Good morning, and thanks for spending part of your day with Extra Points.
Congrats to all college basketball fans, as the men’s and women’s seasons have finally tipped off. Which means it’s time for us to share some financial information! Wooooooo!
A few weeks ago, we shared our first comprehensive, sport-specific report, a deep dive into softball spending. Later, we produced a similar report for college baseball. Then we published one for women’s college basketball.
Today, we’re expanding to men’s college basketball.
Below, we’re sharing what we’ve learned about national spending trends, the relationship between particular spending and on-field success, where spending is increasing, what national budget distributions look like and more. Our editor, Joan Niesen, contributed heavily to this report.
Executive Summary
Key metrics across all D-I men’s basketball programs reporting financial data in FY2024-25
Spending is concentrated at the top. The 25 highest-spending programs — 10.5 percent of reporting programs — accounted for 34.6 percent of total expenses.
Bigger budgets don't guarantee a tournament berth. Seven of the 25 highest-spending programs in the report missed the 2025 NCAA tournament.
For the 232 programs with matched FY2023-24 and FY2024-25 expense data, reported expenses increased by $81,835,417 (6.5 percent) year-over-year.
Median total expenses for men's basketball exceeded median expenses for women's basketball by about $700,000 (roughly 30 percent). Among programs reporting FY2024-25 data in the two reports, median expenses for men's programs were $2,902,405, compared with $2,191,779 for women's.
The revenue gap between men's programs and women's was wider than the spending gap. Median total revenue was $2,022,795 for men's basketball versus $1,044,514 for women's — about 1.9 times as much.
Table of Contents
Spending Landscape
Aggregate and per-program spending, plus spending breakdowns
The median D-I men's basketball program spent $2,902,405, with the middle 50 percent of programs falling between $2,172,798 and $7,378,177.
Indiana reported the highest expenses at $32,041,364; Tennessee ranked next at $23,183,445 and Arizona third at $22,608,493.
The median reported coaching staff spend was $1,159,075.
The median recruiting budget was $101,584. Kentucky spent the most: $1,361,828, 13.4 times the D-I median.
Memphis, a member of the AAC, spent $10,776,074, more than seven of the 53 reporting programs among the Power 4 conferences. UCF (Big 12) spent $7,812,023, the lowest figure among Power 4 programs.
The spending distribution has a thin middle: Only 13 of 237 programs (5.5 percent) spent between $6 million and $10 million; 72.6 percent of programs spent less than $6 million, and 21.9 percent spent $10 million or more.
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