LSU football is gearing up for the 2024 season with a projected roster budget ranging from $14 million to $17 million, according to head coach Brian Kelly in an interview with Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger.
Kelly indicated that such budgets are within reach for every school in the SEC when discussing the financial landscape of college athletics, particularly as NCAA regulations shift towards allowing direct payment to athletes starting in the fall of 2025. This revenue sharing initiative is anticipated to be capped around $20 million.
LSU is among many SEC institutions planning to allocate a significant portion of this cap to football, with reports suggesting that approximately 75% of the limit will be earmarked for football programs. This focus aligns with the substantial revenue football generates for SEC schools like LSU, which disclosed a total athletics revenue of $200.4 million in 2023, with football alone contributing $105.7 million, as per the school’s financial audit.
Kelly’s remarks come shortly after the Tiger Athletic Foundation, a key supporter of LSU athletics, announced a formal collaboration with Bayou Traditions, an NIL collective dedicated to LSU athletes. This partnership establishes a unified platform where donors can contribute to LSU athletics as a whole or directly fund NIL opportunities managed by the collective.
However, contributions directed to the NIL collective are currently ineligible for charitable deductions, although donors can accrue priority points. Kelly views this collaboration as a transitional phase until schools can directly share revenue with athletes, emphasizing the potential of NIL agreements as recruiting incentives.
Kelly explained to Dellenger that these agreements could evolve into front-loaded contracts that entice recruits to join LSU in anticipation of revenue sharing opportunities, describing this strategy as a streamlined approach compared to the current operational scale of NIL activities.
Regarding potential limitations imposed by Title IX regulations on revenue sharing distributions, clarity remains elusive. While the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights affirmed to ESPN’s Paula Lavigne and Dan Murphy that Title IX would apply to revenue sharing, specifics on equal distribution across gender lines based on proportional roster spots are pending clarification. Dellenger suggested that collectives such as Bayou Traditions could play a pivotal role in augmenting roster budgets for sports like football and men’s basketball under these regulations.