In an email to University of Michigan stakeholders on Wednesday, athletic director Warde Manuel provided updates following developments in the House vs. NCAA lawsuits and their impact on the University of Michigan athletics department.
A judge set a preliminary timeline that would see settlement approval in the spring of 2025, meaning the new changes would take place in the 2025-26 academic year.
One of the significant changes coming in the legislation is compensation for athletes from their university via revenue sharing. In the email, Manuel says, "Institutions will be permitted to compensate student-athletes through revenue sharing, anticipated to be between $22-23 million annually."
It is still not known how the revenue will be split among all sports at Michigan.
Another change is the institution of roster limits. Teams will now have limits on the number of players they can roster but expanded availability of scholarships. Schools can provide scholarships to all players on the roster per sport. However, the ability to do this would be a massive new cost.
"Maintaining a high level of support for our 29 NCAA athletic programs will take an elevated commitment from everyone. The anticipated annual payment of $22 million will go directly to the athletes starting with the 2025-26 academic year, with those payments estimated to increase every year to maintain a proportional revenue share. Should our department also decide to meet all the new NCAA scholarship limits for each of our 29 teams, education costs to support those additional student-athletes are expected to increase by $29 million annually."
The combination of revenue share and scholarship expansion equates to roughly a $50M budget expansion, according to Manuel.
"Consequently, the cost to support our budget with new revenue share and scholarship opportunities, will take a combination of generating more revenue and reducing expenses, to cover approximately $50 million in additional dollars each year."
Manuel goes on to say Michigan intends to lead in this new era of revenue share, and that funding NIL efforts will continue to be a focus. Manuel also clarifies that while some schools have shared concerns that some sports will need to be cut, Michigan is committed to keeping all 29 programs.
"We intend to maximize the revenue-sharing opportunities presented by these new policies to support and recognize the NIL contributions of our student-athletes to the full extent allowed by the NCAA and the agreed upon settlement. Their hard work in athletics and commitment to the community and classroom help drive our collective passion for Michigan Athletics. We are continuing to assess the number of additional scholarships that our department will be able to fund, but we are firm in our commitment not to eliminate any sports or reduce the number of scholarships we currently offer."
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