The landscape of college athletics has undergone rapid change in the past decade, with the introduction of revenue sharing and NIL completely transforming how college athletics operate. The University of Wyoming—like many schools across the country—is still learning how to navigate these new times.
Wyoming athletics director Tom Burman, senior associate AD for compliance Peter Prigge and football head coach Jay Sawvel met with the university’s Board of Trustees on March 26 during a livestreamed meeting to delve into what revenue sharing currently looks like for Wyoming athletics.
One of the biggest shifts in college athletics came a little less than a year ago with the House settlement. Wyoming chose to opt into the House settlement, which was approved in June 2025 and allows schools to directly share revenue with players.
Burman was quick to point out the differences between NIL and revenue sharing, which are commonly confused as the same thing despite functioning completely differently.
“NIL and revenue sharing are often used interchangeably, even in our industry, but revenue sharing is specifically dollars that come from the institution. NIL, by its correct definition, is third-party monies,” Burman said.
“We are using money generated by student-athletes, by ticket sales, television, corporate partnership, etc. to share with [student-athletes]. We are not using state dollars.”
Burman also shared how much money he believes it would take for Wyoming to routinely compete for Mountain West conference championships in the sports it pour the revenue sharing into, which is also its five revenue-generating sports. Those sports are football, men’s and women’s basketball, wrestling and volleyball.
“I think you have to be at $5 million in football, quickly, I think you have to be at $2 million in men’s basketball, quickly,” Burman said. “The rest wouldn’t add up to $1 million, so $8 million quickly.
“That doesn’t mean that I don’t believe that [Sawvel] can win a championship with less, but to do it routinely, the $5 million in football allows you to retain more kids longer,” Burman added. “May not mean forever, but longer. That gives you continuity, builds championships and that’s the challenge for us right now.”
Wyoming football, for example, operated at a budget of $1.1 million last season, according to Sawvel. $700,000 of that budget was directly attributed towards building and maintaining the roster. Wyoming football ended its season with a 4-8 overall record and finished 10th of 12 teams in the Mountain West with a 2-6 conference record.
“We’re going to increase to $2 million for this coming season,” Sawvel said. “I can look at our team right now and there’s a substantial difference between a team that is funded off $2 million and a team that was funded off $700,000 to $1.1 million based off the Alston money.”
Still, that amount is not at the $5 million benchmark laid out by Burman to routinely compete for Mountain West football championships, nor is it near the operating budget of the teams leaving the conference for the newly reformed Pac-12, said Sawvel.
If the athletics department isn’t going to dip into state dollars to fund revenue sharing, then how does Wyoming continue to raise money to meet that championship standard?
Burman outlined several potential strategies to help close that gap.
“We are trying like crazy to sell a logo on our field, we are trying to look at opportunities to sell the naming of the [Arena-Auditorium]. We are being very entrepreneurial, more than we ever have been.”
Though state dollars are not currently being used towards revenue sharing for Wyoming athletics, Burman mentioned it may be a bridge the program will cross at some point as the state becomes more accustomed to the idea of paying college athletes.
“Even our supporters are struggling with state monies going towards revenue sharing,” Burman said. “So, at the present time I didn’t think it was wise. There comes a point where it would be hard to say none of it is going to, but we’re a long way from that today. But, I believe there is an opportunity, it just depends which kind of state dollar you’re spending.
“In many states right now, in Hawaii and New Mexico, they’re dipping their toes into this. In Hawaii, in particular, they are looking at lottery dollars, they are looking at tourism dollars and tax revenue from tourism, which is out of state money for the most part. Those might be more palatable, at some point.”
The growing use of revenue sharing in college athletics isn’t going anywhere soon, so fans will have to continue to grow accustomed to how it is changing the landscape of college athletics—because if you don’t, you risk being left behind by the teams that do.
“We may not all love the space that we’re in, and I don’t know that I love it either, in terms of spending a two-week plus period of time on the phone with agents, more than you are with the recruit in today’s world,” Sawvel said.
“It’s a different thing, and it’s been a rapidly evolving type of scenario.”
