DALLAS — Within the third-floor convention space of the Omni Hotel, SEC banners cover the walls during the conference’s annual media days.
Plastered on one is the league’s iconic pinwheel of school logos. On another is a reminder of the SEC membership count: “Now, 16 strong,” it says. And on a third surface, the largest and most elaborate wallpaper stretches from floor to ceiling displaying the league’s trademark slogan.
It just means more.
While the catchphrase is mostly rooted in the conference’s passionate fan bases, in the impending era of athlete revenue sharing, it holds a most fitting significance: It means more money, a lot more.
In fact, according to estimates from many of the conference’s head football coaches, SEC schools are expected to spend as much as one-quarter of a billion dollars annually as a league on their football players, or about $15 million per school a year.
“Do the math,” Florida coach Billy Napier told Yahoo Sports. “We’re talking $20 million (in allotted revenue sharing). In most athletic departments, football is 70-75% of the revenue. That’s $12.5-15 million. That’s the number we anticipate.”
LSU coach Brian Kelly describes his expected football roster budget: “I’d say between $14-17 million.”
Can every school afford such a price tag?
“Everybody in the SEC,” he said with a smile.
Lording over this year’s media days — the four-day extravaganza comes to an end Thursday — is the historic concept permitting schools to directly pay their athletes. While the exact figure remains a mystery, athletic departments are expecting to operate with a revenue-sharing cap in the low-$20 million range when the model is implemented next fall.
How schools plan to distribute that money is coming more into focus. At least in the SEC, a majority of schools plan to earmark three-fourths of those dollars to the sport that generates most of the revenue: football.
Many of them also expect to continue utilizing their booster-led NIL collectives as a “sweetener,” one coach says, for their players. There’s more, too: Coaches believe the new football roster limit will settle at around 105 players — a figure that will permit schools to offer 20 more scholarships for the sport than the current NCAA maximum of 85.
It means more money. More scholarship players. More collective involvement. And, quite possibly, more of the same issues lingering over the sport now.
“I don’t know that collectives go away,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said. “They are not under any umbrella that we are under. Nobody is going to be able to say, ‘You can’t have those.’ The point of rev-share was to take that part out of it, but I don’t see it going away.”
Still, so many questions remain unanswered as attorneys work to finalize the long-form agreement of the NCAA’s landmark House case settlement — a brokered two-part deal that pays $2.77 billion to former athletes in back damages and opens the door for schools to share revenue with athletes in the future. While lawyers were working to complete the agreement by the end of this week, the document’s filing with the court may be delayed until next week, plaintiff’s attorneys told Yahoo Sports last week.
But the long-form document is unlikely to answer some of the most pressing questions. That includes uncertainties around Title IX, the federal law requiring schools to offer equal benefits to men and women athletes.
Within the SEC, conference executives like commissioner Greg Sankey, as well as school administrators and their coaches, are hoping to learn more about that subject from how plaintiff attorneys distribute the back damages. According to past interviews with plaintiff attorneys, they expect to distribute about 90% of the $2.77 billion to power conference football and men’s basketball players. That’s a 90-10 split for men.
“We want to learn from the approach taken at the court level or the reaction to that,” Sankey said.
“It depends on how the court pays back the $2.8 billion,” Kelly said on Title IX’s application. “If it’s paid back percentage wise 85 (men) and 15 (women), then the ADs have cover moving forward (on an unequal split) with rev share.”
While Title IX attorneys are dismissive of such a plan — they believe that schools, and not courts, are subject to Title IX — the SEC is steadfast in its plans.
For weeks now, school administrators have begun developing plans for the revenue distribution. They’re exploring multiple models, some at a 50-50 split with men and women athletes as well as more drastic 70-30 or 80-20 models that distribute more to men, as the SEC coaches acknowledged.
A 50-50 revenue-sharing split could mean a windfall of cash for certain women athletes whose sports loses millions annually, especially in the leagues with fewer overall sports and athletes. For instance, schools in the SEC, as well as the Big 12, sponsor a smaller number of sports (18-20 on average) than those in the Big Ten and ACC (often more than 25).
If schools choose to distribute 50% of the some-odd $20 million annual revenue dollars to women athletes — something few expect within the SEC — the third-party collectives will be used to subsidize salaries for football and men’s basketball players, coaches say. Even with an unequal revenue split, collectives will remain in existence.
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