The House settlement has been approved, and Ohio State will have to figure out what that means for its entire athletic department. For the revenue-generating sports, the biggest issue will be allocating the NIL budget for the roster. For the other sports, it's something entirely.
Of course, Ohio State has sports other than just football, men's and women's basketball, and baseball. They also have shooting, synchronized swimming, equestrian, and a whole host of other sports that don't generate revenue. In fact, those sports cost money to run.
The massive amount of revenue that the Buckeyes are able to generate through the football program helps subsidize those sports. With the new settlement and Ohio State's current financial situation, things might have just turned for the worse for those other sports.
Why the House settlement could end some non-revenue-generating sports at Ohio State
For this season, the NIL budget is just over $20 million for the entire athletic department, not just football. That means that all of Ohio State's 36 sports will have to share from that pool. With how small a budget that is, and with the athletic department severely in debt, that is bad news.
Ohio State announced that the athletic department operated at a loss of almost $38 million last year. That is a massive amount of money to be in debt. Now that they have to spend money to directly pay athletes through NIL initiatives, some of the non-revenue-generating sports could cease to exist.
Ross Bjork has already said that the Ohio State Buckeyes will try their best to keep all 36 sports competing in the years to come. That doesn't mean that will actually be the case. There's a big difference between trying and succeeding, especially in today's world of big bucks in college athletics.
There is some time to sort through this and figure out exactly what the costs of everything will be. Ohio State is hoping that it can keep all of the sports that its students love to play and have loved to play for years. Allocating money in the right way will help them do that.