Texas Athletics’ revenue sharing model likely similar to what Texas Tech is planning for Red Raiders’ athletes

The percentage breakdowns are designed to essentially reward those sports who bring in the most revenue. Football and men’s basketball revenue accounts for most, if not all, athletic revenue generated for most college athletic departments across the nation. That revenue funds all the other sports.

While University of Texas officials have not detailed how the Longhorns will breakdown the revenue sharing pool, it’s expected that football and men’s basketball will get the lion’s share of the projected $20.5 million.

At Texas, football, men’s basketball and baseball are typically the only sports that generate revenue each year. Women’s basketball has been profitable at times over the years but not consistently.

According to Yahoo Sports, the revenue sharing pool would remain the same on a three-year cycle with 4% escalator bumps embedded each year. After the three years, the calculations would be done again for a new revenue sharing pool total.

In this new revenue sharing model, schools must make critical financial decisions about their scholarship limits.

In November, the SEC made a league-wide decision to implement a hard cap of 85 scholarships, but those are now equivalency awards and can be used to spread around a 105-man roster. The Big 12 is allowing “each campus make their own individual decisions” on scholarship allocations and limits, according to the Avalanche-Journal.

If schools choose to add more scholarships, any new spending up to $2.5 million must be deducted from the revenue sharing pool.

Texas Tech is choosing to stay at the 85 scholarship limit and not go to 105, the Avalanche-Journal reported. The revenue sharing model is expected to begin July 1 for the 2025-26 athletic year.

“In consultation with coach (Joey) McGuire, we have decided to keep our scholarship awards at the same numbers as they are currently and not increase scholarship awards,” Hocutt told the Avalanche-Journal. “The primary decision factor behind that is providing our coaches with as much flexibility as possible as we move forward, because if we added scholarships, we would be required to deduct that from the revenue-share amount.”

Texas Tech also plans to eliminate Alston payments when switching to the revenue sharing model. Currently, Texas Tech and Texas pay athletes an annual total of $5,980 per athlete for education-related benefits. The payments are made to athletes who remain in good academic standing and those who are not in the transfer portal at the end of the semester.