AUSTIN, Texas — Ahead of Texas Football’s home opener against Texas State tomorrow, students are buzzing.
“To the campus, it means everything,” said UT freshman Kyra Kirkpatrick.
“It’s a big sense of community and commonality that brings people together who might not be otherwise,” said freshman Tyler Burtin.
Sophomore Janae Palacios said she wanted to make sure she could claim a student ticket.
“I logged on six different devices. I really wanted this ticket, and my roommate was helping me,” she said. “But when we did get the ticket, you best believe we threw our computer, and we were just celebrating.”
AUSTIN, TEXAS – NOVEMBER 28: Arch Manning #16 of the Texas Longhorns warms up prior to a game against the Texas A&M Aggies at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium on November 28, 2025 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Alex Slitz/Getty Images)
The program is projected to be a powerhouse on the field this year, but it is also a financial engine off of it.
Data from Texas Athletics’ most recent financial report reveals that the football program made over $171 million in revenue, offset by roughly $70 million worth of expenses for a total profit just north of $100 million for fiscal year 2024-25.
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Victor Matheson, an economics professor at College of the Holy Cross who specializes in sports economics, says profitability of any kind within a collegiate football program is no small feat.
“Running a major college football program is tremendously expensive, and there’s only about 50 programs in the entire country that generate more money from their football program than they actually spend on it,” Matheson said. “Of course, Texas is one of those.”
Matheson says the major funding sources for collegiate football programs around the country tend to include ticket sales and gameday spending, private donors and corporate sponsors, as well as media deals.
“At those big programs in the Power Five, indeed you are generating enough revenue that you can cover all of your own costs, and typically then those excess revenues are taken into the athletic program and spent on other athletic teams or general athletic overhead,” Matheson explained.
In FY 24-25, football was Texas Athletics’ only profitable sport. The other programs lost money, but excess football revenues help support other sports at the university, in part.
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Impact beyond athletics
Tolga Ozyurtcu, Director of UT’s Sport Management program, says that Texas Football is even more unusual for directing excess revenues outside the athletics department.
“UT Athletics is one of the very short list, in most years maybe only five or six universities, where money actually flows from the athletic department back to the academic side of the university. So that’s really rare,” he said.
Considering that about 40% of the program’s latest reported revenues were counterbalanced by expenses, Ozyurtcu says that makes Texas Football’s financial reach even more unique.
“Only about 15% of schools in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) have a fully self-funded athletic department. The number is about 89 to 90 cents of every dollar the average athletic department is able to generate. And so that balance is usually coming from student fees or money coming to the athletic department from the university, which makes that distribution of revenue from Texas Athletics back to UT that much more impressive,” he said.
As fans prepare to pack Darrell K. Royal for a 2:30 p.m. kickoff, students say they’re ready to support the program in full force.
“I’m really excited because I already bought a jersey and everything,” said freshman Nathan Cooper. “I might invest in the UT overalls because I’m planning on going all four years.”
“Football means, I mean, almost everything to this university and to me,” said freshman Carlos Vargas Jr. “I mean, I love football.”
After Saturday’s season kickoff, the Longhorns will face Ohio State in DKR on Saturday, Sept. 12.