As we go full force into the new world of college athletics, there’s so much to learn and navigate whether you’re on the fan side or the administrative side. During talking season, also known as the summer, a heavily debated topic of conversation has been about newly approved revenue distribution that’s required from programs to its players on an annual basis. This will be the first season that schools will have to comply, effective as of July 1st, 2025.

UK Athletics is expected to have to pay out $20.5 million dollars annually, increasing by 4% each calendar year. The sparked conversation has been as to how that expense will be distributed between each program? Does the football program and the men’s basketball program receive even distrbution? Does football need more because they have 8x as many players on the roster than the basketball team? But we’re a basketball school, aren’t we? Should they get more? What about women’s basketball? Baseball? The 2020 National Champion Volleyball program?? So many questions and fans seem to want to know how their financial dedication through tickets and merchandising is going to spread across the athletic programs.

Friday was the annual Media Day event for the UK football program and Mitch Barnhart was first up to the podium, undergoing a long list of questions steamed up from the summer months of no sports. When sports aren’t taking place, fans are still discussing them. Talking about how they ended the season before, offseason recruitment, and what’s to come for the upcoming season. Especially in the state of Kentucky, it truly never ends.

One of the very first questions asked to the AD was about the revenue distribution and if the public would get to find out how it plans to be handled. The answer? No.

“The speculation is wonderful. I think that not only do the fans want to know, but our opponents want to know… So, I think we’re going to sort of keep it fluid with us and keep it inside our framework.”

He continued with, I will say this, our coaches are pleased with where we are and what we’re doing, and I think that’s the beauty of this cap system that we’re in is that it is pretty fluid from season to season, from sport to sport, and it can change. 

To sit here and say we’re going to focus and put this number on that, it may change by the time we get to the end of the semester. It may change by the time we get to the end of the year based upon rosters, based upon who is in your program and who is not in your program. So, we want to be really thoughtful about how we do that, and we think our best advantage in being able to help our coaches in the best way possible is to be really, really nimble in what we do, and we can only do that, we think, if we structure it this way. 

We’ve worked really closely. Kevin Sergent and Cody Weber are two guys that are working really hard in our compliance area. I’m not sure if that’s the right term for that anymore, but strategically they’re working really, really hard to make sure that our coaches get what they need and that we are able to respond in a fashion that gives us best advantage in terms of recruiting and bringing the right people to our roster. 

As long as our coaches are engaged and happy and having good conversations with recruits, we feel really comfortable with just keeping it inside our family.”

After an eager follow-up question, trying to get more than just a “fluid” percentage response from the first, he was asked if there is some type of minimum number that a specific sport wouldn’t be able to dip below and he responded by saying his conversations with the head coaches has been proactive on the delegation plan.

“Coach Stoops and I have had a great conversation. Coach Pope, Coach Brooks. I think we talked about it, baseball. We’ve worked with volleyball, women’s basketball. I think we just want to be able to respond the right way. So hard numbers, I don’t know do anybody any good. Being really responsive to what we need is really, really important.”

Some reports this summer expect football and men’s basketball to be 50/50, and some expect it to flip-flop every other year between the two, we aren’t actually sure just yet and the administration doesn’t seem to be wanting to tell us. Fans can definitely ponder and make their guesses on what it should be, but it doesn’t look like we’re actually going to find out any time soon — or maybe ever.

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