Northwestern announces $35 million donation to the football program from the Uihleins

"This donation is more general, described as a way to “support the continued growth and success of [Northwestern’s] football program.”"

Like it. Have to have it to compete.

Great news

For top tier players, how much money comes directly from the university versus money from NIL or endorsements and other outside sources? While certainly this influx of cash to the football program bodes well for future success, it's not like we can suddenly start buying up top players, right?

TheC said:

For top tier players, how much money comes directly from the university versus money from NIL or endorsements and other outside sources? While certainly this influx of cash to the football program bodes well for future success, it's not like we can suddenly start buying up top players, right?

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Wrong. Of course we can. Go read about the recruitment of Caleb Siler on the Rock. Oh wait. Never mind.

Awesome news for NU football fans.

Can't vouch for the journalistic quality...

Donors funding and supporting NIL is the most important next step now that we've finished the facilities buildout for athletics.

I am glad NU is competitive. I am sad that the cost of fielding a college football team is stratospheric. I do not know the budget of NU’s team, but, based on $20 mill allowable in direct subsidy, assume it is $32 mill a year. At 8000 undergrads, that pencils to $4000 a student. I understand that the funding sources do not come from the academic budget, but the size of the football budget compared to other student related activities seems way of of proportion to me.

As a side note that is tangentially related, I was reading the threads about ticket packages for NRF and marveled that my Cal ticket package (which has both senior and Cal community discounts) is $150 a seat a year.

eastbaycat99 said:

I am glad NU is competitive. I am sad that the cost of fielding a college football team is stratospheric. I do not know the budget of NU’s team, but, based on $20 mill allowable in direct subsidy, assume it is $32 mill a year. At 8000 undergrads, that pencils to $4000 a student. I understand that the funding sources do not come from the academic budget, but the size of the football budget compared to other student related activities seems way of of proportion to me.

As a side note that is tangentially related, I was reading the threads about ticket packages for NRF and marveled that my Cal ticket package (which has both senior and Cal community discounts) is $150 a seat a year.

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Cal might want to consider raising their ticket prices.

eastbaycat99 said:

I am glad NU is competitive. I am sad that the cost of fielding a college football team is stratospheric. I do not know the budget of NU’s team, but, based on $20 mill allowable in direct subsidy, assume it is $32 mill a year. At 8000 undergrads, that pencils to $4000 a student. I understand that the funding sources do not come from the academic budget, but the size of the football budget compared to other student related activities seems way of of proportion to me.

As a side note that is tangentially related, I was reading the threads about ticket packages for NRF and marveled that my Cal ticket package (which has both senior and Cal community discounts) is $150 a seat a year.

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NU's player payroll in 2025 was $21M according to this site. It ranked 15th in the conference, and is roughly half of the funding provided by Oregon and OSU, the top two. All B1G schools paid $15.6M in revenue sharing funds. The rest is NIL. What is interesting is that an additional $5.5M in NIL would put NU at #8 in these rankings. There is a large cluster of teams with a total payroll in the mid $20M range. So the Uhlein gift could be very impactful, especially if it inspires a few others.

Ultimately, I'd love to see an NIL endowment of $100M or more (ideally, considerably more). We all know who could make that happen in the blink of an eye. My guess is that it probably will at some point once the market for NIL has settled down a bit.

I've had a change of mind over the past half decade. I wanted the university to focus on academics and to toe the line with admissions for revenue sports. The epiphany, for me, was what is going on admissions and fundraising at Duke. By fielding a MBB program that is consistently elite, they have gained global notoriety and huge fundraising. It's an integral part of the university identity, and all it takes is 7-8 "exceptions" per year, in both admissions and player payments. NU seems to be drifting toward a similar model for FB, whilst leaving CCC to make due with scotch tape and paper clips.

A couple dozen exceptions for revenue sports provide huge visibility for the university. It hasn't hurt Duke's reputation, it has enhanced it.

I'm OK with the U Chicago route but we clearly aren't doing that after a billion in facilities

eastbaycat99 said:

I am glad NU is competitive. I am sad that the cost of fielding a college football team is stratospheric. I do not know the budget of NU’s team, but, based on $20 mill allowable in direct subsidy, assume it is $32 mill a year. At 8000 undergrads, that pencils to $4000 a student. I understand that the funding sources do not come from the academic budget, but the size of the football budget compared to other student related activities seems way of of proportion to me.

As a side note that is tangentially related, I was reading the threads about ticket packages for NRF and marveled that my Cal ticket package (which has both senior and Cal community discounts) is $150 a seat a year.

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The AD is probably running around $160 million to $180 million in annual revenue in the current FY or next FY with the new stadium and full sponsorships/revenue opportunities that it will start to bring online along with the Big Ten distribution.

This is a business; it's not about students and fees; you can't really think about it as $4000 per student when the reality is that Big Ten conference distributions and the stadium/arena revenues/sponsorships are paying virtually all of this; it's about the revenue that the programs bring in...

When some of the older folks around here were on campus, the AD was probably bringing in $1 million in annual revenue. This is a different world completely.


This is one of the reasons I was so heavily in favor of concerts at new RF. Where do you think the profit from renting out RF to concerts will end up? Likely a decent part will end up in paying players. Millions of dollars from other events at RF will make a difference. You have to think about this like it's a professional sports team now. All the different revenue sources add up and you have to pull every lever that you can.

CoralSpringsCat said:

Wrong. Of course we can. Go read about the recruitment of Caleb Siler on the Rock. Oh wait. Never mind.

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You do realize that people can google recruits for more information eh?

i am friends with Injaychock’s dad.

i tried hard to sell him on NU over Mizzou.

Luke just likes the Show Me State more.

Hungry Jack said:

Ultimately, I'd love to see an NIL endowment of $100M or more (ideally, considerably more). We all know who could make that happen in the blink of an eye. My guess is that it probably will at some point once the market for NIL has settled down a bit.

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I keep telling you, when I said I was a trillionaire, it was a joke!