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According to financial records, the University of Utah athletic department turned a profit of $4,692,729 in fiscal year 2025, which ran from July 1, 2024, through June 30, 2025.
In a time where plenty of college programs operate at a loss, a year with any profit turned by an athletic department is a successful one, and Utah’s latest budget surplus allows it to sock away money at a moment where the athletic department needs every dollar it can get.
“Establishing a business model that can succeed over the long term has been, and always will be, the priority. FY24’s breakup of the Pac-12 Conference was unplanned and unprecedented, leading to the one-time substantial deficit,” Utah Athletics chief financial officer John Jentz told the Deseret News.
“FY25’s positive net margin was significant to reestablish Utah’s history of solvency entering into the new era, while acknowledging that it will always be a challenge.”
Football continues to be king at Utah, bringing in $101,799,480 for the university’s athletic department in fiscal 2025. A chunk of that revenue is from the Big 12’s football media rights deal, which brought in $19,802,898, and Utah’s share of Big 12 postseason football revenue, $12,391,544.
Utah football continued its sellout streak at Rice-Eccles Stadium and collected $10,936,251 in ticket sales and added $9,380,497 from royalties, licensing, advertisement and sponsorships.
Overall, with $51,792,175 in total operating expenses, the football program turned a $50,007,305 profit.
The biggest line item on Utah’s revenue sheet, however, is a record-setting amount of contributions from donors — $63.3 million across the entire athletic department, including $39,846,967 in donations for the football program and a $14 million estate gift from an anonymous donor that will be “used to form an endowment and support the university’s women’s athletics programs.”
“The long-term generosity of Utes fans and the success of the Crimson Club has fueled an upward trend in donations over recent years, resulting in a third-consecutive record year for athletics fundraising in FY25, with $63.3 million in support from a record 11,502 donors,” said Utah athletic director Mark Harlan. “Offering a diverse stream of giving opportunities over many years helped position our department to ensure that FY25 revenues exceeded expenses.”
Men’s basketball made a $7,350,750 profit in fiscal 2025, bolstered by $3,494,629 from its share of Big 12 media rights, $2,035,791 in ticket sales, $7,381,404 in donor contributions and $1,904,268 in NCAA Tournament distributions. The men’s basketball program also made $1,668,193 in royalties, licensing, advertisement and sponsorships.
The other programs in the athletic department — aside from men’s tennis, which showed a profit of $14,440 thanks to donations of $801,214 — were in the red, as is the case throughout college sports.
In the vast majority of years, Utah’s athletic department was able to use the excess money from football and men’s basketball to fund the rest of the sports and still turn a profit.
In the new era of college sports, that model may not be possible anymore.
A changing financial model
Out of the 98 pages and thousands of numbers in Utah’s fiscal 2025 report, one figure stood out. That was the $0 next to “Institutional NIL Revenue Share.”
As noted, fiscal year 2025 ran from July 1, 2024, through June 30, 2025. On July 1, 2025, college sports changed forever as revenue sharing payments from universities started going out to athletes.
In a fundamental change to how college sports works, players are now paid directly by universities. The cap on revenue share for 2025-26 was $20.5 million, and that number will increase in the coming years.
In an August town hall event, Harlan declined to get into specifics about how the $20.5 million is split up among Utah’s sports, but said Utah was not too far off of how the backpay in the NCAA settlement is split up among sports. Approximately 75% of the nearly $2.8 billion in backpay to athletes who played sports between 2016-2024 before revenue sharing will go to football players, with 15% going to men’s basketball.
Schools are not required to pay out the new $20.5 million number to players each year, but funding the maximum revenue sharing figure is now the minimum a Power Four school can do to be competitive. Players can also earn additional money from “true NIL” — companies paying players to promote their businesses. These deals are reviewed by the new College Sports Commission, an entity that reviews each NIL deal to make sure that it is within “fair market value.”
In theory, under the new rules, a wealthy booster can’t sign a quarterback to an NIL deal that is well over market value.
Last year, schools front-loaded NIL deals that were created before the CSC system was in place — Texas Tech had $30 million in external NIL deals in addition to revenue sharing, per a report by Brandon Marcello of CBS Sports — but starting in the 2026 season, with the NIL regulations in place, the hope is that there’s a more level playing field for schools.
Whether that actually happens remains to be seen.
The professionalization of college sports is here, in everything but name. Football and basketball programs have a “general manager” who decides how the “payroll” is split up between programs. “Free agency,” aka the transfer portal, now happens every year. Players sign NIL contracts.
While the athletes deserve their slice of the pie, the new age of college athletics comes at a big cost to schools, including Utah.
“I mentioned my relationship with the president and also the (board of) trustees to not panic when we talk about deficit spending. There’s not a school in America, I don’t care if you’re (in) the Big Ten, that’s not going into some deficit spending or relooking at athletics as just a revenue maker,” Harlan said in August.
Power Four schools across the nation — some of which are already in the red on a yearly basis — now have a $20.5 million line item added to their budget each year. For a school like Utah, which has done well to historically turn a profit, that new $20.5 million expense means operating in the red without either drastically cutting costs or drastically increasing revenue.
“The challenge was that as we kept modeling with my team and certainly with (Utah CFO Tony Wagner’s) team and everybody on the president’s team, it just wasn’t penciling out on our ability to keep up with cost because we’re going to be a powerful program,” Harlan said at December’s board of trustees meeting.
“And to be a powerful program, you have to be at the very top of the revenue share number. We have a successful football team on most every year, which means everyone comes looking for them, right? I mean, I’ve been in places where you don’t get calls about your coaches. That’s not a very fun place to be. It’s different at the University of Utah. We want to retain and we want to reward, but as we penciled everything out, it just wasn’t adding up.”
Why Utah turned to private equity
Utah’s final financial snapshot before revenue sharing went into effect paints a picture that explains part of why university and athletics leadership wanted to partner with private equity firm Otro Capital.
“To me, I felt like sitting and collecting deficits every year would eventually, as has been described here, start draining other critical parts of this university,” Harlan said at the December board meeting.
The partnership, which is expected to be finalized soon, is expected to generate $500 million-plus for the athletic department, according to Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports.
As part of the still-to-be-finalized deal, Otro Capital will inject infusions of money at different points — Utah won’t get the $500 million all at once — when it is needed. Utah Athletics will spin its revenue side into a new entity, Utah Brand Initiatives, which will oversee revenue sources, including trademark licensing, event-related revenues, sponsorships, ticketing and more.
Prominent donors will also have the ability to purchase a stake in the new Utah Brand Initiatives enterprise, meaning the money won’t solely come from Otro.
The monetary injection will partly be used to pay for the maximum revenue sharing allowed, allowing the university to financially compete at a high level without going into debt.
“Increased revenues will be used to help pay for maximum revenue sharing. As we move forward in this new dynamic, our goal is to maximize all opportunities to significantly elevate Utah Athletics and we will be very forward-thinking in our approach,” Harlan said.
Utah is the first Power Four school to partner its athletic department with private equity.
“The university considered many options and scenarios as it contemplated this deal. Utah is being closely watched as a leader and innovator in this space as other schools consider how to address similar financial challenges,” said Troy D’Ambrosio, University of Utah vice president for innovation and chief of staff to President Taylor Randall.
Other schools, faced with similar financial pressures, could follow suit.
“All Division I athletic departments and their university peers have been preparing for what lies ahead for the past two to three years,” Harlan told the Deseret News. “It’s likely that most have had very similar conversations on their campus to thoroughly explore each of the various options that others have announced. We intentionally selected this approach because of the unique opportunities it presented, and its alignment with institutional ambitions.”
There are risks for both parties.
Will Otro and Utah be able to raise revenue — and cut expenses — by enough to make money on the deal? Private equity companies don’t do deals to lose money.
“The university and Otro both benefit when Utah Brand Initiatives is profitable, and both share risk. The parties are highly motivated to succeed,” D’Ambrosio said.
Otro Capital’s portfolio includes the Formula 1 team Alpine Racing, sports analytics platform Two Circles, and sports and event marketing company FlexWork Sports. Otro co-founder Alec Scheiner has been the vice president of the Dallas Cowboys and the president of the Cleveland Browns.
Otro brings experience in professional sports, which is what collegiate athletics is resembling more and more with each passing year, and believes it can increase revenue and — importantly — increase the valuation of Utah Brand Initiatives.
“Stabilizing Utah Athletics in a time of uncertainty and transition,” said D’Ambrosio of the benefits of the partnership.
“We are partnering with Otro to build a world-class branding platform. We expect that by combining the various branding activities from across campus, including athletics, and by taking advantage of Otro’s deep experience at the professional sports level, we will be able to significantly enhance the university’s brand recognition and its value, driving increasing revenues.”
Added Harlan: “We expect this partnership to significantly improve the fan and student-athlete experience, including increased support for student-athletes, robust NIL development, and stabilization of revenue streams. This new partnership will professionalize and elevate the revenue-generating aspects of Utah Athletics.”
For Utah, there’s also risk involved — but the university does have some safeguards in place.
The University of Utah will have majority ownership and decision-making power in Utah Brand Initiatives. Harlan will be the chairman of the board and Utah will have four members, including Harlan, on the board. Otro will have two members on the board and one other board spot will be filled by a Utah donor/investor.
That means the university has a majority rule on all decisions. Hiring and firing coaches remains solely with Utah, as does conference membership, scholarship management, player management, revenue-sharing membership and compliance. Those aspects of the athletic department are not included in Utah Brand Initiatives.
Though the university could consult with Otro on facilities improvements, like the Jon M. Huntsman Center, decisions on the matter will be solely made by Utah.
“Decisions about university facilities rest solely with the University and its board of trustees. It would be reasonable to expect that Otro and leadership of Utah Brand Initiatives will be consulted and provide expertise on future facility planning,” D’Ambrosio said.
The university can exit the partnership within five to seven years, per Dellenger, and Utah holds the right to purchase Otro’s stake.
There is risk in the private equity partnership, but faced with a $20.5 million per year revenue sharing bill, there is also danger in piling up debt.
“I believe after looking at this for hours and turning it around 15 different times sideways, I felt like the combination of what we’re getting from Otro working with us is the best possible way to go,” Harlan said at December’s board meeting.
If the partnership succeeds, it will fundamentally change the business of college sports.
As Utah soon embarks on a first-of-its-kind partnership, the eyes of athletic departments across the country will be on Salt Lake City.
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