Report: Gophers NIL Problems Under Ben Johnson Were Even Worse Than We Thought

Last season, the Minnesota Gophers men’s basketball team was projected to struggle, which outside of a few upsets along the way, they mostly did. After struggling to take advantage of arguably the most cupcake non-conference schedule in the country, Ben Johnson’s 2024-25 Golden Gophers never stood a chance in Big Ten play, going 7-13 vs conference foes and eventually finishing 15-17 overall.

It was Ben’s third losing season in four years as men’s basketball coach at the University of Minnesota. The moment they returned from Indianapolis, where they lost to Northwestern in their first game of the Big Ten Tournament, Johnson was fired by athletic director Mark Coyle.

While Johnson was head coach at the U of M, the basketball program struggled to keep up with its peers, mostly due to a lack of NIL (name, image, and likeness) funding. As head coach, a lot of that blame should fall on Ben Johnson. He failed to adapt in the new wild west-style NIL landscape, and paid the price with his job.

Minnesota Gophers NIL fund laughably low

Roughly a year ago it was reported that the Minnesota Gophers were working with roughly $1 million in NIL funds last season, a number dramatically lower than most power five programs.

But if you believe Pioneer Press columnist and plugged-in Gophers MBB insider, Charley Walters, that $1M number was quite generously rounded up from what he is now reporting to be just $700,000. Of that $700K, Dawson Garcia reportedly took up $500K all by himself.

“A little birdie said the Gophers men’s basketball name, image and likeness (NIL) budget this season —lowest in the Big Ten — was in the $700,000 range, of which Dawson Garcia got $500,000.”

Charley Walters – Pioneer Press

Of course, the homegrown kid from Prior Lake Dawson Garcia was far and away the best player on Minnesota’s roster since Ben Johnson arrived. The homegrown kid from Prior Lake, reportedly turned down offers of $1 million or more, to enter the portal, something he did twice (Marquette –> UNC –> Minnesota) before finding his way back home in 2022.

So this is not an article about Garcia taking up too much of the Gophers’ 2024-25 NIL money. This is about Johnson’s program being dirt poor, from an NIL standpoint. Ben was just lucky Dawson was willing to give him a 50% discount.

Garcia averaged a career-best 19.2 points per game this past season, which ranked 6th in the Big Ten. Across 32 games, he shot 47.4% from the field (37.3% 3PT) and grabbed 7.5 boards per game. He’s legitimately one of the better players to ever dawn maroon and gold… and nobody will remember it, because of four sunk years under his head coach.

💥 31 PTS
💥 13-19 FG
💥 6 REB
💥 3 BLK

Dawson Garcia recorded his 5th straight 20+ point game in @GopherMBB's upset over No. 15 Oregon 😤#B1GMBBall pic.twitter.com/UrspRhvAkt

— Big Ten Men's Basketball (@B1GMBBall) January 26, 2025

Where does Gophers NIL budget grow from here?

With Johnson out and Niko Medved taking over the program, following a first round win in the 2024-25 NCAA tournament as head coach of Colorado State, the Minnesota Gophers men’s basketball program has vowed to become a more serious program under their new head coach, and that starts with NIL funding.

Chatter behind the scenes has the University of Minnesota NIL budget set to increase by over a million dollars, in his first year alone. On top of that, the Gophers are expected to dedicate $3-5 million of their expected NCAA revenue share settlement money ($20+ million total) on men’s basketball.

Related: Colorado State Forward Commits to MN Gophers

That is expected to be more than what other schools in the Big Ten will commit to MBB, at least from a revenue sharing standpoint. If everything falls into place, between new NIL and revenue sharing money, Medved could have quite the vehicle help land and keep college basketball talent we haven’t seen in this town in years… possibly decades.

As was the case with Ben Johnson, it’s up to Niko Medved to generate fan excitement and financial support for his new Minnesota Gophers MBB program. But unlike the head coach he’s replacing, Niko seems much more up for all of the tasks and responsibilities included with being a head basketball coach of a major D1 program, both now and moving forward.