In this day and age of college sports, it seems like the world of NIL is grabbing the sport by the throat in the offseason. This offseason is no different, as many top players in college basketball are bypassing the NBA Draft to stay and make guaranteed money in college. This is also the case for many players who would make more money in college than at the next level.
Recruitments, especially for transfers, have essentially become bidding wars and if you’re not willing to outpay the other schools in contention, your chances of landing that player go down. NIL is running college sports at a level where a lot of schools are unable to keep up. CBS Sports’ Matt Norlander recently revealed an interesting stat on the NIL budget of many schools, and Kentucky was included in the select handful of programs with a $10 million budget, one of the largest in college basketball. Others in the high range of $10 million include Duke, Arkansas, Indiana, Louisville, North Carolina, Michigan, St. John’s, BYU and Texas Tech.
Norlander did an important note on the big budget of those schools. “These programs either have $10 million committed already or are easily capable of reaching that total in roster-building efforts by the end of this year’s transfer cycle,” Norlander said. That shows just how big Kentucky’s NIL budget is. Mark Pope has all of the NIL resources he needs at a place like Kentucky. The thing with how Pope is approaching roster building is smart. Pope isn’t looking to “overpay” for a player where it would take a massive chunk of the budget. With the roster he has built so far, it looks to be more evenly distributed and very methodical, although we don’t know the exact numbers for each player. Right now, Kentucky has the third-best transfer portal class, according to 247 Sports.
It’s safe to say Mark Pope is spending his budget wisely in the transfer portal as he looks to put the finishing touches on Kentucky’s 2025-26 roster.
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