Gopher Football Conceding Chunk of New RevShare Money to Men’s Basketball?

July 1 marked a new age of college athletics. After a few years in the wild wild west of Name, Image and Likeness — where private donors funnelled money to “amateur” athletes through non-school affiliated collectives — power 5 schools will now use $20.5 million of their athletic budget to pay players directly.

According to a recent article in the Star Tribune, the University of Minnesota was expected to divvy out its $20.5 million similarly to other power 5 schools, with 75% going to football (~$15 million), 15% to men’s basketball (~$3.1 million) and the rest to be split between women’s basketball, volleyball and men’s hockey.

While those numbers were not surprising, the columnist Chip Scoggins didn’t seem to factor in reports from a few months ago that athletic director Mark Coyle had promised to dedicate a larger percentage of this new revshare money to men’s basketball, in order to make life a little easier for new head coach Niko Medved.

Minnesota Gophers football revshare money going to men’s basketball…?

Over the weekend, however, another local columnist (and deeply rooted Gopher insider) Charley “Shooter” Walters shined more light on Minnesota’s revshare situation. And if he is right, it appears Gopher basketball is getting its extra chunk of cash from PJ Fleck and the football team.

According to Shooter’s report, Gopher football’s exact 2025 revshare number will be $13 million, down $2 million from Scoggins’ recent projections. Meanwhile, Walters sets the men’s basketball revshare budget at $5 million, up $2 million from Chip’s previous number.

Ohio State is saying publicly it plans to spend $18 million on athletes for the coming academic year. The Gophers aren’t saying, but are expected to spend about $13 million on football and $5 million on men’s and women’s basketball.

Charley Walters – Pioneer Press

Related: Gopher Basketball All-Time Great Finds First NBA Home

I do not doubt Walters’ reporting on this one bit. Not only is he more plugged into Gopher athletics than just about any other insider in town, but he was present at a recent packed house “Dunkers” booster club meeting that featured Niko Medved as its guest speaker.

Why a bigger chunk of cash for Gophers men’s basketball (this year) makes sense

And really, the financial scenario he lays out makes a ton of sense, especially given the projected numbers Chip Scoggins recently laid out in his article. Given how well PJ Fleck and the Minnesota Gophers football team is doing in the NIL space lately, they should find it much easier to recoup that $2 million.

Niko Medved, on the other hand, is entering his first season back in Dinkytown. Not only that, but he is taking over a program previously run by Ben Johnson, who fell way behind in the NIL game, early on in his tenure. In other words, the Name, Image and Likeness checking account was mostly empty when he took the job.

This additional $2 million in revshare money will significantly add to his first year player budget. It wouldn’t surprise me if his split of revshare goes back to more of a normal 75/15/10 split in 2026 and beyond, once Medved gets more time to fundraise private NIL funds.