The Ohio State football program is figuring out how to navigate the fact that it will have a strict NIL budget to follow now that the House settlement has been approved. They have been planning for this for a while, but some fans were surprised at how small the budget is.
For the entire athletic department, the Ohio State Buckeyes will have $20.5 million to work with in terms of NIL money. How that money gets dispersed will be up to Ross Bjork and the athletic department now that athletes will be paid directly from the school.
Bjork recently spoke to the media for about an hour. He re-committed to keeping all 36 varsity sports and spoke on a number of other topics. One of those topics is the topic of revenue sharing. His thoughts have Ohio State football fans ecstatic.
Ohio State football fans are happy with Ross Bjork's comments on revenue sharing
Bjork revealed that the Buckeyes will share about $18 million worth of revenue, and that will be shared among four sports: football, men's and women's basketball, and women's volleyball. That's where the revenue sharing will start, and that will be reassessed after this year.
Ohio State will certainly use that money well with the football program. Any extra money that can be used to keep current players on the roster or get new recruits is money well spent. Ryan Day will have a better idea of how to allocate that money once things get nailed down.
Winning a national championship certainly helps the football team's claim to some more money. The Buckeyes will learn who deserves that money once they've had a year to try some things out. This is something they've been planning for, so they won't be caught off guard.
Bjork seems to have a good idea of which programs deserve this extra money. If they are able to make more, perhaps some other programs will also be able to join the revenue-sharing party. Until then, these four programs will be the ones that benefit.
The Buckeyes are in a really good spot to keep succeeding in the current landscape of college football.