NORTH AUGUSTA, S.C. \u2014 If you want to be a competitive college basketball program next season \u2014 maybe not a national title contender, but at least an NCAA Tournament team \u2014 then there\u2019s a new unofficial minimum you probably have to meet from a spending perspective:<\/p>\n
$10 million.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery year we\u2019re like, OK, this is the last year \u2014 and then that s\u2014 just keeps going up,\u201d one SEC head coach said of rising roster budgets. \u201cI do not think it\u2019s a sustainable model, but people keep paying for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Athletic surveyed 25 high-major coaches at Peach Jam last weekend, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because roster numbers are not made public and to protect their relationships with other coaches. We found that last year\u2019s swollen budgets were only the beginning. This spring, college hoops teams went on staggering spending sprees, with some individual players set to earn as much as entire teams did a season ago. To get a better sense of how much it actually cost to put together a team this offseason, we asked all 25 coaches: On average, what would you estimate teams in your conference spent on their rosters for next season?<\/p>\n
The results were jaw-dropping, especially compared to our data from last summer<\/a>:<\/p>\n League2026-27 Season (Estimated)2025-26 Season (Estimated)Year-over-year percentage increase<\/p>\n SEC<\/p>\n $18 million<\/p>\n $9.7 million<\/p>\n 85.60%<\/p>\n Big East<\/p>\n $14.5 million<\/p>\n $8 million<\/p>\n 81.30%<\/p>\n Big Ten<\/p>\n $14.3 million<\/p>\n $8.5 million<\/p>\n 68.20%<\/p>\n Big 12<\/p>\n $13.8 million<\/p>\n $8.6 million<\/p>\n 60.50%<\/p>\n ACC<\/p>\n $11.5 million<\/p>\n $8.2 million<\/p>\n 40.20%<\/p>\n Last offseason, when revenue-sharing was officially introduced as a result of the House settlement, many coaches hoped that roster budgets were at (or nearing) their all-time peak<\/a>. That\u2019s because teams were essentially working with two pots of money in the same offseason: any funds they\u2019d already raised \u2014 and had to spend \u2014 before the adoption of the House settlement; and then whatever revenue-sharing money they received from their athletic departments.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone was trying to front-load, because that\u2019s when you were going to feel the House stuff,\u201d said one ACC head coach. \u201cYou hear all the time that this is not sustainable, but every year the prices go up, so we need to stop saying that. Somehow we\u2019ve been able to sustain it.\u201d<\/p>\n Perhaps the most notable change from last offseason is that the high-major leagues are no longer as tightly clustered in spending. While every league has its outliers, the SEC is broadly starting to separate from the pack, which tracks with the conference\u2019s increased revenue from its TV deal with ESPN.<\/p>\n One SEC stalwart, Kentucky, made headlines last season for its reported $22 million roster<\/a>, which was believed to be the most expensive in college hoops history. But now, only a year later?<\/p>\n \u201cThere has to be at least three or four teams (in our league) that are in the $30 million range,\u201d said one SEC assistant.<\/p>\n How many college basketball players will make more money than LeBron?<\/p>\n The other reason for the SEC\u2019s growing emergence? A lack of bottom-feeder teams who lag significantly behind their counterparts in spending. Comparatively, coaches said that most of the other high-major conferences \u2014 none more so than the ACC \u2014 still have chasm-like gaps between their highest- and lowest-spending programs.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a little harder to calculate the average of an 18-team league,\u201d one ACC assistant added, \u201cwhen the gap is over $20 million.\u201d<\/p>\n A year into the revenue-sharing era, the Big East is another fascinating case study. Considering the league (outside of UConn) does not sponsor football, coaches hypothesized that Big East teams would receive a larger cut of their school\u2019s revenue-sharing funds \u2014 and that trend played out in the conference\u2019s spending this spring. The league still has some schools, like UConn, St. John\u2019s and Villanova, operating at a higher spending level, but the conference\u2019s overall average has spiked in no small part because of the effects of revenue-sharing.<\/p>\n Additionally, agents told Big East coaches this spring that they appreciate doing deals with their schools because they\u2019re backed by reliable revenue-sharing funds, compared to less-certain deals that must pass through the College Sports Commission\u2019s clearinghouse, NIL Go. (The CSC announced earlier in July that it has rejected nearly $90 million in NIL deals since its inception last summer.)<\/p>\n Not that other conferences aren\u2019t still ponying up and finding creative ways around the supposed spending \u201ccap.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone broke the rules. (If) you\u2019re spending $15 million, you broke the rules, right?\u201d said one Big 12 head coach. \u201cIs anyone actually going to get in trouble for that? I say no. And then when is all the bulls\u2014 going to get ironed out with the CSC and NIL Go and all this stuff? Until that happens, it\u2019s going to be just a total moving target.\u201d<\/p>\n Positionally, all 25 coaches agreed that the most expensive players this spring \u2014 via retention or the transfer portal \u2014 were centers, with point guards a close second. Multiple coaches said that the starting rate for a high-major center was roughly $1.5 million, with some of the top earners set to make triple that.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s guys that can barely walk and chew gum at the same time that are making like $2 million,\u201d said the SEC assistant.<\/p>\n Added another ACC assistant: \u201cIf you track it since the beginning of NIL to now, (the price for) bigs has gone up probably 300 percent. We went from 250K to $5 million. What are we doing?\u201d<\/p>\n Part of that infatuation with big men, several coaches said, is that college hoops is a copycat league. On the court, last season was defined as much as anything by the prevalence of super-sized wings and multiple bigs playing together<\/a>. It\u2019s no wonder that every Final Four team last season (Michigan, UConn, Arizona and Illinois) also relied on at least one dominant big, further emphasizing the trend.<\/p>\n