UK has itself to blame for football questions Mitch Barnhart didn’t like
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Kentucky withheld revenue-share percentages, prompting questions about football.
- Federal data show UK football revenue exceeded men’s basketball, raising stakes.
- Disclose distribution percentages so fans and recruits can evaluate program priorities.
If you followed media coverage of new Kentucky football coach Will Stein’s introductory news conference, you likely saw the animated response of Wildcats athletics director Mitch Barnhart to a question about whether UK is dedicating enough of its revenue share funding to the school’s football players to ensure competitiveness in that sport.
“People have asked that question 19 different ways, from all the stuff that’s been going on, and it’s exhausting,” Barnhart said on Dec. 3. “Enough. Enough about, ‘Have we got enough?’ We’ve got enough. We’re working at it just like everyone else is working at it. We’re no different.”
Respectfully, UK has no one to blame but itself for the questions over whether the level of UK’s investment in its football players is sufficient for success in the pigskin-mad Southeastern Conference.
This school year is the first in which, by terms of the settlement of the House v. NCAA antitrust lawsuit, Division I schools can share as much as $20.5 million in revenue with their athletes.
Kentucky is among what seems to be the large majority of universities that have chosen not to be fully transparent in how they are distributing that funding.
UK has announced in which sports it is sharing revenue — baseball, men’s basketball and football; softball, volleyball and women’s basketball. Kentucky has not revealed, however, what percentage of its revenue share each sport is getting.
Given the national media perception that men’s basketball drives all in University of Kentucky athletics, UK’s silence on its distribution percentages has left an information vacuum that has been filled with a narrative about the school’s commitment to football that leads to the type of questions Barnhart is tired of answering.
Some universities have chosen to be open about their revenue-sharing decisions.
Georgia announced it is distributing its revenue share funds with its athletes by the following formula: 75% for football; 15% for men’s basketball; 5% for women’s basketball; and 5% for all its other sports.
LSU is using the same formula: 75% for football; 15% for men’s basketball; 5% for women’s basketball; and 5% for all its other sports.
Texas Tech’s formula is: 74% for football; 17-18% for men’s basketball; 2% women’s basketball; 1% baseball; 4-5% for all its other sports.
Tennessee began the 2025-26 school year taking the same non-disclosure line that Kentucky has adopted.
However, after Volunteers baseball coach Tony Vitello exited Rocky Top in October to become the manager of the San Francisco Giants, an acrimonious rift broke out in the UT fan base over rumors that Vitello had been upset that Tennessee had favored women’s basketball over baseball in its revenue-share-distribution formula.
In response, Tennessee AD Danny White revealed UT’s percentages: 75% football, 15% men’s basketball, 5% women’s basketball; 5% all other sports.
Of the “other sports” share, White said $750,000 of what is a $900,000 pool went to baseball.
College athletics administrators who are not sharing their revenue distribution formulas tend to claim they are keeping the information secret so their competitors will not have it.
If we could administer truth serum to these ADs, I suspect we would find out that, in most cases, they don’t want to say how they are disbursing money to their athletes so their own fans don’t find out.
At Kentucky, the revenue sharing era has the potential to put university athletics administrators in a real pickle.
Obviously, men’s basketball has long been UK’s marquee athletic program. As such, there would be a rationale for the university to distribute its revenue sharing to athletes in such a way as to ensure the Kentucky men’s hoops program is always at an advantage over its peer schools.
Problem with that is that, even at Kentucky, football is the most lucrative sport. According to the federal government’s Equity in Athletics Data Base, UK had $46,617,232 in revenue from football in 2023-24 (the most recent year for which figures are available) compared to $30,925,377 in men’s basketball revenue.
In the big picture, the attractiveness of a university’s football program almost exclusively determines how a school is viewed in realignment and “super-conference” scenarios.
It says here that university athletics departments, including UK, owe it to their fans to share their revenue-share distribution percentages.
If School A’s basketball players are getting a disproportionate share of a university’s funding, fans need to know that to fairly evaluate the performance of that team’s coach.
The same is true if School A’s football coach is not getting as much funding for players as his conference rivals. Fans deserve to know that for the same reason.
Recruits and their families need to know how revenue share money is being distributed. For them, that information would be a tool in evaluating how universities prioritize their various sports programs.
In UK’s particular case, the way to end those pesky questions about football player funding that Mitch Barnhart is tired of answering is to reveal its revenue-share percentages.
