One of the enduring storylines of the 2024-25 college football season was newfound parity across the sport. On Monday night, the nation’s richest public athletic department won the sport’s biggest prize.
Ohio State beat Notre Dame 34-23 in the College Football Playoff title game in Atlanta, capping a four-game postseason run where the Buckeyes outscored their opponents by 70 points. It’s Ohio State’s ninth national title, first since 2014, and one that comes at a time of significant business upheaval across college sports. Many athletes compensated primarily via deals with brands and collectives will likely soon be compensated primarily from their schools. Early glimpses of this structure emerged this week and the results are messy. It has even the wealthiest schools—Ohio State included—scrambling to bring in more money.
More from Sportico.com
That’s a sobering reality for everyone else. Ohio State spent $274.9 million on athletics in 2022-23, according to data in Sportico’s college finance database, by far the most among all public schools. The next closest was Texas at $232.3 million, followed by Michigan at $225.6 million. (Ohio State also claims it has the biggest budget in the country, including private schools). It’s possible that when the school releases its financials for 2023-24, it will be the first school to report spending more than $300 million on its athletic operations in a single year.
Athletic director Ross Bjork, who took the job last summer after holding leadership positions at Miami, UCLA, Ole Miss and Texas A&M, summed up his program this way: “Ohio State is Ohio State. The bus for this job only stops once in your lifetime.”
Notre Dame, which is private, doesn’t have to release its financials, but it’s almost certainly also in the sport’s highest echelon. Its football budget in 2022-23, a number that is submitted to the Department of Education under a slightly different format, was $71.9 million. That was fifth highest among all schools, one spot below Ohio State at $72.4 million.
How much does its financial advantage benefit the Buckeyes? That’s been hotly debated for the last six months. Before the start of the season, Bjork told Yahoo Sports that the football team’s players were promised “around $20 million” via NIL deals from the Buckeyes’ donor-led collective and its affiliates. That’s likely the highest figure in the country, Yahoo stated, and throughout the season the number took on a life of its own. Former Alabama coach Nick Saban joked about it on an ESPN broadcast in August; Washington coach Jedd Fisch referenced it with a tinge of jealousy and frustration during a press conference in October.
Ohio State’s win over Notre Dame was the culmination of the first 12-team CFP, an expansion that occurred among myriad changes across college sports. Athletes are getting paid and they can now transfer freely, two relatively new developments that have created a perpetual free agency of sorts. Pair that with new media deals for leagues like the Big Ten, a new wave of conference realignment, and an antitrust settlement that may shift more money to athletes, and this season felt the growing pains of a transition into a new world order.
On the field for much of the year, chaos reigned supreme. Historically dominant programs such as Alabama and Michigan, which played in last year’s semifinals, missed the bigger playoff entirely. Others, including Georgia and Clemson, snuck in following uncharacteristically shaky seasons. It’s worth also noting that neither Ohio State nor Notre Dame would have qualified for the playoff this year if it was still four teams.
“I do think the new format has allowed our team to grow and build throughout the season, and as much as losses hurt, they really allow us as coaches and players to take a hard look at the issues and get them addressed,” head coach Ryan Day told reporters prior to the game. “And then it’s about the business of getting them fixed as time goes on.”
The much-discussed $20 million NIL war chest at Ohio State went both to existing Buckeyes players and to new ones. In the offseason, Ohio State landed two of the SEC’s top players, safety Caleb Downs from Alabama and running back Quinshon Judkins from Ole Miss. It also recruited one of the most sought-after wide receiver recruits, Jeremiah Smith. Former quarterback Cardale Jones, co-founder of an OSU collective, told ESPN at the start of the year that it was “national championship or bust.”
Ohio State, which sponsors 36 sports, is one of a handful of college athletic departments that doesn’t report receiving any outside funds via student fees, government entities or the university’s general fund. Like most departments, it makes the bulk of its money from ticket sales, donations and media rights. For 2022-2023, those totals were $73.4 million in tickets, $57.8 million in donations and about $62 million from the Big Ten, most of which was its share of conference TV deals. That number will increase dramatically in the school’s 2023-24 disclosure, which represents the first year of the Big Ten’s $7 billion media deals.
If $20 million is the cost for a title-winning roster this season, next year it will be higher. Notably, Day reportedly told boosters in 2022 that it would cost $13 million to keep his roster at the level needed to remain competitive. Starting in 2025, schools will likely have the option to share up to tens of millions directly with their athletes, but with a cap. Some think that will bring more parity.
“The new world order of college football will allow us to be able to spend what other programs are spending,” Washington’s Fisch told reporters in October. “And when you have that opportunity, it’s going to be a much more of a level playing field than what it is right now in college football.”
Or maybe the rich will just keep winning.
Best of Sportico.com
Sign up for Sportico’s Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
#Richest #School #Wins #College #Football #Playoff
