Like a lot of things, building a winning college football team has become a lot more expensive in recent years.
The emergence of name, image and likeness and revenue sharing has led some university athletic departments to spend tens of millions of dollars on football rosters. Exactly how much schools are paying to acquire and retain players was for a long time a guessing game.
A new report by The Athletic seeks to change that by providing roster cost estimates for power conference programs. The Athletic reached
out to more than 70 sources around college football to get as much detail as possible on what each program spent on its 2026 budget.
The Athletic’s verdict: Arizona’s budget is near the very bottom of the major conferences. According to the publication, the UA is spending an estimated $13-18 million on this year’s team, which puts Arizona higher than just four programs: Iowa State, Cincinnati, Duke and Boston College.
At the top of the sport, programs like Texas, Ohio State and Oregon are spending $50 million or more for their rosters. The top Big 12 spender to no surprise is Texas Tech, which The Athletic pegged at $38-42 million.
BYU, the team Arizona just lost to, spends about $25-30 million, while rival ASU spends $19-23 million. The Big 12 conference average is $18-22 million.
Asked Thursday about Arizona’s investment in roster development, UA head coach Brent Brennan played up the athletic administration’s support.
“I think across the country, you’re seeing people make massive investments in college football,” Brennan said. “It’s the world that we’re living in right now, and I think in order for us to continue to build the championship football program that we want to build at the University of Arizona, we have to continue to be in alignment and invest at scale, so that we can be competitive and that we can play for conference championships and do the things that we want to do here at Arizona.”
While money buys better players, it doesn’t always translate to wins on the field. Just ask Oregon, which spent an estimated $48-54 million only to lose to Oklahoma State last weekend. The Cowboys spent in the same ballpark as Arizona at an estimated $15-19 million.
Two of Arizona’s next three conference games will be against the league’s lowest spenders (Cincinnati on Oct. 3 and Iowa State on Oct. 24) before facing the cash-filled Red Raiders at the end of October.
