Confirmed: Gophers New Revenue Split Will Mostly Pay Football Players

The Minnesota Gophers will start paying their student athletes , as soon as the start of the 2025-26 school year. It’s part of a historic settlement by the NCAA, after a class action lawsuit led by a collection of former athletes and multiple universities.

New revenue split will go to Minnesota Gophers football players

University of Minnesota officials have been up front about how much money they have. It’s $21 million per year. Each school gets to decide if they pay athletes, and how that money is distributed. According to what athletic director Mark Coyle told Marcus Fuller (Star Tribune) , most of that cash will go to football players.

“I have conversations with other programs, and at the end of the day, finances play a big, big part in what we do. … Football is 90 percent of that. And so, we are very, very wise that we continue to invest in football to help that program grow.”

U of M Athletic Director Mark Coyle ( via interview with Marcus Fuller – Star Tribune )

There was no mention of how much, if any, other athletic programs will get. That makes sense. As we’ve written about many times over, it does not make financial sense to distribute millions of dollars into parts of your business that do not generate revenue.

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As Coyle noted, football makes over 90% of revenue generated out of the University of Minnesota Athletic department. Men’s basketball brings in most of the rest, with men’s hockey coming in just above the red line. Every other sport costs the University money.

University of Minnesota looking for a GM?

This is just the beginning of power four schools paying their football players. I’d expect we see many more business-conscious decisions, just like this one, going forward.

Out of this same interview between Mark Coyle and Marcus Fuller, we found out that the athletic department is likely to seek out a general manager , sometime in the near future. They need someone who can come in and put prices on players. A person designated to budgeting out what is, essentially, a $21 million salary cap.

I know many people despise college athletics evolving into professional sports, but we are living through the greatest shakeup in major collegiate athletics since the dawn of college football over 120 years ago. We are literally watching history unfold around us.

Don’t worry, College football will survive… and probably come out better

When all is said and done, college football teams will still have the best 18 to 20-year-old football players in the world competing on our favorite teams. Yes, there will be problems and tragedies throughout the process, but change isn’t free.

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At the end of the day, these kids are helping to generate billions of dollars. The ones who deserve a larger chunk of that revenue, should get it. We are talking about life-changing money. The schools and NCAA bureaucrats shouldn’t be able to hog all of that money.

So get your popcorn, and let’s see how it all shakes out. Most likely, it will be a positive for the Minnesota Gophers. This eventually leads to a college football salary cap, which in theory, should lead to a much more level playing field vs teams like Michigan and Ohio State.

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• Nobody Believes in the Minnesota Gophers