As the future of college athletics goes through a dramatic change, the University of Colorado is prepared to go all-in.
On Friday, district judge Claudia Wilken in Northern California approved the House v. NCAA settlement, which will allow schools around the country to directly pay student-athletes through revenue sharing beginning July 1.
The settlement is a landmark change in college athletics and one that CU is ready to embrace.
“We’re all in,” CU athletic director Rick George told BuffZone in a recent interview. “We’re going to be all in, and this is going to be a group effort. … We’re going to be very aggressive, going out and looking at revenue streams, and obviously our donations that we get from donors is an area that we’re going to emphasize.”
Schools can pay student-athletes up to $20.5 million during the 2025-26 school year, to be divided among different sports. It’s widely expected that football and men’s basketball teams — the two sports that generate the most revenue — will receive most of that money.
While schools don’t have to reach the cap (which is expected to increase every year), George said CU plans to hit the cap. George and his administrative team have been working for nearly a year to be ready for the July 1 start date, including how to earn the money and how to allocate the funds. CU is still figuring out a plan of how to allocate money to different sports.
“It’s a challenging time for our peers and for us, because you just don’t have $20.5 million lying around,” George said. “So it’s going to require some difficult decisions and we’ve just got to be willing to make them. But our goal in all of this is that we want to compete at the highest level, so we’re going to participate at the highest level.”
CU has already made some decisions, including installing artificial turf at Folsom Field this summer, which carries an upfront cost of about $1 million, but will allow CU to host more concerts at the stadium and generate revenue. Also, BuffZone reported last week that CU is eliminating the positions of long-time track and field coaches Casey and Lindsey Malone, as the Buffs plan to focus more on their distance programs going forward.
“It requires a lot, and it’s going to require us to manage our expenses,” George said. “It’s going to require us to generate more revenue. You just don’t, in a year’s time, figure out how you can be able to revenue share at that number.
“It’s going to be incumbent on our base out there, our Flatiron Society, our Buff Club donors, to get involved. And I think we’re showing them our commitment. I feel really strongly that for us to be in a great position three to five years from now, we need to participate at the highest level, and we need to make sure that it’s sustainable. I feel like we’ve got a good plan in place.”
While George acknowledges there will have to be some expense cuts, he said generating more revenue, through donors, outside events, etc., will be the priority. And, he maintained, as he has throughout his tenure at CU, that he does not want to cut from the programs that benefit the student-athletes.
“One thing that I’ve told our student athletes and I’ve told our coaches is we will continue to provide the great benefits for our student-athletes that we always have, and that’s in the areas of mental health, nutrition, sports medicine, strength and conditioning, academic support, all those things that touch our student athletes,” he said. “We’re going to make sure that we still maintain those at a very high level.”
In addition to revenue sharing, a big piece of the House settlement is roster limits.
For football, CU will remain at the previous NCAA scholarship limit of 85, but the full roster is now capped at 105. That is likely to impact other schools more than CU. On average, FBS schools have kept around 125 players on a roster, but under current head coach Deion Sanders, the Buffs opened the 2023 season with 113 and the 2024 season with 110. Unofficially, CU has 102 players slated for this year, with 77 on scholarship.
Basketball will be capped at 15 roster spots, which will potentially eliminate a couple of walk-on spots.
“We’ve had discussions about roster limits, and we’ve had discussions about scholarships and those kinds of things that we’ve had with our coaches,” George said.
The timing of the House settlement, on June 6, means CU and other schools have to make some big decisions in a hurry before the fall season begins, but George expects growing pains for a lot of schools.
“It’ll be a little clunky, I think, in year one, but then I think as we get to year two, in July of 2026, it’ll be a little smoother,” he said.
While the House settlement will bring some challenges to CU and many other schools around the country, George said the Buffs are eager to embrace the new world of college athletics. And, he’s focused on helping CU be in a great position for potential changes in the future.
“We’ve still got to operate as efficiently as we can, but at the same time, we’ve got to compete if we’re going to compete at the highest level,” he said. “And as conversations go on over the next three to five years on what’s going to happen in the future, another potential realignment, you’ve got to put yourselves in a position to be in that conversation, and that’s what we plan to do.
“We’ve been meeting every couple weeks to talk about the newest thing that comes out that we have to be ready for. I feel like we’re in a really good position. We put a lot of work in behind the scenes.”
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