Smaller Sports Carry Big Stick for Razorbacks with Upcoming Revenue Sharing

Hogs' overall athletics program closes gap with SEC schools relying only on football, NIL

Arkansas Razorbacks shortstop Wehiwa Aloy is congratulated by coach Dave Van Horn after his homer in the Fayetteville Regional of the NCAA Tournament. / Michael Morrison-allHOGS Images

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — For a good century, football teams across America, including Arkansas, have boasted proudly about how about how they have carried the load financially.

However, going into the upcoming new era, if things go as they've been vaguely explained, the other sports will get their due in terms of pride at Arkansas. In a few weeks, revenue sharing is expected to kick in, allowing athletics departments to use a shade over 20% of their budgets toward paying players.

Arkansas coach Sam Pittman has been bullish about this leveling the playing field a bit for the Hogs, but the logical point opponents of his optimism have posed is that everyone will be getting that boost in money to lure athletes. However, that's not exactly how this works.

See, it's not a set number. It's a percentage. The larger the pie, the larger the slice, and in the world of college athletics as a whole, Arkansas has a pretty big pie.

Back during the summer, we did an analysis of revenue sources for Razorbacks Athletics as compared to the rest of the SEC. Surprisingly, the Hogs either led or were near the top of every available income statistic other than donors, and in some cases, it was by a long shot.

• Ticket sales
• Corporate revenue
• Media revenue
• Donors

That's because, despite all those seats being empty during deer season, duck season and Wednesday nights, every backside depository in Bud Walton Arena is purchased. That's nearly 20,000 tickets per home game, which is typically good for either first or second best in the nation in terms of tickets sold in all of college basketball each year.

On the baseball side, Arkansas draws more on a 40 degree mid-week game in March than 90% of America draws for a big conference game in perfect weather. The Razorbacks are always in the Top 3 in the country with an average attendance across the entire season of over 10,000 per game.

To put that in perspective, Texas comes in at No. 5 at around 7,000 per game. No. 20 is Alabama in the 3,000 range.

This season, Arkansas plays 36 home games. That means the Hogs will sell over a quarter of a million tickets more than the Tide in baseball, and another 85,000 basketball tickets provided Nate Oats can keep his team at a Final Four level.

That's not to mention how well women's sports tend to draw at Arkansas, especially softball, soccer gymnastics. In an NIL only world, schools like Ole Miss and Missouri have been able to compete with Arkansas, but often outbid them.

However, in terms of full athletics budgets, the Hogs bring in so much ticket revenue and corporate sponsorships that both schools will see the gap closed significantly. In fact, the "M" schools — Mississippi, Mississippi State and Missouri — regularly finish at the bottom of the SEC in terms of total revenue.

Arkansas is a Top 20 program in teams of revenue brought in and expenses paid from that revenue. The Hogs fall just barely behind Tennessee and Oregon at over $152.5 million in revenue following the 2022-23 season and actually exceed the Ducks' spending by $4 million at $144.3 million in expenditures.

Based off that sample, only schools in the SEC, Big Ten and a few ACC schools can compete with Arkansas. Here's how much money for players each school will have if the final number is determined by budgetary money spent.

1. Ohio State, $49.7 million
2. Texas, $49.5 million
3. Alabama, $43.1 million
4. Michigan, $42.6 million
5. LSU, $42.4 million
6. Texas A&M, $39.1 million
7. Oklahoma, $38.7 million
8. Florida, $38.4 million
9. Penn State, $37.5 million
10. Georgia, 37.2 million
11. Tennessee, $34.6 million
12. Michigan State, $34.4 million
13. Kentucky, $33.8
14. Auburn, $33.33
15. Iowa, $33.3 million
16. Florida St., $33.2 million
17. Virginia, $33.1 million
18. Washington, $32.9 million
19. Wisconsin, $32.5 million
20. ARKANSAS, $31.8 million

As can easily be seen, the Razorbacks have very little gap between themselves and Kentucky at No. 13. It's a lead by the Wildcats that can easily evaporate simply by having to overbid for a quarterback against other SEC teams.

If the required route is true revenue sharing and not just a percentage of expenditures, then that total for Arkansas goes up to $33.6 million and the gap between the Razorbacks and Wildcats dwindles to $1.4 million.

It's such a huge shift in financial power that any player who doesn't intend to graduate early should have his agent begging him to wait to sign in February so teams that couldn't compete financially before can drive up the asking price. Arkansas is going to be thirsty for linemen, and although Pittman will likely do most of his head hunting in the portal, there are a few offensive linemen out there he'd probably like to go after now that his checkbook will be more equal to his reputation as a developer at the position.

Now, one thing to keep in mind is not all of that money is going to football. However, that's the same for all these other schools too.

Still, a big chunk of it will end up at Pittman's discretion and it will be much more that what roughly 114 other FBS schools will have at their disposal minus NIL money. Arkansas will still be short in that regard, but it is a huge leap forward for all of the Razorbacks programs across the board.

HOGS FEED:

• Arkansas broke or almost broke numerous records last night

• Live Blog: Arkansas vs. Maryland Eastern Shore

• There's one caveat being ignored in revenue sharing discussion

• Saturday's game has to finally be as personal for Pittman as it is for Drinkwitz

• SEC Shorts: 4th & 25 may have been replaced at Ole Miss; Georgia doesn't want SEC title

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