When the NCAA two years ago approved a revenue-sharing plan for each school with a $20.5 million starting point, the average school had a sensible breakdown:
About $15 million for football.
About $4 million for men's basketball.
About $1.5 million combined for the school's non-revenue sports.
Those “sensible” recommendations lasted about 10 minutes. A few days ago, The Athletic published several stories claiming that it had contacted more than 70 sources in college sports — ADs, general managers, coaches, agents, donors — and that the $20.5 million barrier had been shattered.
It estimated the revenue sharing for football of the 68 Power 4 football teams and found that Ohio State was spending about $49-54 million on its 2026 football roster, followed by Oregon at $48-54 million and Texas at $45-55 million.
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Northern Arizona safety Aundre Gibson latches onto the leg of Arizona running back Quincy Craig in their season-opening game on Sept 5, 2026.
Arizona? The Athletic ranks the Wildcats No. 64 overall, spending from $13-18 million on this year's football roster.
The only schools below Arizona are Iowa State, Cincinnati, Duke and Boston College.
The Big 12 was clearly at the bottom of the football spending orgy. Kansas, Oklahoma State, Houston, UCF, Colorado, West Virginia, Utah, Kansas State and ASU all had estimates of spending as little as $19 million on football.
I'm not sure how accurate The Athletic's estimates are. Few people in each athletic department know the true figures. Almost nobody releases that information to the public.
But it does make sense that “basketball schools” like Arizona, Duke and Kansas are near the bottom of the estimates for football schools.
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