Cutting sports at Illinois to pay for revenue sharing? Illini AD Josh Whitman: “We’re not foreclosing any options”

CHAMPAIGN (WCIA) — Major changes have rocked the boat of college sports the past five years with the addition of the transfer portal and name, image and likeness and even more reform is on the horizon. The agreed upon House vs. NCAA settlement is about to further shift the college sports landscape, as revenue sharing with athletes is set to become a reality for the first time.

As part of the agreement between the country’s five biggest conferences and the NCAA, up to $22 million will be permitted to be distributed directly by schools to athletes annually, with each school deciding how much to spend up to that cap. Illinois Athletic Director Josh Whitman said last month he expects the Division of Intercollegiate Athletics to fund all $22 million for its athletes to stay competitive across the Big Ten and country. Coming up that money will be the responsibility of the athletic department, no easy task to find those funds or eliminate that portion out of the current budget.

“We’re committed to doing this on our own without the support of the University,” Whitman said. “If we want to compete at the highest level then we have to make that investment. We don’t have $22 million, so we’re unturning every stone to make that happen.”

Cutting sports is the last option Whitman wants to consider but it is a possibility if they can’t come up with the cash to make it all work. Currently the Illini play 19 varsity sports, 10 for the women and nine for men. Whitman said he expects revenue sharing payouts to be distributed to primarily men’s basketball and football players, with more widespread distributions among several women’s sports. Title IX implications are still unknown.

“It puts us in a position where we’re evaluating every line item in our budget, trying to find those dollars so we can make that strategic investment and at this moment, kind of like when we were in COVID,” Whitman said. “We’re not foreclosing any options and so there’s a lot of different levers at our disposal and one of them is which sports are we sponsoring? Obviously that’s a last resort for anybody in my situation and we want to make sure we have exhausted other possibilities before we would pull on that lever.”

The new revenue sharing model could start as early as the 2025-26 school year. The settlement is still pending and must be approved by the federal judge overseeing the case.

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