Are more sports cuts on the horizon for the University of Minnesota?

University of Minnesota Athletic Director Mark Coyle says big decisions are coming for Gopher athletics as they deal with financial pressures created by a new revenue sharing model for athletes, including payments to former athletes for missed NIL opportunities.

Coyle was asked by the University Board of Regents Wednesday about whether he anticipates more sports cuts.

"When you look at our 22 sports programs, I think we need to focus on what we provide our student athletes," Coyle told the Regents. "I think it's gonna look different. I have conversations every day with my peers in the Big 10, with my peers across the country. And I think you can see in our Olympic sports, for example, some of the experiences our student athletes have may look different."

Coyle added that when it comes to Olympic-style sports, the Gophers are likely going to focus on more regional, non-conference travel, and slowing down on new facilities projects.

Men's gymnastics, tennis, and indoor track and field were all cut in 2020 to save money and for Title Nine compliance.

But Coyle says the university still faces several big decisions when it comes to revenue sharing for athletes.

"I think you're gonna see a slowdown in the number of new facilities that programs are building because again, all programs are trying to figure out how we manage the back payments for the house settlement and then how we determine the revenue share model moving forward with student athletes," explained Coyle. "So again, we will take a close look at all of our experience of all the things that (we) provide our student athletes."

Coyle did not say specifically that sports would be cut however.

Until now, almost all of the sports at the University of Minnesota, like other schools across the country, lost money. The exceptions are almost always football and basketball, with football being the most "profitable" by far. Those profitable sports made it possible for schools to pay for other sports.

In their 2022 financial report to the NCAA, the Gopher athletic department received just over $135 million in revenue with an operating expense budget of $130 million.

Football had a $32 million profit, basketball a $9.5 million profit. Women's basketball lost $4 million and all other sports lost around $24 million.

But, a nearly $2.8 billion settlement that has been approved by the NCAA and the nation’s five largest conferences is a historic step toward a more professional model for college sports.

The plan calls for paying damages to thousands of former and current college athletes who say now-defunct NCAA rules prevented them from earning endorsement money.

It also calls for setting up a first-of-its-kind revenue-sharing system for college athletes, which will impact hundreds of schools across the country as early as fall 2025 including at Minnesota.

Moving forward, it will be the Big Ten, Big 12, ACC and SEC carrying most of the financial burden in a revenue-sharing system that asks each of its school to commit upwards of $20 million per year for 10 years to be paid directly to athletes. The overall commitment is expected to be about $300 million per school.

That $20 or so million from the University of Minnesota athletics budget will almost certainly lead to a deficit and force athletic directors to make some tough decisions around lower-profile sports.