In or out? College athletics preparing for every conundrum as revenue sharing promises to reshape landscape

Word leaked last month that BYU was in the business of offering small forward AJ Dybantsa $3 million-$4 million in name, image and likeness (NIL) riches that would land the No. 1 recruit in the Class of 2025 in Provo. The Cougars apparently weren’t the only ones. Along with BYU, Kansas and Kansas State are also considered main pursuers of Dybantsa.

Never mind that figure perhaps being the largest for any college basketball player to date, it didn’t make basketball sense. 

“Four million [for one player]?,” an administrator for a blue-blood program said, “Then you play with four dogs.”

The obvious meaning: there wouldn’t be enough money left in just about any revenue-sharing pie to surround Dybantsa with meaningful complementary players. 

The assertion is the latest example of guerilla budgeting going on as the revenue sharing era approaches. Assuming the House v. NCAA settlement will be formally approved in April, the questions now are stacking up like defensive linemen during a goal-line stand.

Revenue sharing — the $20.5 million tranche of annual money schools have the option of funding — would essentially open the (sanctioned) pay-for-play era. 

“This is the way it should be modeled for a rest of eternity,” said Sedona Prince, a TCU center for women’s basketball and an original House plaintiff. “Literally, the foundation of college sports is changing forever.” 

Clarity on how and whether to spend that windfall of revenue sharing is slowly coming into focus: if fully funded, football would get the overwhelming share of that $20.5 million at a particular school — between $10 million-$15 million annually for the next 10 years; men’s basketball would get between $2 million-$4 million; the remainder – a fraction, really – would go to women’s basketball and the other minor sports. 

That explains in the moment why an investment in Dybantsa could blow up a revenue-sharing budget. In a broader sense, major college football and basketball programs are intent on avoiding a roster and budget imbalance.

No one in any sport wants to “play with four dogs,” but they all want a chance to be able to pay that type of money. That’s where a conflict emerges. 

“Coaches who have been talking to [NIL] agents don’t even understand. The agents don’t even understand the House settlement at all, that it’s going to have a cap,” said Mit Winter, a prominent sports law attorney. “They’re going to have to temper some expectations on how much guys are going to be paid. Definitely [in] basketball but maybe overall, too.” 

We are close to a place and time when revenue sharing becomes the ultimate dividing between big-time college athletics and whatever everyone else looks like. And within that modeling, the money has to be spent right.

Yes, but what is “right”?

“If you’re a good quarterback, especially if you are an established quarterback, you’re going to be paid easily seven figures,” Winter added.  

That may be the going rate already. But with player compensation budgets constrained at least a bit now by the revenue sharing cap and accompanying NCAA regulations, it will be imperative to spend wisely while spending more. 

In the process, it will be hard to argue against the SEC and Big Ten consolidating their power. The implications of the overwhelming majority — if not all — of those 34 schools being able to afford an extra $20.5 million annually are more than about monopolizing recruiting.

The two super leagues no doubt will use revenue sharing to make the case for increased influence, be it policy making in everything from NCAA rules to the size of the College Football Playoff. 

When two stakeholders have the most invested, maybe they should have the most influence. 

“This will be a separator,” one Power Four athletic director said. “Maybe a national separation that we need. I don’t know.” 

At the opposite end of the FBS, schools in the Group of Five (Sun Belt, American, Conference USA, Mountain West and MAC) are either going to have to get tremendously creative (or suddenly rich) to keep up. The concern is if the revenue gap widens, those programs will essentially have to justify their FBS existence.

In the middle, the ACC and Big 12 are becoming a demilitarized zone of sorts, where only a fraction of schools will be able to fully afford revenue sharing.  

“There’s maybe half of us that are going to do it full,” said an administrator from one Big 12 school. 

“Why are we going to spend $20 million that we didn’t spend last year?” an ACC administrator added. “It really doesn’t make sense that we’re doing that. Spending [millions] on an average football player just because the SEC’s going to do it? I don’t pay our coaches the same that SEC coaches get.”

That puts the Big 12 in a stressful position. The nation’s best basketball league isn’t all in about revenue sharing. Within the Big 12, only TCU and Texas Tech have announced they will fully fund revenue sharing. In the ACC, it can confidently be assumed Clemson, Florida State and North Carolina will be at 100%. At least.

Beyond that is a netherworld of institutions that have big decisions to make — some of the biggest in those schools’ history given the dollar amount. 

“Revenue share is going to crush many athletic departments as you guys know,” Kansas basketball coach Bill Self told reporters last month at Big 12 Media Day. “Where’s that money going to come from? How are you going to make that up? Well, you’re going to hit your donors up. You [already] hit your donors up for NIL.”

That comes from the coach of a top-five blue blood, one of at least three schools. What happens to everyone else?

For most at the moment, revenue-sharing intentions are a closely guarded secret. 

Arizona State football coach Kenny Dillingham’s reaction might be typical. When asked if his school would fully fund the $20.5 million, he said, “I’m not allowed to comment on that right now. They won’t let me. Strict orders.” 

The Mountain West might have a short-term solution to fund its revenue sharing. Schools that bolted for the new Pac-12 beginning in 2026 owe exit fees that could be shared with remaining MWC members. 

Revenue sharing has also caused the addition of “general managers” — basically player personnel managers within programs who will oversee how that new bucket of compensation is going to be spent. 

These college GMs have become the chief talent evaluators at their schools. Several of them have visited NFL teams to study their salary caps. 

“Everything from college football and NFL has mimicked each other,” Texas Tech GM James Blanchard said. “The only thing the college game didn’t take from the NFL is this part of it. Somewhere along the path, the power and control over scholarships and offers stayed with the coaches. It didn’t travel down with the personnel staff. College football is about 50-60 years behind, but it’s finally catching up.”

Universities are typically branded by research, grants, enrollment, academics and obviously athletics. Going forward, not fully funding revenue will invite a scarlet letter that screams, “We can’t keep up.” 

That separation may not be just lip service this time. Such a revenue gap between the two super leagues and everyone could have profound inference. 

The two super conferences can also use the gap to further make their case as stewards to essentially run college athletics. There is already speculation the SEC and Big Ten will soon demand automatic qualifiers to the College Football Playoff in the future. Along with that could be a demand to increase the size of the bracket and perhaps even influence composition of the selection committee itself.

“I just know there are a couple of leagues out there who are already getting separation with their television revenue,” said Kansas State hoops coach Jerome Tang. “We can’t give them separation on revenue share. The gap will just become too big.”

In an informal canvassing of the industry, CBS Sports found that most schools who opt in will follow the 75-15-5-5 formula for distribution of that revenue sharing going forward. Those are the percentages established by Judge Claudia Wilken in the back pay portion of the settlement to athletes from 2016 to the present — 75% to football, 15% to men’s basketball, 5% each to women’s basketball and the other minor sports. (By the way, that $20.5 million number will grow by 4% per year and be at about $33 million at the end of the 10-year settlement.) 

Administrators and university general counsels are hoping — praying? — the model withstands legal scrutiny. However, there is already buzz of powerful lawyers already lining up clients to file Title IX complaints against schools. 

While formal approval of the settlement is more or less expected next year, there is a growing movement to convince athletes to withdraw from the settlement. The majority of those athletes are from Olympic (minor) sports.

The settlement already carries language that if enough athletes object, the agreement would be scuttled. The number of athletes to cause that is redacted in the settlement. 

Late last year, NCAA president Charlie Baker proposed a new division because of the obvious separation had occurred. Most of his energy these days is spent trying to hang on to the NCAA’s ebbing influence. A substantial effort to get Congress to basically oversee college sports has failed to date. That might change with the new Republican administration. 

“I need to think about getting this settlement finished because it’s going to be our opportunity to put a working model in place that I think will work for everybody in Division I,” Baker said recently on “The Dan Patrick Show.”

The role of powerful collectives going forward has not been clearly defined. The NCAA would like to eliminate them post-House. Until then, there is room for that creativity. 

Once source familiar with Dybantsa’s recruiting said collectives may pay a majority of the $4 million before the July 1 beginning of revenue sharing. That would lessen the hit on the revenue share to complete the deal. It might also mitigate the four dogs issue if there is more money to spend on other players. 

The new NCAA clearinghouse within the settlement will mandate that all deals over $600 be approved. There will be regulations in place regarding fair market value. 

Those regulations themselves may be subject to lawsuits. 

“I don’t think anybody has the answers to questions like that,” Winter said, “about what if you sign a deal now but it’s not supposed to be paid until 2026 or 2027, and it’s the type of deal that’s not going to be allowed under these new clearinghouse rules?” 

“I think that is the multi-million dollar question. How much of that [offer] is revenue share? How much is that is commercial NIL?” said on administrator at a school recruiting Dybantsa. “Nobody can commit to a number because we don’t know the market in the commercial NIL space.”

Ohio State earlier this year was considering stratification — keeping all their 36 sports but deemphasizing some by not offering scholarships. The savings were to go to the bottom line of funding revenue sharing. However, the school has decided against that approach.

The Ohio governor on Tuesday signed an executive order allowing schools to pay athletes directly. That benefits Ohio State at least in the short term. The order acts essentially acts as a bridge to July 1 when the House settlement would take effect. 

If Ohio State is thinking about cuts, what can stressors be elsewhere? Even giants like Oregon are considering their options. The Ducks have long been infused by donations by Nike icon Phil Knight. Its Division Street collective is one of the richest in the country. 

“We don’t have unlimited resources,” AD Rob Mullens recently told johncanzano.com. 

There is already enough pressure on all schools deciding which sports will be fully funded … or exist at all. The House settlement allowed for roster caps instead of scholarship limits. Schools can decide on their own to fully scholarship up to those caps. 

One alternative is to fill in with partial scholarships, now allowed in all sports. Previously, the NCAA allowed full roster scholarships in only five sports: football, men’s and women’s basketball, women’s volleyball and women’s tennis. Now all sports are so-called “equivalency sports,” where scholarships can be shared across a roster. 

Example: The roster cap in football is 105. The SEC is already on record as intending to fully fund 85 of those spots. The remainder up to the 105 roster limit will probably be filled with those partial scholarships. That may become the template for FBS. 

The Power Four commissioners met with Baker last month to discuss governance. Short of an SEC/Big Ten takeover, it is assumed all four of those leagues will soon have their own governance.

“Without question, the Power Four are going to have to govern themselves in a different way,” Nebraska AD Troy Dannen told CBS Sports.

What does that mean for the rest of FBS?

The answer may reside in the revenue sharing itself. Who’s in and who’s out? We’re about to find out.