The next time you hear someone, anyone, from college sports complain about a lack of revenue, laugh in their face.
They’ll have you believe those mean, greedy players have sidetracked an amateur sports world of faithful and loyal do-gooders, and ransacked it for every dollar it’s worth.
If I had $1,000 for every time a college football coach declared the current world of college sports “unsustainable,” I could pay Luka Doncic’s contract extension.
And speaking of extension, that’s where this story turns to the absurd. Late last week, Oregon decided to extend coach Dan Lanning, who was last seen on the big stage trailing 34-0 in the College Football Playoff Rose Bowl quarterfinal — as the nation’s No.1 ranked team.
That’s nearly $11 million per over six years for Lanning – and $60.4 million guaranteed – who has lost too many games of significance as a head coach.
I don’t blame Lanning for his agent getting everything he can out of Oregon. I blame Oregon, and the 69 other Power Four schools that include Oregon State and Washington State, who have claimed poverty since the NCAA in 2021 decided to open up a can of NIL and free player movement — at the same damn time.
(To this day, the dumbest move in a long, long line of dumb NCAA moves).
I blame the entire 70 schools that – are you ready for this? – will make an estimated $7.4 billion in fiscal year 2025-26, and as much as $10.5 billion by 2034-35, according to a declaration filed last week in support of the multi-billion dollar House settlement.
And still can’t figure out how to pay players without claiming the world is coming to an end.
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Without adding more games to a postseason that already is competing with the NFL for television eyes. Without eating one of its own (RIP, Pac-12), and leaving two others (ACC, Big 12) scrambling for crumbs.
The NCAA and attorneys representing players are awaiting final approval of the House case settlement – which would officially approve, in essence, pay for play through NIL – from U.S. District Court judge Claudia Wilken. It should come as no surprise that Wilkin will hold a hearing on April 7, which just so happens to coincide with the Final Four national championship game.
The very tournament the NCAA earns an average of $1.1 billion annually over the course of an eight-year contract with media rights partners CBS and Turner.
You can’t make this up, people.
The declaration filed last week by economics expert Dan Rascher – who has served as the NCAA’s numbers cruncher in just about every antitrust lawsuit against the association – admitted the exorbitant cash flow through the 70 Power conference schools. But here’s where it gets a little tricky, so stay with me.
The House settlement player pool (see: salary cap) is based on a percentage of eight revenue streams, including but not limited to media rights, ticket sales and bowl/playoff games. But the settlement numbers aren’t based off the entire athletic department revenue.
For example, Texas’ total operating athletic revenue for the 2024 fiscal year was $331.9 million, but its figure for the eight categories used for the pool calculation was $172.1 million. Cincinnati’s pool calculation was $38.8 million.
Under the terms of the agreement, the total of the eight revenue streams from the 70 power conference schools is pooled together, and the players would receive a percentage of that revenue that is expected to be between $20-23 million per school for the first year after the settlement. That number is guaranteed to increase by at least 4% in each of the two years.
The goal of equalizing the number for all schools is to prevent programs like Texas from spend more money on players than smaller programs like Cincinnati. Remember, the $20-23 million is what schools are allowed to spend on players in all the men’s and women’s programs for the use of their NIL — if they choose to.
This takes us all the way back to Lanning and every other coach and assistant coach who signed mega deals this offseason. Steve Sarkisian got a pay raise to $10.8 million annually, and Bill Belichick got $10 million annually to become North Carolina football coach.
Jim Knowles got $3.1 million annually to leave Ohio State and become Penn State’s defensive coordinator, a salary greater than 74 FBS head coaches had last season.
Yet here we go again, coaches and athletic directors and conference commissioners complaining about an “unsustainable” environment in college athletics.
Imagine an association of 70 schools, who have willingly pulled away from the rest of college sports – with a combined budget of $7.4 billion for the academic year – making player salaries the financial boogeyman.
Maybe, just maybe, stop increasing debt service with “facility improvements.” Or if you simply must have new stadiums and arenas and ballparks, and new stand-alone football and basketball facilities because recruits just need that new bling, stop paying coaches to not coach.
Stop paying millions to high school players who have never taken a snap of college football. Stop paying general managers for a job that can (and should) be done by the head coach and athletic director.
Stop paying for a staff of 40, or millions upon millions in recruiting budgets. Stop paying for coaches to take a helicopter to a high school game, so he looks different from every other coach there — to impress a 17-year-old kid.
And college sports has no idea why it finds itself in this predicament.
Lanning is 3-4 vs. rivals Washington and Oregon State, 1-1 in conference championship games and 0-1 in CFP games. And just got $60 million — no matter what happens over the next six seasons.
There’s your unsustainable, everyone.
And it’s nothing to laugh about.
Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB.