Penny Hardaway enters a crucial ninth season leading the Memphis men’s basketball program, with the Tigers’ legend facing mounting uncertainty over his job security.
To help his team improve, he’s willing to invest himself — literally.
In an exclusive interview with the Memphis Commercial Appeal, part of the USA TODAY Network, the former NBA All-Star said on Monday, Oct. 12 that he wrote a check for $2.6 million to help with the program’s roster-building efforts.
Hardaway said he used those extra funds to help land Serbian center Nemanja Popović and Florida Atlantic transfer forward Maxim Logue.
Within 24 hours, though, Memphis athletic director
Ed Scott clarified that the university had not received a check from Hardaway and then passed that money along to players.
“That would be a clear violation of the CSC (College Sports Commission) and the House settlement,” Scott said in an interview with journalist Gary Parrish on Grind City Media. “We don’t operate that way.”
The Tigers are coming off a disappointing 13-19 season in 2025-26. It was the first time Memphis failed to win at least 20 games since 2016-17 and the first time it had finished with a losing record since 1999-2000, the season before John Calipari was hired by the school.
According to Scott, Hardaway told university officials during the offseason that he needed $9 million to put together a team that could realistically hope to reach the Sweet 16. The Tigers’ athletic director said he couldn’t do more than $6.4 million because he’s not permitted to run the athletic department at a deficit. The $6.4 million figure represented a $1.4 million increase from the previous season.
From that negotiation came a compromise.
“That’s when Penny said, ‘Look, I think I can raise the $2.6 million,’” Scott said to Parrish. “I said, ‘Listen, if you can raise the $2.6 million and have pledges that say it will be paid by the end of the fiscal year, we can front the money.’”
Scott said Hardaway then told him he’d personally put up whatever money he couldn’t raise. The Tigers are paying the full $9 million this season without any contributions from Hardaway, Scott said, and Hardaway will make a contribution of his own to make up the difference if Memphis’ fundraising efforts fall short of its goal. The money wouldn’t go to players on Memphis’ 2026-27 team, whose contracts will have expired by then.
Hardaway made $120.5 million over the course of his 14-year NBA career, according to Spotrac. He also had several high-profile endorsements, namely with Nike, which had him in iconic commercials in the mid-1990s with his more boisterous alter ego, Lil’ Penny.
In his interview with the Commercial Appeal, Hardaway pointed to the recruitment of Oklahoma State transfer big man Andrija Vuković as a key moment in wanting to up his financial stake in the Tigers’ NIL efforts. Memphis lost out on Vuković to George Washington, which Hardaway said was “hurtful.”
The Tigers brought in a nine-player transfer class in the offseason that 247 Sports ranked 50th among all Division I teams.
"For us to get to that number, I wish I would’ve had it in the beginning (of the offseason)," Hardaway said to the Commercial Appeal. "Then, I would’ve definitely constructed the roster way differently. If I had $9 million in the beginning and not $5 (million), it would’ve just been a different mindset. It probably would’ve been, you go after one of the top-five guys in the portal. Go hard after him, and say, 'Hey, we have this money. Go and get a superstar, that would bring people to the stadium. He’s playing in the NCAA tournament. Played in Final Fours.'”
Despite last season’s shortcomings, Hardaway has generally fared pretty well at his hometown program, where he was a consensus first-team All-American in 1993. During Hardaway’s coaching tenure, the Tigers have gone 175-87 and reached the NCAA tournament three times, including as a No. 5 seed in 2025.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Is Penny Hardaway giving $2.6 million of his own money to Memphis basketball? It's complicated
