CORAL GABLES — College football has changed rapidly, and the Hurricanes are along for the ride.
Schools can pay players now. The College Football Playoff expanded to 12 teams — and may expand again. The power conferences have stabilized — for now — but the ACC has changed how it distributes its revenue. And Miami is embracing the change.
“A lot of great things going on here at the University of Miami right now,” UM athletic director Dan Radakovich said on Monday. “A lot of things (are) going on in intercollegiate athletics.”
The most radical change, paying players directly, means UM has $20.5 million to disburse among its athletes. That money, which does not include NIL deals, is being disbursed among the football team, basketball teams, baseball team and other Miami programs.
“President (Joe) Echevarria is a huge supporter of the athletic program, so our ability to utilize that $20.5 million dollars and how we spread it around, we’ve kind of put everything into those buckets,” Radakovich said. “He has certainly given us the thumbs up to move forward in that direction, and then other opportunities that can come forward for our student-athletes in different ways.”
How teams divvy up the $20.5 million is up to the schools, and Radakovich said UM’s coaches do approach him about their budgets.
I think that we’ve kind of settled in where we are now,” Radakovich said. “We’re starting the process to move forward into the following year. So those conversations will be taking place shortly.”
But the Hurricanes will likely have more money coming in. Radakovich said the Hurricanes have sold more than 42,000 football season tickets, which is the second-most in program history. Miami has also sold its entire student allotment.
Another large potential source of revenue comes from how the ACC is distributing money going forward. The conference began its “success initiative” last year, with more money going to teams that do well in the postseason. Now teams that bring in larger television viewership numbers will get a larger cut of the ACC’s revenue distribution.
“We have some really good opportunities on national television, on big over-the-air networks,” Radakovich said. “Our number could be really, really good. Last year, we had the Florida game. That was a good number. But after that, there wasn’t a whole lot of big opportunities for us. We have two this year. So it will be more if history is any nod to how the future will be, we will get more revenue associated with that, just given our brand and how we played over the last couple of years.”
On other hot-button issues in college football, like, playoff expansion and the ACC potentially adding a ninth conference game, Radakovich did not take a definite stance. On a ninth conference game, he said, “That’s going to be something that (the ACC athletic directors) need to talk about.
In regards to playoff expansion, Radakovich deferred to ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips, who supports a 5-11 model (where, in a 16-team playoff field, five conference champions get automatic berths and 11 at-large teams get spots).
“I think as a league, we came together under the — as has been widely reported — the 5-11 circumstance,” Radakovich said. “But as things move forward, and there are other opportunities to look at different models. I think until something is etched in stone and the commissioners agree to it, we should continue to talk about it because there are positives and negatives to each of those types of things that have been talked about.”
