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With all the talk about money, and certain universities throwing money at certain sports, I thought it would be interesting to look at the numbers regarding this question: How does a top budget for a given sport compare to how the team ranked at the end of the season? Is more money translating into a higher ranking?
I had considered not looking at men’s basketball, but I decided that basketball was not in the same position as football, where NIL in football distorts a look at their numbers. Yes, NIL affects men’s basketball, but subjectively not to the extent of football – at least in my view. Regardless of the NIL money, top programs are budgeted with big dollars, so why not take a look? A future look at NIL for men’s basketball and football might be worth going down that rabbit hole, but in any case that’s a separate discussion.
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As with our other budget vs. ranking examinations, private universities are not included in this list. Let’s get to it:
2024-2026
Here are the top 12 publicly available men’s basketball budgets for 2024-2026:
1 – Indiana University, Bloomington $32,041,364
2 – University of Tennessee, Knoxville $23,183,445
3 – University of Arizona $22,608,493
4 – University of Texas at Austin $22,403,330
5 – University of Connecticut (UConn) $21,554,604
6 – University of Arkansas $21,254,027
7 – Michigan State University $21,009,976
8 – University of Kentucky $20,787,671
9 – Auburn University $20,535,097
10 – University of Louisville $19,884,419
11 – University of Kansas $19,732,079
12 – University of Illinois $18,619,676
Because I have the same fiscal year information to work with, the charts below are different in how these 12 schools ended their season in 2025 vs. 2026 . This first chart is based on the 2025 final rankings:
Quite a few schools did not rank in the top 25 – Indiana, Texas, Arkansas, Michigan State, Louisville, and Kansas.
Here is the same information with the end of season final rankings for 2026:
Here we have fewer…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/ncaa-men-basketball-top-spending-200000105.html
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Publish date : 2026-09-23 20:00:00
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