They started the game off with a pick-six, one of four defensive takeaways on the afternoon. The first teamers were so dominant that they scored 35 points in the first quarter and another 24 points in the second.

By the time QB Drake Lindsey, S Koi Perich, EDGE Anthony Smith and the rest of Minnesota’s starters were pulled from the contest, the score was 49-0 and there was still over 10 minutes remaining in the first half. The Gophers slowed their role offensively, from there, but still shut out the Demons 66-0.

Victory highlights with your Sunday morning coffee 😌☕️#RTB #SkiUMah #Gophers pic.twitter.com/K4YklFDBvJ

— Minnesota Football (@GopherFootball) September 7, 2025

Of course, a power four school with CFP aspirations is supposed to blowout their early-season FCS opponent, and Northwestern State is considered the bottom of the barrell, even at that level. Nonetheless, taking care of business is easier said than done sometimes, so winning by 66 points deserves praise.

This is a different age of college football, though. And when you look at the compensation of each roster, you quickly realize why these kinds of matchups will become mostly obsolete in the future.

Expanded Minnesota Gophers NIL budget for football paying dividends

In all likelihood, Northwestern State doesn’t have an NIL budget at all. If they are able to offer some side cash to help pay for food and rent, they’d be doing more than most of their FCS competitors.

Meanwhile, the Minnesota Gophers’ Name Image and Likeness fund for football has exploded over the past few years, on top of the $21 million they are now paying student athletes out of their athletic budget in 2025.

How much, you ask? Well they aren’t yet to the $35 million that the Ohio States of the world have at their disposal, but on top of their new revenue sharing allotment, they could be getting close.

According to Charley Walters (Pioneer Press) — who’s arguably more plugged-in to deep-pocketed U of M donors than any other reporter in town — the 2025 Golden Gophers football team is operating under a player budget “in the $15 million range”.

The revenue-sharing name, image and likeness (NIL) cost for reigning national football champion Ohio State players this season reportedly is $35 million. Player payroll for the Gophers, who play at Ohio State on Oct. 4, is in the $15 million range.

Charley Walters – Pioneer Press

Related: Rival Schools Coming for PJ Fleck and Gophers AD Knows It

This number likely does not include NIL money, however. It’s been reported multiple places over the past few months that the Gophers are using about 70-75% of their ($21M) revshare money to pay football players, which is approximately $15 million, the amount mentioned by Walters.

If we include the millions being paid to football players in separate Name, Image and Likeness dollars, or if Walters is referencing NIL money (not rev share) in his article, that would left the Gophers’ total player budget exponentially higher.

The PJ Fleck radio rant that’ll live in MN Gophers history books

Back in 2022-2023, the Minnesota Golden Gophers lost running back Bucky Irving to Oregon via the transfer portal, after the Ducks came calling with Nike money that PJ Fleck and a small group of Dinkytown donors couldn’t compete with in their wildest dreams.

That was when Minnesota’s head coach went on KFAN radio, where he pleaded for fans to send their hard-earned dollars to the Gophers’ licensed NIL collective, Dinkytown Athletes.

Fleck warned that, if NIL donations didn’t start coming in hand over fist, we’d all be left watching the football program devolve into a minor league feeder system for bigger schools to come and pluck their best talent year in and year out.

“So, if we wanna keep players, all these guys we have, they won’t be here next year [if we don’t get more NIL money to pay them]. Just making sure everybody understands. [That] our fans [understand]. [Our best players] won’t be here. So we’ll be a Triple-A ball club for somebody else. That is the reality and the truth of the situation. So please, contact Dinkytown Athletes…”

PJ Fleck – KFAN Radio (9/26/23)

Related: Gophers Star Avoids Serious Health Scare in Rout

From that point forward, money started pouring in to help support Gopher football. And now, Minnesota has been able to keep guys like Darius Taylor, Anthony Smith and Koi Perich, who are all being paid handsomely to wear maroon and gold.

No doubt, that speech on 100,000 watt sports radio will go down as one of the most important moments in Gopher sports history. Without it, there would be no hometown warm fuzzies with Koi or darts being thrown around the field by Drake Lindsey.

Instead of dreaming of the CFP, we’d be happy to reach bowl eligibility every few seasons, while Huntington Bank Stadium became a desolate, empty wasteland. Are we Ohio State or Oregon? No, and we never will be, as long as there’s no salary cap in power four college football.

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.

These days, however, patience is not a virtue in college athletics. The transfer portal, combined with the yearly distribution of $100s of millions in Name, Image and Likeness money allows the right coach, in the right situation to turn over a team and change the future faster than ever before.

That is especially true in basketball, where one or two big time talents can be the difference between dancing and sitting home in March. And there might not be a men’s college basketball program and fanbase more desperate to see a change in fortune than the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers.

So, how are the new head coach and his AD going to turn things around in Dinkytown? By infusing it with a bunch of cash to pay players, through (a) an increase in NIL funding, along with (b) new revshare money that is about to flip college sports upside down.

But the question remains… how much money will they really have to spend and will it be competitive in the Big Ten? Well, that picture continues to come more and more into focus.

Larger than normal revshare split for Minnesota Gophers MBB

On July 1, all power five universities will get the green light to allocate $20.5 million of their yearly athletic budget to pay their college athletes, however they see fit. Just like most major Universities, the largest split of Minnesota’s revshare allowance (75%) will go to football.

But part of luring Niko Medved back to his home state was a commitment from Mark Coyle that the University of Minnesota would allocate more of that revenue split to men’s basketball than most other power five schools.

Related: Gophers MBB Searching for Another High Caliber Opponent

According to Chip Scoggins (Star Tribune), that commitment means Golden Gophers men’s basketball is expected to get 15% of the total $20.5 million, or $3.075 million. That amount alone would be 3X more than the NIL budget Johnson had to spend last year (see below). What’s left will be dispersed between women’s basketball, men’s hockey and volleyball.

Revenue-sharing models with other Big Ten and SEC schools show football taking priority, with 75% or more of the $20.5 million going to football players, a likely percentage for the Gophers…which could mean a 15% allocation of revenue sharing (or $3.075 million) to that sport.

Of the remaining 10% — $2.5 million — 5% is expected to go to women’s basketball, while men’s hockey and volleyball would split the final 5%.

Chip Scoggins – Star Tribune

Niko Medved promises bigger commitment to raising NIL funds

Last year, we know that Ben Johnson’s Gophers doled out right around $1 million in total NIL dollars, possibly less, depending on which report you believe. Either way, that number was up substantially from 2023-24. In other words, NIL was a struggle for Johnson from the very beginning.

Immediately after he was hired, Niko hit the recruiting trail. Not just for talent, but for NIL dollars too. Unlike his predecessor, Niko Medved understands the importance of NIL fundraising. If you don’t have money to pay players, you won’t be able to bring in talent. It’s really that simple.

How much NIL money were Coyle and Medved hoping to raise? In that same Star Tribune article earlier this month, from what Scoggins was hearing via “Gopher officials”, it was in the $2-3 million range, depending on how fruitful their fundraising efforts were. The hope was to accumulate $5-6 million for their total player budget next season.

And, per longtime local columnist Patrick Reusse (Star Tribune) — who would 100% know, based on his many connections within the Gopher men’s program — Medved & Co’s NIL endeavors have been extremely successful, producing near the peak of projections, or about $3 million.

Minnesota Gophers new men’s basketball player budget revealed

In total, that puts the Minnesota’s men’s basketball player budget for the 2025-26 season at the high side of previous projections, “in the neighborhood of $6 million”, writes Reusse — or 6X more than what Ben Johnson had at his disposal last year.

Medved will turn 52 in August. He has 12 seasons as the coach in charge. He is starting off with those experience advantages over Johnson, and also a program in which the AD is fully invested.

The Gophers now have a marginally competitive amount of dollars to spend on talent — in the neighborhood of $6 million (not stated directly by Medved).

Patrick Reusse – Star Tribune

If Reusse is correct (which I trust he is) then after months of talking, it appears both Coyle and Medved have delivered on their promises to infuse Minnesota Gophers basketball with cash that Ben Johnson could never even dream of, just one year ago.

After four years of Big Ten basement dwelling, Coyle hand-picked Medved as the savior of this program. There was no long hiring process, no search firm. Coyle knew who he wanted and he did not hesitate. Now, he has doubled down on that hire with cold hard cash.

Related: Niko Medved, Gophers Add 4-Star UNC Transfer Commit

As long as the House settlement goes through, as expected on July 1, we should see (in theory) a roster that is 6X better than what we saw out of Gophers basketball teams in recent seasons.

With all that being said, Niko has no excuses at his disposal, even in his first year. He’s already been loaded up with far more advantages in today’s college sports landscape than the previous coach ever had. Because of that, being new isn’t a worthy excuse for failure.