In Tennessee, they add a “talent fee” to the price of sports tickets. In Arkansas, they will charge 3% more at the concession stands. At Michigan and Michigan State, athletic directors sent letters alerting boosters that winning was going to start costing more. And, for the first time, Clemson will begin adding an athletic surcharge to tuition.

Winning in big-time college sports has never been free, but in a rapidly changing era where players are allowed to earn money and be paid by their own schools, it has never been clearer that the fans will get a bigger share of the victory. tongue.

“College athletics has not professionalized as much as I think it was capable of,” said Nels Popp, a professor of sports and business at the University of North Carolina, who believes that the Most schools still rely more on fans’ emotional and long-standing ties to the school than on the downside. -online marketing strategies. “And now I think it’s forcing them in that direction.”

When the NCAA reluctantly approved payments to players for use of their names, images and likenesses (NIL) in 2021, promoters who were donating to schools and their athletic departments began funneling money to collectives – independent organizations that raised funds and paid athletes. . These collectives are increasingly closely linked to universities.

Under a $2.8 billion settlement expected to take effect next year, NIL agreements will remain in full force and schools themselves will face further multimillion-dollar changes in their financial results, including:

— Each school with the money to do so will be allowed to share up to $22 million in annual revenue with athletes — money from ticket sales, television contracts and other sources . They may share less, but the best recruits will be at the forefront in the arms race for talent.

—The amount the NCAA pays more than 350 Division I schools each year will drop. The organization must cover some $1.2 billion in damages under the settlement and the rest will be covered by conferences that will see less money shared each year from the NCAA and its lucrative basketball tournament male.

— Schools will be allowed to offer more scholarships in all sports and that costs money. For example, a school could offer up to 20 additional scholarships for a total of 105 in football. Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel said adding scholarships in all sports could add $29 million in education costs to the department’s bottom line. And that’s in addition to revenue sharing.

“Maintaining a high level of support for our 29 NCAA athletic programs will require a high level of commitment from everyone,” Manuel wrote to Wolverines fans last month.

One possibility for Michigan could be placing advertising inside Michigan Stadium, a practice the Wolverines have steadfastly avoided over the decades. The school also sent out a recent survey asking, among other questions, whether fans were willing to pay $3,000 to $4,000 for a new installment of back seats, which is rare outside of The Big’s club sections House.

Not all fans are signing due to ‘donor fatigue’

In 2023, it cost an average of two fans about $180 to attend a college football game and about $340 to attend an NFL game. After all, college sports didn’t have to worry about the biggest expense in a professional team’s budget: player salaries.

NIL has begun to chip away at this, and once the terms of the lawsuit settlement go into effect, this dynamic will change even more. Michigan State AD Alan Haller told Spartans fans his department’s budget for ’25-26 would include between $25 million and $30 million in additional spending.

“As a department, we will continue to explore new opportunities to both generate revenue and control costs,” Haller said. “However, there is no doubt that your generosity and continued involvement will be essential in our quest for excellence. »

Some fans will undoubtedly continue to write checks to keep the players – and hopefully the wins – coming, while retaining their “rights” to purchase a certain number of tickets to football games.

A tour around the parking lot before this season’s Michigan-Michigan State game found others who seemed more reluctant.

“The price of education is out of control,” said Michigan State fan Mike Bouchard, citing the more than $55,000 price tag for an out-of-state undergraduate to attend his alma mater. “There is absolutely no question of me digging into my pocket beyond this amount. Tell them to use their hundreds of millions in endowments.

“Absolutely not,” Ann Arbor resident Michael Ketslakh said when asked if he would give more to support Michigan athletics. “I think it’s excessive. It’s bad for the sport.

Rick Karcher, a college sports representative at Eastern Michigan, said fans continue to pay because, unlike professional sports where everyone knows the profits go to billionaire owners, college business models are often difficult to pin down.

“College sports fans, students and promoters are willing to continue to absorb operational costs while coaches and team administrators get rich because they view athletics as separate from college.” , he declared.

Schools are looking for other ways to absorb higher costs

Earlier this fall, Texas Tech said it was budgeting $14.7 million this fiscal year — about $9 million more than the previous year — to support the athletic program, which has a budget of nearly $129 million.

“I think if a unit on this campus were faced with a 20 percent reduction in revenue, we would have to think about how we might respond, and we will in this case,” explained the president of the school, Lawrence Schovanec.

Texas Tech is not alone in its athletic program, but not all schools operate under the same model. In Florida, for example, sports are managed by the University Athletic Association, which not only funds the sport but often redistributes money to the school.

An article in the student-produced Florida Independent Alligator said UF’s athletic revenues were the eighth highest in the nation; two of its biggest supporters have donated eight-figure sums to the UAA’s fundraising arm.

Clearly, it’s not just eight-figure donations that will keep college sports going.

Tennessee was among the first to make headlines at the start of the football season when AD Danny White said the school was adding a 10% “talent fee” for 2025 football ticket renewals This is in addition to a 4.5% increase in ticket prices.

“This link between resources and competitiveness has never been stronger,” White said. “Only now do we have the opportunity to share these resources with our athletes.”

In Arkansas, AD Hunter Yurachek explained the 3% fee on concessions in a letter to fans emphasizing the importance of continuing to “maximize incremental revenue opportunities.” At Clemson, which has long boasted of not charging students fees or ticket prices, the plan is to raise between $7 million and $8 million by adding a $150 per semester “athletic fee” to the price of tuition. The Tigers have appeared in four national title games over the past decade and won it twice.

“I think it’s a little ridiculous, but there comes a point where we have good enough sports teams that it’s kind of valid,” student Sam Gault told South Carolina’s WSPA-TV when the charges were revealed earlier this month.

To win big, schools will have to pay big, and simply fielding a competitive team is no longer a given. The question hanging over college sports is where the money will come from.

“You can pay more for tickets, put a sponsor patch on uniforms, eliminate non-profit sports or (start calling) the Big 12, ‘Dr. Pepper Conference,” said Popp, the North Carolina professor. “I don’t think the fans are worried about any of that, but what might they be willing to accept? I think that’s what athletic departments need to understand.

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AP Sports Writer Larry Lage in Ann Arbor, Mich., contributed