The recent approval of the House v. NCAA settlement has made it permissible for schools to pay college athletes directly for the first time ever. For the first year of the settlement, universities will be allowed to share up to around $20.5 million with players.
The money, which will be split among all sports, has created a new question. How will the cash be divided up among programs?
During an interview with the Crimson Tide Sports Network, a clip from which was released on Wednesday, UA athletics director Greg Byrne described how Alabama would assign its dollars.
Off the top, the Tide will use $2.5 million to fund new scholarships, as is allowed under the settlement. After that, Byrne said the money will go to sports in order of how much revenue they generate.
“We have taken the approach that it’s based off of revenue generation,” Byrne said. “We think that’s a solid approach. We think that’s one that makes sense for our program. As you’ve heard me say many times, football is the engine that pulls the train. And at the same time too, our two sports that turn a profit are football and men’s basketball, so they will have the highest percentage of that rev share.”
Alabama football reported $140.3 million in revenue and $113.8 million in expenses to the NCAA for Fiscal Year 2024, for a $26.4 million surplus. Alabama men’s basketball program brought in $21.3 million in FY 2024, which included its first Final Four run, while spending $15.3 million, for a surplus of nearly $6 million.
Byrne said the rest of the revenue share money will go to the Crimson Tide’s other ticketed sports. For Alabama that includes softball, baseball and gymnastics and women’s basketball.
“I’ve heard all over the yard how schools are doing it and how many sports,” Byrne said. “I know one that we compete against all the time is only doing three sports. I know that some schools are doing a little bit for everything. I’m not sure how big of a difference that will make at the end of the day when you’ve just carved off a small sliver for a sport.
“But we have a plan, and I’ve told our coaches in this, it’s fluid. We’re doing the very best we can to make the decisions that we are with the information that we have right now.”
Byrne said he has been direct with Alabama’s coaches about where their programs stand financially.
“Sometimes in the past, where they’ve heard me say, ‘Hey, we’ve gotta watch the dollars and cents,’ it probably hasn’t resonated as well as we needed it to,” Byrne said. “So we’re being more realistic with that. Now, with that said, we’re fortunate. We are a program this is in much better shape than 99% of other programs out there, and what we want to do is make sure we can still say that, three, five, eight and 10 years down the road, not just today.”
