem), and the teachers and staff at Kansas are making headlines regarding their low pay and funding deficits while the University finds way to revenue share with athletes through student funds and reserves:
Oddly enough, the folks who are attempting to step in and fix things are in Louisville, where a group is arguing that college sports is going to dissolve into a class system of the haves and have nots, and that extends beyond NIL and championships, but the loss of college sports altogether.
Benz is the Louisville Board Chair, and he proposes that three things need to happen in order to save college sports:
- A governing body that can actually regulate and manage college sports (NCAA, clearly you’ve lost control of this)
- An NIL spending cap similar to salary caps in the NFL
- An act of congress. Seriously.
From the Groups’ From the Arena, Not the Sidelines: College Athletics is Running Out of Time:
Yet despite generating more than a billion dollars a year in economic impact, Louisville’s athletic department — like most programs nationwide — operates in the red. Our current athletic budget reflects expenditures of approximately $167.4 million against revenues of $154.9 million, a deficit of $12.5 million. That gap is projected to widen significantly under the House v. NCAA settlement, which has added an additional $20.5 million in new direct athlete compensation obligations.
To bridge these shortfalls, Louisville has relied on a $12 million institutional subsidy, a $200-per-student athletic fee and a $25 million line of credit. Reserves that once stood at $34 million have been drawn down to approximately $3.4 million. These are not signs of mismanagement; they are symptoms of a structural problem that no single institution can solve on its own. Louisville’s situation is not the exception — it is the rule. Across the country, from the wealthiest programs in the nation to those fighting simply to stay afloat, the financial picture is remarkably and alarmingly similar.
The full scope of the crisis runs deeper than those opening figures suggest. Ohio State’s $37.7 million deficit came despite generating nearly $255 million in revenue, and its outgoing athletic director acknowledged going “berserk” with spending to chase a title — the university’s actual FY2025 spending subsequently came in at $320 million, the highest in college athletics history.2 Rutgers’ $516.9 million in accumulated losses since joining the Big Ten in 2014 reflects spending that has surged 175 percent in eleven years, with its new athletic director projecting expenditures exceeding $200 million in the current fiscal year — before a single dollar of House settlement revenue-sharing is factored in.3 Penn State closed FY2025 with $534.7 million in athletics-related debt — more than tripling the prior year — driven largely by the $700 million renovation of Beaver Stadium.4 Florida State’s $437 million debt represents a $200 million increase in a single fiscal cycle.5 The University of Texas set a new national record with $375.9 million in operating expenses in FY2025 — a $50 million jump over its own previous record — while carrying $192.2 million in athletics-related debt.6 Even Colorado, buoyed by renewed fan enthusiasm, projects a $27 million department deficit for FY2026 driven primarily by the $20.5 million revenue-sharing cap under the House settlement and a near-doubling of head football coach Deion Sanders’ salary.
I only highlight the statements in the third paragraph to point out the return on investment. Ohio State bet the farm – and it worked – winning a national title while simultaneously becoming the whipping post for college football purists who saw Ohio State as “buying a championship”. Ditto Indiana, and Michigan is bemoaned because of Harbaugh and cheating – not just athletically but apparently everywhere else in the moral world of man, as well.
Texas set a record and promptly laid an egg, not even making the CFP. Florida State should be forced to shutter their football program with that kind of deficit on principle alone. And who thought it wise to double Deion Sanders’ salary?
Not only is the spending in the modern era perverse, but it’s being done recklessly and without consideration of investment and risk. Anyone in their right mind who looks at the train wreck that is Colorado Football and thinks “this is fine” needs to be jailed for life. Coaches are getting European soccer star salaries with guaranteed contracts only to become collective billionaires with the combined buyouts…for failing.
Could you only imagine the furor that would’ve occurred if Richt’s years at Georgia and the requests for improved facilities were denied because the AA was still paying the contracts buyouts for Goff and Donnan? Additionally, where the hell is all this money coming from and who is crazy enough to finance it? Go get the brightest, shiniest toys and make life meaningful again by making my alma mater or favorite team competitive again? And given there can only be one champion, most of the investment is fruitless and doesn’t achieve the results that are desired (see: Texas Tech, Oregon, Texas, etc…).
And to what other end as it pertains to entertainment? Is the quality of the sport improved? Would we be just as intrigued without the ESPN hype if we watched a “lower tier” version of college football on Saturdays that featured “traditional” college football teams that were free from NIL? I find the quality of football watching the FCS playoffs to be just as fun to watch as a football purist, but it’s not getting the same level of marketing from Mickey, because, you know, money.
While I, too, tired of always seeing Alabama, Ohio State, and Clemson in the consideration for a decade, we’ve swung the pendulum to the other side where we’re now thinking “where the hell did Indiana come from” and “Ryan Day? Seriously?”. Neither are necessarily desirable, but both teams in the National Championship this year was made of a patchwork of college football mercenaries for hire so patchwork that it could compete with a crazy woman’s quilt.
Meanwhile, whole states or programs that don’t benefit from an injection from rich alumni (see: South Carolina sports) or tons of money from alumni are going to become irrelevant, if not fossils of an age of sports gone by. I made a post last year
I’m rooting for Louisville here. I hope they can actually gain some traction on this, but my guess is this won’t make the headlines on the ESPN app or anywhere else because money talks.
Tradition walks.
CRY me a river. There is more than enough money, if spent wisely. These Universities will never survive in a true business world & for the most part, are outdated as dinosaurs
This is what happens when you’ve never had a real job, and everything is based on “theories”.
Anything that depends on Congressional action is going to fail. There are too many competing interests there and too much polarization to find a good solution.
No one wants to accept the fact that the mismanagement of the transfer portal is at the root of all of this. When the NCAA relented on multiple transfers, this cracked the door open … I remember people saying there would never be athletes who played for 4 different schools during their college years. The fact that players are just walking away from signed contracts to go somewhere else is just stupid. Suckers!
College sports? It was nice knowing you.
Great piece. I would be interested in an alternative league/division with more traditional rules regarding eligibility and transfers, but with a healthy uniform stipend structure/payment cap for the players. I am not opposed to legitimate NIL, but I am not sure that is really a thing in 2026. So what if the guys run 4.5 instead of 4.4.? This may not be feasible for schools like UGA (although I a getting more open to it), but would have a lot of appeal for mid-level schools who are getting financially crushed while unsuccessfully trying to keep up with the UTs, OSUs, LSUs of the world.
JP you need to be on that committee. Thanks for facts and straight talk! Hard to find in this world of talking heads!! 👍🏈
“Where the hell is all this money coming from and who is crazy enough to finance it?”
Private equity’s time to shine.
Maybe when it becomes obvious that only a few teams will be able to pay for championships year in and year out, all the rest will agree it’s time for some rules. Until then, there are too many competing selfish interests among schools, broadcasters, and conferences. Its gonna take awhile, but some day I think there is gonna be an overwhelming desire for some uniformity. It’ll definitely come if people that ultimately pay (i.e. viewers) get tired of it and become uninterested. Might take years. Like an alcoholic, college football will have to bottom out before it reforms.
If only there were institutions of higher learning that could teach these guys economics and management….wait.
Short of Congressional action I don’t see how reforms can win in court. “Your honor, we killed amateurism but kept the money. We understand you told us we can’t do that but now we’re broke and need to keep the money.” Clarence Darrow can’t win that argument, especially against Jeffrey Kessler.
The NYC Disney execs, university presidents and AD’s controlled by billionaire alumni fucked us all. It won’t be fixed in our lifetime if ever.
It’s broken.
Universities were too stubborn to make the athlete-students employees.