Texas could bring a $40 million college football roster to Kroger Field this fall

The Texas Longhorns ponied up for Steve Sarkisian’s football program in Austin. After coming up just one win shy of a national title game appearance in 2024, Texas added nearly a dozen transfer portal additions to its 2025 roster, which should land the Longhorns among the top three teams nationally once the preseason rankings roll out later this summer.

Texas restacked its roster the way teams have to in this day and age: with the almighty dollar. The school had no trouble raising funds from its wealthy donors to supplement the upcoming revenue-sharing allotment, reportedly totaling $40 million for the new team’s player budget.

Forty. Million.

Many of the estimates surrounding team budgets in college athletics are significantly inflated. Even at Kentucky, the reported $20 million basketball budget is hard to believe. Still, the report of Texas spending $40 million on football comes from The Houston Chronicle, not internet rumors or message board fodder.

The story reads, “It currently sits somewhere ‘between $35 million and $40 million,’ which counts the likely revenue-sharing allotment expected to be $20.5 million as well as payouts through the Texas One Fund, a connected source tells the Houston Chronicle.

“This also figures to be a one-time exorbitant expense because athletic director Chris Del Conte and others have said the school plans to phase out its collective in favor of the revenue-sharing via the House settlement and with the move to name, image, and likeness payouts through corporations.”

$40 million could be (and likely is) an exaggeration of the actual budget in Austin, but there’s no doubt that Texas will be one of the biggest spenders in college football.

[More on the Texas roster and its budget: Salary cap? Texas Longhorns will spend between $35-40 million on their football roster for 2025.]

The lengths some teams go to beat Kentucky

It is not an inaccurate statement to say that Texas is spending tens of millions of dollars on its roster in an effort to beat Kentucky Football in the fall. The Longhorns’ season opener at Ohio State and the season finale at rival Texas A&M are probably higher-priority games on the Texas schedule than the one in Lexington. But Texas does, in fact, head to Kroger Field to play Kentucky on October 18, when the Wildcats host one of the richest teams in the sport. Texas won last year’s meeting in Austin, 31-14, before breaking the bank to get even better this offseason.