What we learned from the finances of the Big Ten’s first year as an 18-team conference

Eight months ago, the Big Ten closed the books on a successful — and lucrative — 2025 fiscal year that began with four West Coast schools joining the conference, reached a competitive high with Ohio State football winning a national championship and ended with the league likely pushing over the $1 billion revenue mark.

While the league’s final statement has not yet been released, the Big Ten’s 16 non-private institutions’ financial reports for athletics are now public record. (Northwestern and USC, as private universities, are not required by law to release their reports.) When it comes to money matters, the gap between the Big Ten’s juggernauts and its minnows is growing.

According to financial statements for the 2025 fiscal year (July 1, 2024, to June 30, 2025) submitted by the league’s 16 public schools, which were obtained by The Athletic through state open-records laws, Ohio State, Michigan and Penn State have widened the gulf between themselves and the conference’s lowest revenue generators.

Buoyed by eight home football games and a team that went on to win the College Football Playoff, Ohio State generated more than $336 million in the 2025 fiscal year to top the conference’s revenue leaderboard, $60 million clear of Michigan ($275.8 million). Penn State generated nearly $255 million, which is $41 million more than No. 4 Nebraska.

At the bottom of the Big Ten, Maryland reported just $124 million in revenue, $3.8 million less than it did last year and $22.6 million below any other Big Ten public school.

As a group, the league’s 16 public athletic departments reported about $3.118 billion in revenue and spent $3.126 billion in the 2025 fiscal year. Four schools’ athletics programs ran a deficit, down from eight schools in the red in FY2024.

Here’s a look at those schools’ ongoing problems, plus other topics and takeaways from the most recent athletic financial data.

Rutgers in the red

In an interview with The Athletic three years ago, former Rutgers athletic director Pat Hobbs said the Scarlet Knights “view our entry into the Big Ten as getting the golden ticket.”

Since joining the Big Ten on July 1, 2014, Rutgers has tried to spend its way to respectability. The filings suggest the venture has become a money pit. Over its 11 seasons in the conference, Rutgers athletics has reported more than $190.5 million in losses. But that tells only part of the story. The department has received about $328.4 million in student fees and direct support from the state of New Jersey and the university. Take away that income, and Rutgers is up to $518.9 million in losses.

“You could make the argument that we do not have an expense problem,” Rutgers athletic director Keli Zinn told NJ.com last month. “But we do in fact have a revenue problem and a pretty significant one.”

In its first five Big Ten seasons, Rutgers’ revenues and expenses were fairly modest, but this decade, its annual deficits have soared. In FY2025, the Scarlet Knights ranked second-to-last among Big Ten public schools in football ticket revenue at $9.24 million. In each of its first three Big Ten seasons, the football program generated more than $11 million in football ticket revenue.

When Rutgers joined the Big Ten in the 2015 fiscal year, it collected media rights payouts in line with what it received from the American Athletic Conference, with a plan to escalate up to a full share over a six-year time frame. Rutgers then borrowed about $48 million from the Big Ten against future earnings during fiscal years 2018-2020. That’s a significant total, but nothing compared to Maryland, which borrowed more than $125 million over its period as a non-vested league member. The Terps should be caught up in 2027.

The league is budgeted to disburse about $82 million to each of its vested programs this year, which could help Rutgers — if it controls its spending.

UCLA’s Big Ten debut

In its final Pac-12 season, UCLA received less than $20 million from the league’s media rights package. In its first Big Ten season, UCLA collected $61.3 million from media rights, the same figure reported by most of the Big Ten’s vested members. UCLA and USC entered the Big Ten as full partners, while Nebraska, Rutgers and Maryland all had to wait six years to gain that status. Washington and Oregon will get half-shares of the Big Ten’s regular-season media rights package until 2030.

“Just being in the Big Ten and having the revenues, it just helps you compete at the level that we expect to compete at,” UCLA athletic director Martin Jarmond told The Athletic last summer.

But UCLA athletics remains significantly in the red: It reported a $21.6 million deficit for fiscal year 2025. That’s down from its $51.9 million loss in fiscal 2024, but UCLA has compiled and reported $222.2 million in athletics losses over the past six years.

Among the Big Ten’s 16 public universities, UCLA ranked fourth from the bottom in reported athletic revenue at $151.8 million. It took in $31.6 million in student fees and direct institutional support. Although $10 million of that support was transferred back, the university continues to cover the athletic department’s losses.

Michigan, Ohio State top football ticket revenue

Blue bloods Michigan and Ohio State, both of which played eight home games during the 2025 fiscal year (2024 season), saw upward swings in their conference-leading gate revenue. The Wolverines’ gate income grew by $17.3 million, thanks to hosting an extra home game in the country’s biggest stadium and raising prices after winning the national title to cap the 2023 season.

Ohio State had two more home games during its CFP championship season than in fiscal year 2024 (2023 season), and its revenue jumped by more than $19.8 million. Both Michigan ($67.6 million) and Ohio State ($67 million) exceeded the Big Ten’s No. 3 in football ticket receipts (Penn State) by more than $20 million.

Nebraska’s ticket income returned to normal levels after the school trimmed prices during the 2023 season (2024 fiscal year) to commemorate Memorial Stadium’s 100th anniversary. Washington’s gate revenue fell by $4.3 million in its first Big Ten season, mostly because it played only six home games. Oregon’s rose by nearly $5 million during an unbeaten regular season.

Near the top of the next tier, Illinois has made sizable strides since the COVID-19 pandemic. The Illini’s football gate revenue has grown from just under $7 million in fiscal 2022 to just over $15 million in fiscal 2025. In Curt Cignetti’s first season at Indiana, the program saw its football ticket revenue grow by nearly 22 percent. The Hoosiers had eight home games (as opposed to six in 2023), but the first few were sparsely attended before multiple sellouts over the final two months.

On the low end, Maryland collected just over $5 million from football tickets, the program’s lowest total since the 2012 season when it was still an ACC member. Maryland could multiply its football gate revenue 13 times and remain behind Michigan and Ohio State.

Men’s basketball tickets

Indiana continued to lead the Big Ten in men’s basketball ticket sales, but it reported the same total ($15.2 million) as it did in its 2024 fiscal year report. Illinois, fresh off an Elite Eight run, enjoyed a $4.9 million leap in men’s basketball gate revenue to $14.2 million, second in the conference. Michigan State ($9.4 million) and Purdue ($8.7 million) ranked third and fourth, respectively.

Seven schools saw slight decreases in men’s hoops ticket revenue. UCLA slid for the second consecutive fiscal year to $6.7 million, down from $6.9 million in FY24. Penn State ranked last among the public schools in men’s basketball ticket revenue at $1.7 million.

Notable non-revenue sports

Outside of football and men’s basketball, Minnesota men’s ice hockey was the only program to make a profit during the 2025 fiscal year, clearing about $2.75 million. Gophers hockey reported $9.72 million in revenue, including $3.92 million in ticket sales. That was not only the highest outside of the big two sports, but it also topped gate revenue for five Big Ten public schools’ men’s basketball programs.

After turning a profit from 2014 through 2024, minus the pandemic-altered 2020 season, Nebraska women’s volleyball officially listed a $1.4 million deficit. It spent $7 million and earned $5.6 million, including $3.2 million in ticket sales. The revenue drop took place in the “other” category, which went from $1.8 million in FY2024 to just $1,030 in FY2025. According to a Nebraska athletics spokesman, the prior fiscal year’s surge in the “other” category came from the program’s record-setting volleyball match at Memorial Stadium on Aug. 30, 2023.

Iowa women’s basketball sold out its entire season in 2024-25 and earned $2.4 million in ticket sales, down from $3.3 million in Caitlin Clark’s final season the prior year. A significant portion of Iowa’s ticket revenue in FY2024 came from secondary-market sales, of which Iowa collected a percentage. Overall, Iowa women’s basketball generated $4.8 million in revenue in 2024-25 but spent $8.5 million.

Iowa’s basketball programs highlight a significant financial disparity between men’s and women’s teams in the Big Ten and nationally. In the 2025 fiscal year, Iowa had its lowest-attended men’s basketball season since 1965, and its ticket revenue dropped to $2.8 million, a program low since the 2011-12 season. But Iowa men’s tickets are priced higher than women’s tickets despite the women’s team’s popularity. The women’s team generated more from parking and concessions ($512,000) than the men ($440,000).

Even after paying $2.2 million in severance to fired coach Fran McCaffery, the men’s program cleared $3.4 million in profit; the women lost $3.7 million. That’s mostly because the men’s team generated $6.3 million through its Big Ten media rights contract; the league has no separate women’s basketball package. Despite missing the NCAA Tournament in 2025, the Iowa men received $1.6 million from the NCAA in tournament revenue, while the Iowa women collected $81,000.

Changing football recruiting costs

The transfer portal has changed football recruiting, actually cutting costs for many programs between limiting the number of visits required and pulling coaches off the road. All but four football programs (Michigan, UCLA, Iowa and Michigan State) reported fewer recruiting-related expenses in 2024-25, and many of the year-over-year drops were significant.

In FY2024, the Big Ten’s 16 public schools combined to spend $30.1 million on football recruiting. In FY2025, the programs spent $29.2 million. Washington had the biggest cut at around $740,000, followed by Nebraska ($530,000) and Penn State ($430,000).

Michigan spent $3.5 million on its football recruiting operation, nearly doubling its total from the previous year. UCLA was second behind Michigan at $2.4 million, an increase of $990,000.

Travel costs in the West Coast wing’s first year

Despite the Big Ten adding four former Pac-12 members for the 2024-25 season, year-over-year travel costs actually went down considerably for most of the league’s schools — though five of the seven whose travel costs did not decrease are located on the coasts.

Oregon, Washington and UCLA spent an average of $2.95 million more on travel in their first Big Ten season. Maryland and Rutgers averaged travel increases of about $615,000. Michigan State and Nebraska also reported higher travel costs.

Iowa saw the biggest travel savings from the previous year at $3.31 million, but it had nothing to do with the West Coast additions: The women’s basketball team did not make it out of the NCAA Tournament’s first weekend after reaching the national title game the previous year, and the men’s basketball team did not compete in a postseason tournament in 2025, leading to a much less expensive March. Wisconsin trimmed $2.47 million in travel spending, partly because it took chartered buses to football games at Northwestern and Iowa and didn’t qualify for a bowl game following the 2024 season.

Among the reasons for other schools cutting costs included shorter postseason football stays and one less charter flight in basketball when teams compete in Los Angeles.

Odds and ends

Penn State’s reported debt more than doubled from $247 million to nearly $535 million. But much of the debt comes from its $700 million football stadium renovation, and many of the financial pledges have not arrived, which is hardly unusual.
For the second consecutive year, Indiana borrowed from university coffers to pay for a major coaching change. In FY2025, Indiana athletics received $18 million to pay men’s basketball coach Mike Woodson’s buyout. In FY2024, the Hoosiers borrowed $26 million to pay former football coach Tom Allen’s buyout.
For the second year in a row, four football programs paid their coaching staff more than $20 million. Ohio State, Oregon and Penn State were the top three, in the same order as the 2024 fiscal year. After Jim Harbaugh left for the NFL, Michigan’s total coaching salaries dropped from $20.4 million to $17.0 million, ranking ninth among the public schools. The fourth $20 million coaching staff in 2025 belonged to Rutgers ($20.99 million).