Iowa State is among a handful of founding Big 12 members who remain with the conference, but it might face an uphill battle in keeping that status quo.
Earlier this week, Cyclones athletic director Jamie Pollard joined a podcast hosted by Elijah Moore and discussed some of the shocking problems his program faces moving forward.
In addition to the estimated $2.8 billion in back-pay damages that the House vs. NCAA settlement is set to give to current and former athletes, NCAA institutions will also have to implement a new revenue-sharing system if they hope to continue competing at the highest level in collegiate athletics.
The requirements to maintain athletic excellence are climbing by the second, and before long, Power Four programs will be forced to set aside eight-figure sums just to fund revenue-sharing with athletes.
“Iowa State does not have that $20 million,” Pollard says. “But if we don’t pay it for this coming year, we’ve got big problems, right? So, we’re going to pay it.”
The reported $20 million investment that schools will adopt isn’t a one-time thing, though — it’s going to be an annual expenditure. According to Pollard, that is the crux of Iowa State’s most significant issue going forward.
“Now, because of tremendous financial discipline and everything we’ve worked on over the last 20 years, our athletics program had a pretty substantial cash reserve that we built up, and we used that reserve during COVID — so we didn’t cost Iowa State, we didn’t cost the student body, we didn’t cost the Board of Regents a dime to get through COVID,” Pollard continued. “The University of Iowa [athletics program] got a $60 million loan from the university. Now, they haven’t paid a dime of that back yet, but they got a $60 million loan. We did not take a loan, we funded it from our reserves.
“We can’t fund the $20 million — in about two years, we’ll be out of the reserve.”
And here’s the scary part for Iowa State athletics — unless they find a way to sustainably provide those revenue-sharing funds, they’d be forced to make some drastic changes.
“So, Iowa State University will be faced with an athletics program with a huge annual deficit, if it wants to stay in the Big 12, and if it wants to have a P4 athletics department,” Pollard warns. “Now, we can decide we just want to have an athletic program like Northern Iowa, but that’s going to have a huge economic impact on the state, on central Iowa, on the city of Ames, and on this institution. So, that’s the problem that we’re staring at.
Fortunately, it sounds like there could be a feasible solution for the Cyclones, and it’s something that’s already been implemented elsewhere in the Power Four.
“Arizona State has put $50 million into the athletics department on an annualized basis, okay? You pick the program, I can tell you what the number is. Iowa State’s is zero, because that’s the Board of Regents’ policy. So, what would you feel, as a fellow student, if Iowa State did what Virginia Tech just did? Virginia Tech implemented a student fee that’s generating close to $20 millions year, and they’re going to use that fee to pay their student-athletes.”
It’s never going to be a popular opinion when prices increase for anything, but in this case, it might be a necessary evil that the Cyclones have to deal with.
ISU is so fortunate to have an athletic director of Pollard’s ilk at the forefront of their department; this kind of thinking is a perfect example.
With the Cyclones living in their best era of football and basketball success in the program’s history, it’s hard to imagine them falling into obscurity — something Pollard and company just aren’t going to let happen.
