This is the most important paragraph in DG’s post:
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Unsustainable.
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To answer the title question: I don’t think the power schools in the Big Ten or SEC are near the tipping point at all. Revenue is still exploding year over year. The demand for live events for tv, which is the only thing that gets eyeballs anymore, is not going anywhere soon.
As DG pointed out and Blues just emphasized, I think the top of non-powers are speeding recklessly towards the tipping point. Miami investing 8-10m in football, as reported, doesn’t do anything when just the Big Ten conference distribution alone went up 13m+ (for some schools more) per year for every Big Ten team. That ignores any other revenue or increased donor support. We made historic investment and didn’t even catch up, we fell further behind.
Everyone thinks there is going to be another big shakeup in the next 4-5 years. Miami clearly thinks there’s value in going all-in to try and secure a spot in the second tier in that future college sports landscape. I really hope that pans out, but I fear it won’t and we’ll be left in a very similar spot where instead of playing Ball State or CMU, we are instead in a new conference playing other schools nominally better that still have no real cachet outside their own limited fanbases.
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Something we need to consider is the difference between P4 and the elite P4 in roster spending. People think P4 and automatically think $40-$50M football rosters. Sure, this is true for Ohio State, Texas, Texas Tech but the reality is that a lot of P4 teams don’t get to the $20.5M cap (I have it on good authority NW is around $12M for football).
I push back a bit on falling further behind from P4 schools. Miami had a record year vs P4 opponents. Basketball beating SMU. Baseball beating Purdue and Michigan. Softball sweeping Minnesota, sweeping Mizzou, beating Iowa. Hockey taking 2 of 3 vs ASU. Ironically the most P4 wins comes in a year that NIL/Rev Share are officially in place.
Miami is never going to be Clemson or Florida State financially, and probably shouldn’t try to be. But I also don’t think the answer is to disengage or concede irrelevance. There’s still tremendous value in having a competitive, visible athletics program that drives alumni engagement, student interest, donor participation, and national exposure for the university as a whole.
I also think there’s a reality coming that schools like Miami have to prepare for: the MAC as we know it may not exist long term in the current college athletics structure. The gap between the top conferences and everyone else keeps widening, and simply retreating to FCS or scaling back ambition would likely make Miami less relevant nationally, not more stable. I think the university should be positioning itself for future opportunities in a stronger conference alignment rather than voluntarily shrinking its profile.
That doesn’t mean blindly chasing an impossible spending war. It means recognizing that standing still in this environment is effectively moving backward. The good news is that the university agrees on the buy-in for athletics. President Crawford has agreed that the university will match dollar for dollar on all Red Brick Legacy donations for the next 5-7 years.
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Going to double down on @YagerYardBoss 's thoughts. And the empirical data is there: the most P4 wins in a year.
They just had their highest US News & World ranking in the university’s history. They’re also now designated as a Carnegie Research R1 institution. So since joining the ACC, quite a bit.
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Where is the direct causality? Are those improvements directly related to being in the ACC or are they a result of direct investment and commitment to improve academics?
As I’ve frequently said on here, Alabama, LSU and Oklahoma have been Flutie Effecting for generations yet Minnesota, Illinois and Purdue are viewed as infinitely better universities despite being largely non-entities in football for generations.
There are seismic changes occurring every year. This tool may be interesting. You can debate the methodology, but this might show who has the capacity to position themselves for the future in all areas of college life.
2024-2025 Recruiting Expenses Total for All Sports:
Interesting - I’m a bit shocked at VA Tech and NC State being that high with their recent historical field performance in the major sports.