The Gophers athletics department reported a $2.4 million surplus for fiscal year 2025, according to U documents made public this month. That seems likely to change for fiscal 2026.
The University of Minnesota reported $163.6 million in revenue and $161.2 in expenses for last year, but the 2025 fiscal year didn’t include the combined $20.5 million the school began paying student-athletes for the 2025-26 school year. With that on the books, the Gophers told the Board of Regents they forecast a deficit of nearly $9 million.
As part of a Congressional settlement with NCAA athletes, the NCAA began allowing $20.5 million annually that schools can share with student-athletes in addition to the money they can make on Name, Likeness and Image (NIL) deals. According to the recent report, the House Settlement had no financial implications for the 2025 fiscal year.
According to the recent report, there were roughly $10 million increases in revenues and expenses from fiscal year 2024, when the U had a $1.4 million shortfall on $151.1 million on 52.5 million in expenses.
Here are some broad strokes on the budget numbers in the annual report:
Media rights
The Gophers’ revenue from the Big Ten Conference from TV, radio, internet and e-commerce rose from $50.8 million in 2024 to $63 million in 2025.
Football accounted for $56.7 million and men’s basketball for $6.3 million. A year ago, that was $45.8 million for football and $5 million for men’s basketball.
The Big Ten also has increased distributions of bowl-generated revenues from $7.8 to $11.5 million year over year.
Ticket sales
The U reported a decrease of $3.1 million in ticket sales revenue, going from $22.6 million in fiscal year 2024 to $19.5 million in 2025.
Football ticket revenue fell from $14 million in 2024 to $11.6 million in 2025; men’s hockey was at $3.9 million in both fiscal years; and men’s basketball went from $2.3 million to $2.1 million.
Licensing, sponsorships
While revenue from ticket sales have dipped, the accounting pot for licensing agreements, sponsorships, advertisements and royalties has gone up from $11.2 million to $13 million in that same span.
Contributions
The U reported a decrease money given by individuals, corporations and other organizations for the operations of the athletics department. That went from $24.1 to $22.2 million in 2024 to ’25. The amount of in-kind contributions, non-monetary donations of goods or services, decreased from $1.1 million to $7,556.
Institutional support
UMN lists two types of institutional support — direct and indirect — and those two funding sources combined has grown from $9.7 million to $11.4 million in that same span.
Direct support is defined as funds for tuition, federal work study support and endowment income. Indirect is described as administrative services, facilities management, security, risk management and utilities.
The budget spot for “other operating revenues” grew from $5.8 to $7.5 million, while the “other operating expenses” pot has decreased from $6.1 to $4.5 million.
Compensation
The Gophers line items for coaches, support staff and administrative workers’ salaries, benefits and bonuses grew from $58.2 million to $62.8 million. This also includes an $800,000 increase in severance paid.
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