By: Jonathan Tunney
October 25, 2024
Photo Credit: On 3 News
The NIL landscape is changing constantly, but one of the newest headlines is the first development to impact the wallets of all college athletic fans. On Tuesday, September 17, 2024, University of Tennessee Athletic Director Danny White announced via email to season ticket holders that the University of Tennessee would be increasing the price of tickets by 10% in the form of a “talent fee” to boost the school’s NIL funds. In addition, the school added a 4.5% fee to “help the school remain flexible” amid the NIL era of college athletics. This means that in 2025, the cheapest non-student football season ticket in Neyland Stadium will cost $453.75 after all fees and taxes. Student football tickets rose from $10 per game in 2023 to $20 per game in 2024 and will rise to $25 per game in 2025. White explained in a video attached to the email that this is simply “the price of doing business” in the NIL era of college athletics.
This move comes in response to the NCAA revenue-sharing plan set to begin in the fall of 2025, which is part of the settlement from the landmark House vs. NCAA case. Under this new plan, schools can share up to $22 million of their annual athletics revenue with athletes. This “talent fee” is another way college athletic programs get creative in passing these costs on to fans instead of dipping into profits. For reference, the University of Tennessee football program turned a profit of $75 million in 2023, which alone could cover the $22 million in revenue sharing across all athletic programs for over 3 years.
I would expect every major college athletics program that wants to remain in the upper echelon of programs to adopt similar measures within the next few years. Attaching a talent fee to season tickets represents the first truly consistent revenue stream for NIL funds. Before talent fees, NIL strictly relied on donations that could be given or revoked on a whim. Additionally, the talent fee is an easy buck to make. College athletics fans are some of the most passionate in the nation and will do almost anything (including pay more money) if they think they’re helping the team win. Finally, if a team were to refuse to implement talent fees while its rivals do, that team would undoubtedly put itself at an inherent disadvantage on the recruiting trail and in the transfer portal.
On another note, the introduction of the talent fee increases the importance of having large stadiums and facilities. More seats = more tickets sold = more talent fees accrued. This is an especially lucrative option for a program like the University of Michigan football team, who boasts the nation’s largest stadium and a notoriously affluent alumni base. This phenomenon will also increase the already wide gap in NIL funds between powerhouse and mid-size athletic departments. Based on the capacity of their football stadiums alone, some schools will accrue exponentially more money in talent fees than others.
Finally, many top-tier college athletics programs are located in states with some of the worst economic conditions in the country according to US News. Examples of this include Alabama, LSU, Ole Miss, Ohio State, Penn State, and Kentucky. Would the introduction of a talent fee price out a certain class of fans, reducing the home-field/court advantage that makes these atmospheres so special? These types of schools have incredibly passionate fanbases, so while I’m inclined to believe that they will pay any reasonable talent fee to remain elite, this will be an interesting development to watch unfold in the coming years.
In conclusion, major college athletics programs are implementing talent fees to pass more of the costs of the NCAA revenue-sharing plan onto fans instead of dipping into profits. For comparison, Tennessee’s football profit of $75 million alone could cover the entire $22 million in revenue sharing across all athletic programs for over 3 years. Why do we fans need to pay 10% more? Additionally, talent fees have the potential to further decrease parity across college athletics and price out some of the fans that make certain atmospheres so iconic. While I am all for players making the money they deserve for their talents, the lack of rules and chaos of the NIL era will have significant negative impacts on the college athletics experience for players, coaches, and even more so now, fans.
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