Last week, Travis Branham of 247Sports reported that there are at least eight men’s college basketball teams expected to spend over $10 million on their 2025-26 rosters. Branham didn’t list any specific programs, but it felt safe to assume that Kentucky would be in that group — or at the very least, not far from it.
As it turns out, Kentucky is in that group, according to a Thursday report from Matt Norlander of CBS Sports. Kentucky is one of 10 teams that Norlander reports will spend upwards of $10 million on next season’s team (or “are easily capable of reaching that total in roster-building efforts by the end of this year’s transfer cycle”).
Those teams include:
- Arkansas
- BYU
- Duke
- Indiana
- Kentucky
- Louisville
- Michigan
- North Carolina
- St. John’s
- Texas Tech
Going into his second season as Wildcats head coach, Mark Pope has landed four transfers (a group that On3 ranks as the third-best in the country) and one international prospect. He’s already up to 12 scholarship players for 2025-26 and could add one or two more before it’s all said and done.
In today’s lawless college athletics landscape, schools can pay whatever amount they’re willing to.
Every year of the NIL era has seen
spikes but nothing compares to 2025. Schools are assembling $10 million+ rosters. Hundreds of millions are being promised across the sport. NIL contracts are brazenly broken.
An inside look at CBB’s unregulated economy. https://t.co/I7PudNKebm
— Matt Norlander (@MattNorlander) April 17, 2025
Norlander adds there are even more schools going over the $8 million mark on next season’s rosters. That list includes Auburn, Connecticut, Florida, Houston, Kansas, Kansas State, Miami, Purdue, Tennessee, Texas, UCLA, USC, Villanova, Virginia, and possibly a few more. Over 2,000 players have entered the portal since it opened earlier this month, nearly all of them searching for a larger payday.
Until revenue sharing is finally implemented, these types of insane dollar figure numbers will continue to be floated around.
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