Written from 40 named sources · Oct 29 · first result Big 12 Football Money and Results Roster spending, revenue sharing, roster turnover, coaching costs and conference finances. Snapshot: Thursday, October 29, 2026. Results through the games of Saturday, October 24, 2026. Methods and Limits What this report is. It tests whether money predicts winning in the Big 12, using the public record available on October 29, 2026. It covers all 16 programs: Arizona, Arizona State, Baylor, BYU, Cincinnati, Colorado, Houston, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, TCU, Texas Tech, UCF, Utah and West Virginia. Key terms. House settlement: the 2025 legal settlement (House v. NCAA) that lets participating schools pay athletes directly from athletic revenue. Revenue sharing: those direct school-to-athlete payments. The 2025-26 cap was $20.5 million per school. For 2026-27 the supplied sources give $21.3 million (nil-ncaa.com) and $21.58 million (The Sideline, citing the College Sports Commission) [14][16]. These two figures conflict and are shown side by side. NIL (name, image and likeness): third-party deals between athletes and businesses or donor-funded groups. Collective: an outside organization, usually booster-funded, that raises money for athlete NIL deals. Roster spending: revenue sharing plus third-party NIL. It is not audited payroll. Modeled versus reported. Reported means a figure attributed to a school, conference, filing or news outlet. Modeled means a tracker's calculation or an industry-survey estimate. The nil-ncaa.com roster figures are modeled [4]. The Athletic's September 2026 ranges come from a survey of more than 70 industry sources, so they are estimates too [22]. The Athletic's original article was not in the supplied material. Its figures are taken from On3 [22], a KSL Sports broadcast [12] and a derivative summary [9]. This is flagged wherever they appear. NR means "not reported in the supplied sources." NR is never zero. Where a statistic needed a value that was NR, that school was excluded from the statistic rather than assigned zero. What is not public and cannot be measured here: Actual football payroll at nearly every school. Collective funding totals. Complete 2025 roster spending. Each school's football share of its revenue-sharing allocation. Transfer counts, returning production, retention-versus-portal splits and the conference's fiscal 2025 tax-filing figures. Analytical method (predeclared). Spending variable: nil-ncaa.com's total modeled roster cost, the only source covering all 16 schools. The Athletic's ranges serve as a cross-check where available. Outcome: Big 12 conference winning percentage through October 24, with overall record as a robustness check. Statistic: Spearman rank correlation, with tied teams given average ranks. No tied teams are assigned a false order. Caution: because the model assigns every school the same $15.6 million revenue-sharing layer, its rankings are driven entirely by the modeled third-party NIL layer. Source reliability. The Big 12's own standings page is stale. It shows every school at 0-0 in conference play and 1-0 overall (Kansas 1-1, Baylor, Oklahoma State and TCU 0-1), so it is not used for results [3]. Fan forums and message boards were excluded, including Reddit threads that surfaced in searching [13][19][20]. The Baratelli Institute tracker [10] is a single-source modeled estimate. Summary: Does Spending Predict Winning in the Big 12? Short answer: weakly at best, and no more than a hint is supportable. Rank correlation. Using nil-ncaa.com's model, the rank correlation between spending and conference standing is about +0.25 (about +0.27 using overall record). That is positive but weak. With 16 teams, a correlation near 0.50 would be needed to clear conventional significance (approximate threshold, calculated). Where money shows up. Texas Tech is first in every spending source and is 6-1 (3-1 in the Big 12) [4][12][22][1][5]. Money may raise a ceiling at the very top. Where it does not. Utah, modeled seventh and almost exactly at the league median, is the only unbeaten team (7-0, 4-0) [4][1][5]. Arizona, modeled 12th, is 6-1 and 3-1. Colorado, modeled third, is 2-5 and 0-4. Houston, modeled second, is 6-2 and 3-2. Week 8. In 7 of 8 Big 12 games on October 24, the team with the lower modeled spending won [1][4]. The exception, Arizona over Iowa State, was a $0.3 million gap. Texas Tech lost to Cincinnati, and BYU lost to UCF. Confidence: low overall. It is low to moderate for the narrow claim that the biggest spender is competitive. It is low for any claim that spending predicts conference results. The reasons: The spending data are estimates. The model's revenue-sharing layer is uniform rather than observed. The two main sources disagree sharply for several schools. Seven weeks of football is a small sample. 2025 spending, roster turnover and school-level payroll are not public. Part 1 — 2026 Roster Spending Table 1.1 — nil-ncaa.com modeled 2026 football roster cost (modeled; date NR) [4] Model rank School Total modeled School revenue-sharing layer (uniform assumption) Modeled third-party NIL 1 Texas Tech $33.320M $15.600M $17.720M 2 Houston $24.456M $15.600M $8.856M 3 Colorado $23.179M $15.600M $7.579M 4 BYU $23.041M $15.600M $7.441M 5 TCU $22.683M $15.600M $7.083M 6 Oklahoma State $22.146M $15.600M $6.546M 7 Utah $21.947M $15.600M $6.347M 8 Kansas State $21.690M $15.600M $6.090M 9 Arizona State $21.524M $15.600M $5.924M 10 Baylor $20.967M $15.600M $5.367M 11 West Virginia $20.925M $15.600M $5.325M 12 Arizona $20.401M $15.600M $4.801M 13 Iowa State $20.098M $15.600M $4.498M 14 Cincinnati $20.049M $15.600M $4.449M 15 Kansas $19.900M $15.600M $4.300M 16 UCF $19.800M $15.600M $4.200M Conference median $21.607M $15.600M $6.007M Internal check (calculated): each total equals $15.6M plus the NIL layer. The median of the 16 totals is the average of Kansas State and Arizona State, $21.607M, matching the published figure. The 15.6M layer is about 73% of the $21.3M cap (calculated). The site states the third-party NIL layer is private and its figures are estimates [4]. Table 1.2 — The Athletic's September 2026 estimates versus the model (both are estimates) School nil-ncaa.com model (rank) The Athletic range Athletic midpoint (calculated) Approx. Athletic order among Big 12 schools named Comparison Texas Tech $33.32M (1) $38–42M [22] $40M 1 (national ~11th [12]) Model below the range BYU $23.04M (4) $20–25M [12] $22.5M 2 (national ~40th) Within range Baylor $20.97M (10) NR NR 3 (national ~45th) Range NR Arizona State $21.52M (9) NR NR 4 (~47th) Range NR Kansas State $21.69M (8) NR NR 5 (~49th) Range NR Utah $21.95M (7) $18–23M [12] $20.5M 6 (~51st) Within range West Virginia $20.93M (11) NR NR 7 (~52nd) Range NR Colorado $23.18M (3) NR NR 8 (~54th) Range NR UCF $19.80M (16) $15–20M [9] $17.5M 9 Within range Houston $24.46M (2) $15–19M [9] $17.0M 10 Model above the range Oklahoma State $22.15M (6) $15–19M [9] $17.0M 11 Model above the range Kansas $19.90M (15) $15–17M [9] $16.0M 12 Model above the range Arizona $20.40M (12) $13–18M [9] $15.5M 13 Model above the range Iowa State $20.10M (13) $13–17M [9] $15.0M 14 Model above the range Cincinnati $20.05M (14) $14–16M [9][12] $15.0M 15 (last of 68 listed, "14 to 16 mil" [12]) Model above the range TCU $22.68M (5) NR NR NR (not named in the supplied transcript) NR Flags and caveats. Source quality. The national positions come from spoken commentary in a KSL Sports broadcast posted September 17, 2026 [12]. The ranges for schools in the bottom group come from a derivative site (NGSC Sports, October 24, 2026) summarizing On3's relay of The Athletic [9]. Only Texas Tech's range is confirmed directly in On3 [22]. Treat the lower-tier ranges as secondary. Order. The order for ranks 9–15 follows the spoken sequence in [12] and is partly tied by midpoint (Houston and Oklahoma State at $17M; Iowa State and Cincinnati at $15M). Contradiction with the model's revenue-sharing layer. The model credits every school with $15.6M in school revenue sharing alone. Midpoints of The Athletic's estimates for Cincinnati ($15.0M), Iowa State ($15.0M) and Arizona ($15.5M) fall below that layer. Low ends of $13M (Arizona, Iowa State) and $14M (Cincinnati) are below it as well. Either those schools are not paying $15.6M, or the two measurements define "roster budget" differently. Neither can be settled with public data. Rank agreement. Among the 15 schools with an Athletic order, the rank correlation with the model is about +0.56 (calculated, approximate). They agree that Texas Tech leads and that Cincinnati, Iowa State, Arizona and Kansas are near the bottom. They disagree most on: Houston: model 2nd, Athletic about 10th. Colorado: model 3rd, Athletic about 8th. Baylor: model 10th, Athletic about 3rd. UCF: model 16th, Athletic about 9th. Table 1.3 — Texas Tech football roster estimates, shown side by side (not averaged) Source Figure Type Date nil-ncaa.com [4] $33.32M Modeled NR The Athletic, via On3 [22] and KSL [12] $38–42M Industry-survey estimate Sept. 16–17, 2026 USA Today wire (BYU Cougars Wire) [6] $35M ("NIL spending") Estimate (search snippet only) Aug. 18, 2026 The Sideline [16] ~$40M (football share of $58.1M all-sport) Modeled "As of Oct. 13" SportsEpreneur [39] $25–30M Reported estimate "tied to donor backing" Updated Sept. 2026 These conflict, and none is treated as fact. All agree Texas Tech has the league's biggest roster. Other trackers' Big 12 rankings for the remaining schools were not captured in the supplied material [7][16][21]. What each school sends to football from its House cap NR for all 16 schools. No Big 12 school's football allocation was found. The only school-level cap statement is that Utah is spending "nearly $22 million" in revenue sharing across all sports, with the football share not given [36]. What the data show. The two sources agree on the top and bottom ends. The league has one clear outlier, Texas Tech, and a tightly packed field. In the model, 15 schools sit within about $5 million of each other. The Athletic's ranges for the lower group overlap heavily. The middle of the pack cannot be ranked reliably: the sources disagree about Houston, Colorado, Baylor and UCF. Part 2 — 2026 Results Through Week 8 Table 2.1 — Records and conference standing (through October 24, 2026) Yahoo Sports/Buffaloes Wire [1] and StatMuse [5] agree on every overall and conference record below. Two current sources confirm all 16 schools. Conference tier (ties stated) School Overall Big 12 Poll ranking after Week 8 (as cited by SI [2]) 1st (alone) Utah 7-0 4-0 No. 6 T-2nd (four-way tie at 3-1) Arizona 6-1 3-1 No. 22 T-2nd BYU 6-1 3-1 No. 8 T-2nd Texas Tech 6-1 3-1 No. 13 T-2nd Oklahoma State 5-2 3-1 No. 24 6th (alone) Houston 6-2 3-2 NR T-7th (four-way tie at 2-2) Cincinnati 5-2 2-2 NR T-7th Arizona State 4-3 2-2 NR T-7th Baylor 4-3 2-2 NR T-7th UCF 4-3 2-2 NR 11th (alone) West Virginia 5-3 2-3 NR T-12th (four-way tie at 1-3) Kansas State 4-3 1-3 NR T-12th Iowa State 3-4 1-3 NR T-12th Kansas 3-4 1-3 NR T-12th TCU 3-4 1-3 NR 16th (alone) Colorado 2-5 0-4 NR Notes. Order within ties. Yahoo lists Arizona ahead of BYU and StatMuse lists BYU ahead of Arizona. Both are 3-1. The order inside each tier is not a ranking. AP poll. The October 25 AP poll itself was not in the supplied sources. The post-Week 8 numbers above come from SI's Week 9 previews, which do not name the poll. They should be treated as unverified against the AP release. Schools without a number are NR, not necessarily unranked. Pre-Week 8 rankings. Before October 24, SI had Texas Tech No. 8, Utah No. 10 and Houston No. 14 [2]. Front Office Sports had BYU No. 2 in the AP Top 25 after beating Notre Dame [36]. CFP. The College Football Playoff rankings had not been released as of the snapshot, per the report's stated parameters. No supplied source documents this independently. Table 2.2 — All Week 8 (October 24) Big 12 results [1][2][4] Result Winner's modeled spending rank (spend) Loser's modeled rank (spend) Won by lower-spending team? Oklahoma State 57, Colorado 24 6 ($22.146M) 3 ($23.179M) Yes UCF 39, BYU 31 (2 OT) 16 ($19.800M) 4 ($23.041M) Yes Arizona 39, Iowa State 3 12 ($20.401M) 13 ($20.098M) No (winner higher by $0.3M) Cincinnati 37, Texas Tech 24 14 ($20.049M) 1 ($33.320M) Yes Arizona State 28, Kansas State 17 9 ($21.524M) 8 ($21.690M) Yes (by $0.17M) Kansas 25, Baylor 24 15 ($19.900M) 10 ($20.967M) Yes West Virginia 24, TCU 20 11 ($20.925M) 5 ($22.683M) Yes Utah 21, Houston 13 7 ($21.947M) 2 ($24.456M) Yes By the model, seven of eight games went to the lower spender. Two of those seven (Arizona State over Kansas State, and Arizona over Iowa State, which went the other way) involve gaps under $0.3M, which is within the model's noise. Using The Athletic's ranges where available, Utah's range is above Houston's, so Utah-over-Houston was not a lower-spender win on that measure. Cincinnati over Texas Tech and UCF over BYU are lower-spender wins on both measures. Table 2.3 — Spending rank versus standing: over- and under-performers Gap = model spending rank minus conference-standing rank (ties averaged). Positive means the team is finishing better than its spending suggests. School Model spend rank Conf. standing (tied ranks averaged) Gap Read Arizona 12 3.5 +8.5 Largest over-performer UCF 16 8.5 +7.5 Over-performer Utah 7 1 +6.0 Over-performer (the only unbeaten team) Cincinnati 14 8.5 +5.5 Over-performer Oklahoma State 6 3.5 +2.5 Modest over Kansas 15 13.5 +1.5 Near expectation Baylor 10 8.5 +1.5 Near expectation Arizona State 9 8.5 +0.5 Near expectation BYU 4 3.5 +0.5 Near expectation West Virginia 11 11 0.0 Near expectation Iowa State 13 13.5 −0.5 Near expectation Texas Tech 1 3.5 −2.5 Slightly under, still 6-1 Houston 2 6 −4.0 Under Kansas State 8 13.5 −5.5 Under TCU 5 13.5 −8.5 Under Colorado 3 16 −13.0 Largest under-performer Statistics (calculated). Spearman rank correlation, spending versus conference standing: +0.25. Same, using overall winning percentage: +0.27. Both are weak and not statistically distinguishable from zero at n = 16. The Athletic's ranges cannot support a full correlation because TCU is NR and several ranges are NR. Context on the biggest cases. Colorado has the league's worst record. Its coach is on a five-year, $54M deal with a $10M coach-to-leave buyout, per a single-source tracker estimate [10]. This is context only, not an explanation. Arizona's wins include a 39-3 rout of Iowa State [1]. UCF's win over BYU needed two overtimes and a blocked field goal [2]. Utah's quarterback, Devon Dampier, ran for 150 yards and two touchdowns against Houston [2]. What the data show. Spending explains little of the early-season order. Three of the four largest over-performers (Arizona, UCF, Cincinnati) are in the bottom third of both spending sources. The largest under-performers (Colorado, TCU, Kansas State) are in the top half of the model. Results tell us about the model's weaknesses as much as about money, since the model's ranking is only the modeled NIL layer. Part 3 — Roster Turnover Table 3.1 — Transfers, signees, returning production and quarterbacks For every school, incoming transfers, outgoing transfers, high school signees, returning starters or production, and the retention/portal split are NR. No source in the supplied material provides school-by-school counts. Two trackers publish portal columns (players in, out and net stars) but the values were not captured [16][21]. nil-ncaa.com notes the 105-player roster cap now in force [14]. School Quarterback as named in the supplied reporting Portal arrival? Other turnover items reported Arizona Noah Fifita [2] NR NR Arizona State NR (backup quarterbacks started; a third-stringer may be needed) [2] NR Sam Leavitt went to LSU, rated On3's No. 1 transfer [22] Baylor NR for current starter; preseason expectation was Florida transfer DJ Lagway [18] Preseason expectation only NR BYU Bear Bachmeier [2] NR NR Cincinnati JC French IV [2] NR A $1M Cincinnati lawsuit tied to Brendan Sorsby, shown in a Texas Tech spring-game caption [36]; terms NR Colorado Isaac Wilson [2][5] NR (he appears on Utah's 2024 injury list in [17], suggesting a transfer; not confirmed) Left tackle Jordan Seaton went to LSU; D.J. McKinney signed with Notre Dame [22] Houston Conner Weigman [2] NR NR Iowa State Jaylen Raynor started, benched for Connor Moberly in the second half vs. Arizona [2] NR Three assistants and 23 players followed Matt Campbell to Penn State (single source) [10] Kansas Isaiah Marshall [2] NR NR Kansas State Avery Johnson out; Jacob Knuth filling in [2] NR NR Oklahoma State NR NR NR TCU Jaden Craig [2] NR NR Texas Tech NR for starter; Will Hammond appears in an SI photo caption, starter status not stated [2] NR See Cincinnati/Sorsby above [36] UCF Keyone Jenkins ("starting quarterback") [2] NR NR Utah Devon Dampier [2] NR NR West Virginia NR NR NR Share of Big 12 all-conference players who entered the 2026 portal, and comparison with other conferences: NR. A CBS Sports headline refers to 2026 portal data on a "retention gap across conference tiers," but the data are not in the supplied text [30]. What the data show. Very little can be concluded about turnover. We can name most starting quarterbacks but not how they arrived. The only quantified item (23 Iowa State players following Campbell) rests on one tracker. Part 4 — 2025 Season as a Test Case Table 4.1 — 2025 spending and results School 2025 roster-spending estimate 2025 record (as found) Big 12 finish Final AP Bowl/CFP All 16 schools NR see below NR except where noted NR except where noted NR except where noted BYU NR 12-2 [27] Played in the Big 12 title game vs. Texas Tech [27] NR NR Texas Tech NR NR Played in the title game [27]; commentators say it reached the CFP and lost to Oregon [12]; who won the title game is NR NR Lost to Oregon per [12] Utah NR 10-2 regular season [17] 3rd, 7-2 in conference [17] 14 (reference-site table, single source) [17] Selected for the Las Vegas Bowl; result NR [17] Colorado NR 3-9 (single source) [10] NR NR NR Iowa State NR 8-4 [33] NR NR NR Cincinnati NR Started 6-1, then lost the last five games (about 6-6 regular season; derived) [18] NR NR NR Other 9 schools NR NR NR NR NR No 2025 spending estimate for any school was found, and the 2026 figures are not used as a substitute. The comparison is therefore not possible. What can be said: 2025's visible top teams (Texas Tech, BYU) included both a heavy spender and a mid-pack spender, and Colorado had a poor 2025 and a poor 2026. That is anecdote, not a test. Part 5 — Disclosed Payroll and Public Records Table 5.1 — What is public Item Finding School-released actual football revenue-sharing figures (Big 12) NR NCAA filing that reports revenue-sharing payments separately from operating expenses Oklahoma State: nil-ncaa.com notes its 2025 filing reports revenue-sharing payments that are not included in its $140.06M operating expenses; the amount is NR (single source) [4] Granted/denied records requests, and reasons NR Private schools not subject to state open-records law Baylor, BYU, TCU: NCAA-based financial data are not available for them [4] Utah's for-profit athletics company Crimson Brand Partners began July 1, 2026; it makes annual reports to the university's board of trustees and foundation; deal terms are not disclosed [29] Utah deal size: reports conflict and are not blended. Source Figure The Athletic, June 12, 2026 [29] Terms not disclosed; Utah officials describe a "nine-figure" impact Front Office Sports, Oct. 23, 2026 [36] Terms and length not public; expected to generate nine figures in revenue A LinkedIn post citing Sportico [35] Otro commitment of at least $100M, path toward $500M ZoomInvestors, Oct. 6, 2026 [23] "$400 million-plus"; total approaching $500M with donor participation Owners Club newsletter [38] "Up to $500 million" Entity naming also varies: Crimson Brand Partners [29], "Utah Brands and Entertainment" [23][31] and "Utah Brand Initiatives LLC" [38]. The Athletic's CEO name is Matt Webb; Front Office Sports prints Mark Webb [29][36]. Public-school financial data that do exist (2025 NCAA filings, 13 public Big 12 schools, compiled by nil-ncaa.com) [4]: Average operating loss of $57.4M per school, covered by booster contributions averaging $34.8M and school/student support averaging $22.9M. Utah's reported surplus of $4,692,729 matches The Athletic's $4.69M, which the state auditor said came only after using $19.4M in reserves [4][29]. Two sources agree. Comparable figures for Baylor, BYU and TCU: NR. What the data show. Real payroll disclosure is close to nonexistent. The only school-specific hint is Oklahoma State's separate filing line, with no dollar amount supplied. Private ownership and Utah's new company reduce, rather than increase, what can be seen. Part 6 — Donors and Collectives Table 6.1 — Collectives and donor money Item Finding Main collective/NIL entity, structure and post-revenue-sharing change, per school NR for all 16. nil-ncaa.com says collectives' influence has "greatly diminished" with many schools bringing collective functions in-house, with no school named [14] Booster contributions, 2025 (reported to NCAA; public schools only) [4] Oklahoma State $78.08M; Utah $49.86M; Kansas $43.53M; Texas Tech $42.87M; Kansas State $40.33M; Arizona $33.98M; West Virginia $31.34M; Iowa State $29.36M; UCF $27.91M; Arizona State $22.78M; Colorado $19.16M; Cincinnati $17.66M; Houston $15.62M. Baylor, BYU, TCU: NR Donor counts, major donors NR Cody Campbell's role as Texas Tech System regents chair; his dispute with Commissioner Brett Yormark over Friday night games; Yormark's statement NR (the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal reporting was not in the supplied sources) IRS treatment of collectives and donor-behavior effect NR NIL's effect on general athletic or academic giving nil-ncaa.com says there are "indications that booster fatigue may be increasing" and that third-party NIL strains finances; this is the tracker's opinion, not a measured finding (single source) [4][14] Radio hosts discussing the Athletic's estimates attributed Texas Tech's roster to "Cody Campbell … dumping all sorts of money" [12]. That is commentary, not a sourced figure. What the data show. Booster money is large, but it cannot be linked to roster spending. The ranking is not the same as the spending ranking: Oklahoma State leads in contributions yet sits sixth in the model and in the Athletic's lower group. Contributions also fund deficits, scholarships and facilities. Part 7 — Coaching Changes and Buyouts Table 7.1 — Big 12 head coaching changes (2025-26) and in-season firing School / coach Change Buyout or separation (reported) Conflicting or estimated figure Payer / offset Successor and contract Buyout vs. modeled roster Oklahoma State / Mike Gundy Fired Sept. 23, 2025 [11] $15M (U.S. News, Nov. 25, 2025) [11]; $15M over three years (Pokes Report) [31] ~$14M+ (Baratelli tracker, modeled) [10] NR (Pokes notes athletic department debt) [31] Eric Morris, hired from North Texas [33]; contract NR, ~$4.0M/yr modeled estimate [10] $15M ÷ $22.146M = 68% (calculated); $15M is 79–100% of The Athletic's $15–19M range Utah / Kyle Whittingham Stepped down, announced Dec. 12, 2025; Michigan deal Dec. 26 [17] $13.5M not found in any supplied source Baratelli: $0 (retirement) [10] NR Morgan Scalley promoted Dec. 13 [17]; five-year $27M [36] vs. ~$4.5M/yr through 2029 [10] (conflict) NR Iowa State / Matt Campbell Left for Penn State [33] Excluded: obligation owed outside the Big 12 Iowa State's payment: NR NR Jimmy Rogers, from Washington State [33]; ~$4.0M/yr modeled [10] NR Kansas State / Chris Klieman Retired, early Dec. 2025 [33] NR; $0 (retirement) per Baratelli [10] n/a NR Collin Klein [33]; ~$4.0M/yr modeled [10] NR Baylor / Dave Aranda Fired Oct. 25, 2026, after a 25-24 loss at Kan