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What to Know About Revenue Sharing, Ohio State’s Approach As New Era of College Sports Begins
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Buckeyes will share $18 million with athletes in 2025-26
The salary cap – so to speak – for the first year of revenue sharing is set at $20.5 million, an amount roughly equal to 22% of the average total revenue generated by Power 4 athletic departments. That cap will be increased by 4% for each of the next two years, then will be re-evaluated before the 2028-29 season.
Schools that have chosen to add extra scholarships now that scholarship limits have been eliminated, however, are required to count those scholarship funds against their cap up to $2.5 million. Since Ohio State is adding 91 new scholarships across its 36 sports, it is allowed to share $18 million directly with its athletes.
Bjork declined to say during his press conference last month how much revenue would be shared with each sport, saying “numbers create narratives.” That said, it’s expected that a sizable majority of that $18 million will be paid to football players, reflecting the fact that football is by far Ohio State’s top revenue-generating sport.
In addition to setting up revenue sharing for current athletes, the House v. NCAA settlement also created a backpay fund that will be used to pay athletes who played for Division I sports teams from 2016-24. 75% of those funds are being distributed to Power FIve football players, 15% of those funds are being distributed to Power Five men’s basketball players, 5% of those funds are being paid to Power Five women’s basketball players and the other 5% are being distributed to all other athletes who opt into the settlement. While schools aren’t required to use that formula for revenue sharing, most schools are planning to use a similar formula to distribute revenue.
Bjork said Ohio State “really tried to use metrics in a formula, while also balancing some Title IX approach” to determine how much it would pay to athletes from each of the four sports included in its first year of revenue sharing.
“What we did is we used metrics. So we said, OK, what does football drive? What does women's basketball drive? What does volleyball drive? And then we came up with, knowing we'd have $18 million, what are some metrics that can put some parameters around how to allocate it?” Bjork said. “So that was a process through a lot of data, a lot of studying that our staff put together.”
Per Ohio State’s financial report to the NCAA last year, Ohio State football generated $111,646,810 in revenue during the 2024 fiscal year – a number that will be significantly higher for the 2025 fiscal year, which includes the 2024 football season, given that the Buckeyes played nine home games (including a College Football Playoff game) in 2024 vs. six in 2023 and won the national championship. Ohio State men’s basketball generated $24,764,064 in the 2024 fiscal year, while women’s basketball had $1,710,887 in total revenue and women’s volleyball had $823,819 in revenue for FY24.
If Ohio State went solely off of last year’s numbers in deciding how to distribute revenue, football players would receive approximately 80% of the available money – more than $14 million – while men’s basketball players would receive approximately 18% (around $3.2 million). Given what Bjork said about factoring Title IX into revenue share, it’s likely that those numbers will be slightly lower so that some of that money can be given to women’s basketball and volleyball players.
Bjork said Ohio State will leave it up to coaches to determine how they want to distribute the allocated revenue for each of their sports among their players. While Ohio State won’t reveal how much it pays to specific athletes, it’s expected that stars like Jeremiah Smith, Caleb Downs, Bruce Thornton and Jaloni Cambridge will receive the highest payments for their respective teams, as there’s no requirement for players to be compensated equally nor a cap on how much any individual athlete can be paid.
NIL still exists, but with more oversight
While the amount schools can directly pay players is capped, college athletes will be able to earn additional money through NIL deals. All deals with a total value of $600 or more, however, will now have to be reported to NIL Go, a clearinghouse and review platform built by Deloitte and overseen by the College Sports Commission, a new administrative entity created to oversee and enforce rules around revenue sharing and NIL.
The intent of NIL Go is to ensure that NIL deals have a valid business purpose and fall within a range of compensation commensurate with compensation paid to similarly situated individuals, and to prevent schools and boosters from using NIL deals as a way to circumvent the revenue-sharing cap. But it’s already apparent that schools and their NIL collectives are still looking for every way possible to get more money to their players and give themselves a competitive advantage.
The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week that payrolls for top college football programs are expected to be around $30-35 million this season even with the revenue-sharing cap now in place. And Opendorse reported Tuesday that NIL collectives paid athletes 824% more this June than they did last June, a clear effort by collectives to funnel more money to players before the new model went into effect.
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“We know a lot of people front-loaded,” Bjork told the Wall Street Journal regarding the collective deals. “We were not unique to that.”
The new model does allow schools to work directly with third parties to facilitate NIL deals for their players without counting those deals against the cap. As a result, Ohio State now has an in-house NIL initiative, Buckeye Sports Group, which is taking over the work previously done by the 1870 Society and The Foundation, the two external NIL collectives that worked with Ohio State to arrange deals for players.
“The Foundation, 1870, the people involved in those groups, they wanna stay involved, they wanna help, and we embrace that,” Bjork said last month. “They've done a great job. But as we transition with Ohio State Sports Properties, it's really a marketing agency that can go out and arrange agreements between an athlete and a business … so really, really excited about the Buckeye Sports Group and the partnerships that have been created.”
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