NIL
Rick Pitino Devalues St. John’s Monster NIL Budget For Recruiting
iStockphoto / © Kris Craig/The Providence Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images Rick Pitino continues to downplay his NIL budget at St. John’s even though he has a literal billionaire who is willing to spend whatever it takes to build a competitive college basketball roster. The Red Storm has one of the most […]


Rick Pitino continues to downplay his NIL budget at St. John’s even though he has a literal billionaire who is willing to spend whatever it takes to build a competitive college basketball roster. The Red Storm has one of the most expensive teams in the country, regardless of what its head coach tries to say.
Maybe the numbers are not exact. Fine. Let’s not pretend like reality isn’t real!
Pitino, 72, was hired to coach college basketball at St. John’s in March of 2023. The Red Storm won 20 games during the 2023-24 season but missed out on the NCAA Tournament. Its head coach vowed that would never happen again. He immediately got on the phone and started to recruit.
Of course, to recruit on a high level in the modern era requires a large amount of NIL money. Teams that can often the most amount of zeros are more often than not going to land the player.
According to multiple reports, Pitino raised approximately $4 million to assemble his roster for year two. The Hall of Fame head coach rejects the idea that the 30-win Big East champion only won games because of the finances spent on recruiting, which is completely fair. Players still have to perform after they get paid. Coaches still have to create a winning game plan.
However, St. John’s has the largest NIL budget in the conference in large part because of Mike Repole. The founder of Vitaminwater and BodyArmor contributed at least seven figures in donations. By Pitino’s own estimate, Repole was responsible for approximately 50% of the multi-million dollar operation.
That was last year. Pitino rebuilt and reloaded for 2025-26 through the transfer portal.
- Ian Jackson, North Carolina — former five-star recruit
- Joson Sanon, Arizona State — former four-star recruit
- Oziyah Sellers, USC, Stanford — former four-star recruit
- Dillon Mitchell, Cincinnati — former five-star recruit
- Bryce Hopkins, Providence — former four-star recruit
There is no way that roster is cheap. There is just no way.
Some of the numbers floating around range anywhere from $10 million to $20 million. Some people think Ian Jackson cost $12 million alone. (Maybe over the course of multiple years?)
My guess is that the correct figure actually hovers closer to $8-10 million. $20,000,000 is an outrageous estimate and Rick Pitino agrees. He wants people to stop over-inflating the truth.
I love the exaggerations of what people are spending on NIL
— Rick Pitino
There is no way to know exactly what Pitino is trying to say. Is he referring to his own roster? Is he being purposefully cryptic to drive down the price for one of his targets? It could mean a lot of different things.
He already denied ‘fabricated rumors’ about Joson Sanon’s salary. Is this more of the same?
Regardless of the underlying message involved with Rick Pitino’s post, for him to get upset with these “exaggerations” while recruiting on one of the biggest NIL pools in college basketball is hilarious. We all know this St. John’s roster wasn’t cheap, coach. There’s no need to try and deny it…