CFB51 College Football Fan Community
The Power Four => Big Ten => Topic started by: medinabuckeye1 on August 25, 2025, 03:38:17 PM
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Interesting article:
https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/46050629/college-football-2025-position-cost-transfers
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probably $15-20 million in NIL money for roster management and who knows how many tens or hundreds of millions poured into coaching staffs, facilities, and recruiting budgets.
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100 million a season or there abouts
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100 million a season or there abouts
not all paid by the university
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I went through the article and added it up, here is what I get:
(https://i.imgur.com/ld0FrZa.png)
So it is $8-17.9M and that is only for starters. That doesn't include things like the fact that you have to have another WR or two for four and five wide two-minute and desperation sets and on the other side of the ball you have to have another DB or two to defend against those things. This doesn't include specialists and doesn't even contemplate backups.
I would guess that when you add in specialists, backups, and developmental guys you probably need around $25M to field a contender. Additionally, at each position there are outliers which are expensive but also can make a humongous difference. The article mentioned Jeremiah Smith as an extreme outlier at WR. The Buckeyes are probably paying a lot more than $800k for Jeremiah Smith but he is realistically worth a lot more (as long as he isn't completely ignored and not targeted like the entire second half of the last game of the regular season). It obviously helps to have a game-changing player like that so add a little more for them.
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$20-$25M is about right, knowing roughly what Texas has been spending the past few cycles.
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All this kind of puts a dagger in the heart of decent and fair and the game we grew up to appreciate and anticipate every saturday of the season. Feel like a jilted lover left at the alter as the Networks and bought Admins shafted everyone else. Sure the Blue Bloods always had a bit of an advantage recruiting and some with discerning bagmen. But other programs always had a punchers shot.
If they're going dive into this sanitary retention pond at least the powers that be should insist on a pay for performance scale.Other wise we're left with entitled 18 yr olds spurred on by unscrupulous agents. It'll be the Yankees,Dodgers,Astros,Red Sox,Giants,Braves and a few others wash,rinse and repeat.
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It would be great if the non-contenders broke away so that the contenders could just play with themselves.
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It would be great if the non-contenders broke away so that the contenders could just play with themselves.
I mean, they could. There's FCS, Div2, Div3, and NAIA. There are plenty of options.
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Those options will likely be exercised.
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And just give up that TV money 💰
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What good is TV money if there is no chance to compete - causing TV money to diminish?
Fox isn't paying B1G money for Rutgers or Purdue or ...
They want Oregon, USC, OSU, UM and PSU. The rest are just baggage to them.
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Any money is good money to the guy in charge of keeping the lights on
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Some schools may choose to not keep the lights on.
Somehow, UChicago has survived since dropping out of the Big 10.
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I agree, that would be a smart move for a program like the gophers, where they're tacking on student fees to support the athletic department
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What good is TV money if there is no chance to compete - causing TV money to diminish?
This could very well happen - eventually - sooner than later, IMHO - fans will get bored when the same 4-5 teams are in the finals every year. Choosing not to watch repeated snooze fests. Even Bama,LSU,Clemson don't have the $$$ bank rolled Bagmen to keep up with Georgia,tOSU supporters. Whose pockets aren't nearly as deep as UTs/Ms/A&Ms and maybe The Ducks but even that could end when Knight go toes up.
We know corporates i.e Networks will fudge numbers and facts to push their product but sooner or later they'll have to catch fish or cut bait. Look no further than that hack Stephen Colbert or the auto industry painting pretty pictures. They are still trying to hang on to their arificially inflated high prices (or ratings) as they are taking a financial bath as their reserve lots they hide from the public are overflowing. They are going to have to bite the bullet.
If you're looking for a new ride and specially a good used model wait until late this fall and the 1st couple of months in '26 analyts expect a big price correction.
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The NIL monies come from "outside" still, correct?
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Yes.
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So, let's take Wisconsin (please?). A good example of an historically solid, well supported program (with some down years). Presume they continue apace for 8-5 kinds of seasons, and the NIL monies withers along with fan support, not to zero obviously, but no longer able to compete. What do they do?
Drop to some new league or continue to fight for that occasional major upset and occasional major bowl game?
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The NIL monies come from "outside" still, correct?
Not sure what you mean. There are a few different kinds of NIL money.
There's the collectives, which I think most people are referring to when they talk about NIL money with respect to a specific school. These are booster-led organizations that essentially funnel money to recruits and current players for roster creation and roster management. These aren't really what was intended with the legalization of NIL for college athletes, but they're an unavoidable consequence.
Then there's "real" NIL where someone like Arch Manning is licensing his name, image, and likeness, to a corporation like Red Bull, for advertising purposes. Red Bull would be willing to make this contract with Arch regardless of where he went to school, so this is more along the lines of the "intended purpose" of NIL.
Then there's the local Austin car dealership, that is happy to get the UT place kicker or second string RB to do a little bit of promotion in exchange for money or a nice lease deal on a Ford F150. This is also along the lines of the "intended purpose" of NIL and while it is not school specific, universities in larger metro areas will tend to have more of these kinds of opportunities for their players.
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Outside of the university/athletic department, so $20 million is not part of the AD's budget ...
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Outside of the university/athletic department, so $20 million is not part of the AD's budget ...
$20 Million is what every school is allowed to share directly with "student"-athletes today.
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So, let's take Wisconsin (please?). A good example of an historically solid, well supported program (with some down years). Presume they continue apace for 8-5 kinds of seasons, and the NIL monies withers along with fan support, not to zero obviously, but no longer able to compete. What do they do?
Drop to some new league or continue to fight for that occasional major upset and occasional major bowl game?
Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Purdue, Minnesota, Indiana, UCLA, Washington, Michigan State, Northwestern, Maryland and Rutgers bid their goodbyes.
Probably Nebraska too, unless Buffett becomes a football fan.
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Yeah, there's the $20.5M per year (with plans to escalate over time), from the House Settlement. If a university wants, it can pay up to $20.5M directly to athletes, in any sport. This comes from the school athletics budget, and 2025/26 is the first year it has been allowed.
Then there's NIL money outside of that. Some comes from boosters in the form of collectives, some comes from "legitimate" corporations that genuinely want to use the name, image, or likeness, of a specific player, for advertising/marketing purposes. This is not part of the school athletic budget.
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Thanks, I can't keep up.