The Texas Longhorns football team may have financial resources that most other programs could only dream of, but head coach Steve Sarkisian says one recent report about the team’s roster was not accurate.
Last month, longtime Texas reporter Kirk Bohls published a column for the Houston Chronicle in which he discussed the Longhorns’ payroll. Bohls reported that Texas’ football team currently costs between $35-$40 million. Bohls says that figure includes $20.5 million in revenue sharing funds from the athletic department, combined with payouts through a Texas NIL collective.
The figure sounded massive, especially when you consider Ohio State reportedly spent roughly half of that on their national championship roster last season.
During a Tuesday interview with SiriusXM’s College Sports Radio, Sarkisian accused Bohls of “irresponsible reporting.”
“There was one anonymous source that said that’s what our roster was. I wish I had $40 million on our roster. We’d probably be a little bit better team than we are,” Sarkisian said. “The idea to think that a lot of other schools aren’t spending money to get players? It’s the state of college football right now. It is what it is.”
Sarkisian said the Longhorns are fortunate to have great support but noted that it is the result of back-to-back College Football Playoff appearances and having more than 20 players drafted in the past two years. He then hinted that the real cost of his roster is around $25 million.
“It’s been a great run. I wish I had about another $15 million or so, though. We might have a better roster,” Sarkisian said.
“It was a little bit of irresponsible reporting… I wish I had 40 million on our roster, we’d probably be a little bit better."
— College Sports on SiriusXM (@SXMCollege) May 27, 2025
@CoachSark talked about the report regarding the cost of his roster at #SECSpringMeetings!
@PeterBurnsESPN | @ChrisDoering | @JacobHester18 pic.twitter.com/0DZelKr9SK
Even if Texas has spent $25 million on its current roster as opposed to $40 million, that is still a surreal figure. It was just a few years ago that college sports were considered to be an amateur enterprise, and student-athletes were not allowed to make money on their name, image and likeness.
It would make more sense, however, for Texas to not have spent twice as much on their roster as another premier program like Ohio State.
The expectation is that there will be regulations and legislation at some point surrounding how much money schools can pay players. Until then, the total cost of rosters is likely to only increase.
