{"id":60612,"date":"2025-11-25T21:07:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T21:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/60612\/"},"modified":"2025-11-25T21:07:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T21:07:07","slug":"usfs-board-of-trustees-approves-millions-for-athletics-expenditures-for-the-next-fiscal-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/60612\/","title":{"rendered":"USF\u2019s Board of Trustees approves millions for Athletics expenditures for the next fiscal year"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/a>USF\u2019s Board of Trustees unanimously approved two multimillion-dollar expenditures for the 2026\u201327 fiscal year on Monday. ORACLE PHOTO \/ WILL RAINSBERGER<\/p>\n

USF\u2019s Board of Trustees<\/a> unanimously approved two spending increases for USF Athletics on Monday \u2014 another step in the university\u2019s aggressive approach to college sports\u2019 rapidly changing financial landscape.<\/p>\n

The BOT approved an internal loan of up to $22.5 million and a $16 million increase in student-athlete revenue sharing payments for the 2026\u201327 fiscal year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

USF Athletics CEO Rob Higgins said these expenditures will help the university tackle \u201ccurrent challenges\u201d in athletics \u2013 including revenue sharing, conference realignment uncertainty and new name, image and likeness rules.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis isn\u2019t an industry that\u2019s changing by the day. It\u2019s changing by the hour,\u201d Higgins said. \u201cI can promise you we are positioned really well for this, but it takes investment.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The internal loan will be funded through investment gains and will not use student fees, according to BOT documents<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Related: Kelly says USF will be an \u2018aggressive\u2019 House v. NCAA settlement adopter<\/a><\/p>\n

The House v. NCAA settlement<\/a> \u2014 which was finalized on June 6 \u2014 allows universities to directly fund student athletes, with an annual limit of $20.5 million per university.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Before the settlement, student athletes could only earn revenue from third-party sources, such as brand deals with businesses.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Fowler Avenue Collective<\/a> \u2014 USF\u2019s NIL collective \u2014 is an independent organization that supports USF student athletes through NIL initiatives.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The initial $4.5 million in revenue sharing was allocated by BOT Vice Chair Mike Griffin just a few months before USF\u2019s athletic programs began play.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, Monday\u2019s approval allowed USF to reach the national cap, raising its approved revenue-sharing distributions to $20.5 million in the next fiscal year.<\/p>\n

As part of the American Conference\u2019s revenue-sharing model, USF is required to share at least $10 million in total revenue with athletes by 2028, according to the Sports Business Journal<\/a>.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Related: USF approves $407 million price tag for stadium, related infrastructure<\/a><\/p>\n

The Florida Board of Governors previously approved<\/a> USF to use $31 million from the Capital Improvement Trust Fund<\/a> in 2023 \u2014 a tuition fee collected at all Florida public universities \u2014 to partially fund the university\u2019s on-campus stadium project.<\/p>\n

Still, the stadium will be primarily funded through a $200 million loan<\/a> issued by the USF Financing Corporation in 2023.<\/p>\n

BOT Chair Will Weatherford said the college sports landscape has \u201ccertainly changed\u201d since he was first elected<\/a> as board chair in 2021.\u00a0<\/p>\n

USF has overhauled its Athletics department ever since the departure of vice president of athletics Michael Kelly <\/a>in June.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In August, Weatherford announced USF would create a new position<\/a> \u2013 an Athletics CEO \u2013 to accommodate college athletics\u2019 move towards a \u201cbusiness model.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

It also hired NFL Hall of Fame linebacker Derrick Brooks as its chief operating officer<\/a> on Oct. 30 and Jason Layton as its chief business officer<\/a> on Nov. 13.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want a standard of excellence in everything we do academically, everything we do in research and everything we do athletically,\u201d Weatherford said. \u201cAthletics is our brand. It\u2019s the front door of our university.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"USF\u2019s Board of Trustees unanimously approved two multimillion-dollar expenditures for the 2026\u201327 fiscal year on Monday. ORACLE PHOTO…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60613,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[57,36634,135,137,136,1537],"class_list":["post-60612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-football","tag-nil","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-usf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}