Revenue sharing plan for Purdue Athletics: How it works and what it means

Another new era of college athletics begins July 1 when athletes can receive compensation from schools

Note: This is the first of a series. We’ll explore how the university plans to support the athletic department with its budget, where the $20.5 million comes from, the athletic department’s future scholarship situation, what will happen with NIL, and other related topics.

It won’t be perfect, but the new world order of schools sharing revenue is about to begin. It starts July 1, following the approval of the House v. NCAA settlement.

Who will be the first Purdue athlete to receive money from revenue share? It’s unlikely the school will share that information, but it will make for a good trivia question one day.

Purdue - and other schools - have been preparing for more than a year to implement their plans to distribute money to athletes. Not every athlete at every school will receive money. Each school will prioritize the sports and athletes that will receive money from a pool of $20.5 million. Think of it as a hard salary cap; exceeding that amount is supposed to result in penalties. We’ll see.

The $20.5 million figure represents the average revenue generated by Division I athletic departments from ticket sales, gate receipts, sponsorships, and media rights. The number increases by 4% during the 2026-27 school year and continues to rise over the next decade.

“Those dollars, that number, is aggregated across all of the Power 4 (conferences), and that's how the $20.5 million is arrived at. That's why we're all dealing with the same number,” Purdue athletic director Mike Bobinski said during an interview with a group of local media earlier this week.

PURDUE’S PLAN

Football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, and volleyball will receive nearly all the revenue to share with athletes. Football is the financial engine that drives revenue and should receive most of the money.

The industry standard: 75% (football), 15% (men’s basketball), 5% (women’s basketball), and 5% (split among other sports). Athletic director Mike Bobinski didn’t disclose the exact percentages - or amounts - each sport will receive, but they’re in line with what other schools are providing.

“We probably went a little below 75% in football, and we probably went more than 15% men's basketball,” Bobinski said.

Women’s basketball used a portion of its revenue share on next season’s roster, including the seven transfers.

According to the Indianapolis Star, Indiana is also funding football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, and volleyball with $20.5 million.

Purdue AD Mike Bobinski (Chad Krockover Photography)

WHAT ABOUT OTHER SPORTS?

While the four sports eat up nearly all of the allotment, Bobinski pulled back “in the neighborhood of $300,000” for the non-revenue share programs.

“It's really to either retain or recruit elite-level athletes,” Bobinski said. “For instance, if you have somebody on one of your non-rev share sports that maybe has All-American status, or somebody that you want to make sure that you keep.”

Bobinski said the rest of the programs will “compete for those dollars, and we’ll allocate those (where) they can be most productive for us going forward.”

The non-revenue sharing sports will continue to receive Alston Awards, which are education-related financial aid provided by schools for academic-related expenses up to $5,980 per year. Purdue paid out $1.165 million in Alston Awards during the 2024-25 school year.

“We allowed them to keep, maybe not dollar for dollar, what they had before, but a very close approximation,” Bobinski said. “We didn't cut them off cold turkey in this first year. I think we've made it very clear that may not be a forever condition, but as a transition year, we haven't just dropped the curtain and said, ‘Hey, you guys get scholarships and not another dollar.’ We've continued some support there.”

However, the Alston Awards count against the school’s $20.5 million pool.

“That reduced our revenue share opportunity for this first year because we wanted to continue to support the Olympic sports,” Bobinski said. “We may rethink that and convert that, maybe even to scholarships.”

Purdue is fortunate that it ranks near the bottom of the Big Ten in the number of sports offered. Other schools, for example, feature national championship programs in wrestling (Iowa, Penn State), hockey (Minnesota, Wisconsin), and track and field (USC, Oregon), which may require an additional financial investment to maintain the status of their programs.

“Penn State’s won a million national championships (wrestling) in a row. They don't want to let that slide,” Bobinski said. “I'm sure that there's probably, and I don't know this, but I would guess that they're probably slicing off some rev share to support the wrestling program.

“There are volleyball programs in our league that are at the top, top, top of the heap, and don't want to let that slide. They want to make sure they protect that. We're doing something for volleyball, but there might be somebody that's doing 2x what we're doing, and that's not inconceivable for me to imagine.

“We want to continue to be good. That's why we're giving them rev share. But I know that maybe Nebraska, maybe Wisconsin, the people that are right there, they might have done more. Again, none of that is specifically known. I don't know what people are doing, dollar for dollar?”

HOLDING BACK MONEY

Athletes sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), a standard contract with extensive legal language vetted by the Big Ten's lawyers.

Bobinski said that all of Purdue’s agreements are for one year, but the option to sign multi-year deals is available. For example, Washington has a six-month MOU along with a one-year contract.

Buyouts can be written into the MOU, but if a Purdue coach were to pursue an athlete with a multi-year contract from another school, the buyout money would be deducted from the current revenue-sharing pool.

Money doesn’t carry over into the next fiscal year, but programs aren’t required to spend their entire allotment. The $20.5 million is available for use during the 2025-26 school year and resets with a new figure on July 1, 2026.

Bobinski said that football and men’s basketball have held back funds to use in the next transfer portal windows in the winter and spring, as the money from this year can be used through June 30, 2026.

“If you fire all your bullets here … and then you have another transfer window, or you have other things happen, and you've spent every dollar you have, you're like, ‘Okay, now what?’ ” Bobinski said. “I believe there are some people that have done just that, whereas our folks have said, ‘We recognize there's going to be a need to be in the transfer world at that point.’

“So, having some resources available to be competitive and attract the right young people matters. They have intentionally sectioned off and withheld some dollars for that period of time, which I think is really smart, particularly given the fact that they don't feel it's hamstrung them at this current time.”