Louisville Athletics sets its 2025 budget and prepares for an uncertain future

The University of Louisville Athletic Association (ULAA) on Friday approved a budget of $145,031,274 for fiscal year 2025, approximately $4.8 million less than projected revenues and expenses for 2024.

Director of Athletics Josh Heird said it’s a financial plan his department can “live under” while watching the seismic changes in college sports that are on the horizon; about which there are many questions but few concrete answers.

These changes come as the NCAA and its Power Five conferences agreed in late May to proposed settlements of three antitrust cases involving compensation for college athletes.

The settlement, which has not yet been approved by a judge and whose Title IX implications are unclear, paves the way for schools to begin sharing revenue directly with athletes as early as fall 2025; agrees to nearly $2.8 billion in damages over a 10-year deal to those who were not allowed to profit from their name, image and likeness (NIL) while playing; and is expected to remove scholarship restrictions while limiting squad sizes.

Schools will not be required to pay athletes salaries directly; although those that do not will undoubtedly be at a competitive disadvantage.

Athletic departments paying the maximum total amount under the cap are expected to incur additional expenses of nearly $20 million annually – representing 22% of a Power Five school’s average revenue – while receiving between $1 million and $2 million less in annual funding from the NCAA in to cover payments for damages resulting from overdue payments.

In the face of uncertainty, Heird knows this much: “We’re not just going to stop at $20 million.”

However, some weakening is to be expected. In fact, it has already started. For example, when sports information director Zach Greenwell left to take the LSU job last month, Heird opted to leave his position unfilled.

To avoid layoffs and cutting non-revenue-generating sports — most of which, Heird said, initially run on “lean” budgets — the department is seeking additional funding to compensate athletes when the time comes.

Here are the three steps discussed at Friday’s ULAA meeting:

Louisville football season ticket prices to increase in 2025

Jeff Brohm has done wonders in his first season as Louisville’s head football coach, and expectations are high for the Class 2 Cardinals.

Part of Friday’s meeting, however, was devoted to looking even further into the future. The board has approved new, more expensive season ticket prices at L&N Stadium for the 2025 season; including a $130-per-ticket, per-game increase for premium seats and increases of $15 to $45 in the lower bowl.

The decision to adopt this solution is explained by several factors.

To start with, football is the primary source of revenue for seemingly every Power Five program; and at U of L, it generated $26.2 million in FY24. The athletics department took home $2 million apiece from two sellouts, the Cards’ win over Notre Dame and a loss to archrival Kentucky.

This season, however, there is one less home game scheduled and no “premium” visiting team after Indiana withdrew from the 502 trip last fall and was replaced by Jacksonville State. So the targets for FY25 are relatively modest – a 10% increase in season ticket sales (to 40,000), one sale – which will lead to projected revenues of $24.4 million.

Adjusted pricing for the 2025 season, which will feature eight home games and two “premium” matchups against Clemson and UK, is expected to generate more than 12% growth in season ticket and donation revenues.

Getting Louisville men’s basketball back on track

Simply put: Louisville cannot afford another men’s basketball season and sparse crowds at KFC Yum! Center after falling $1.9 million below its FY24 ticket sales target.

Former head coach Kenny Payne is scheduled to pay $7,250,000 – paid in monthly installments of $201,388.88 through 2027 – and it cost $1.1 million to get his successor, Pat Kelsey, out of his contract in Charleston.

During his short tenure, Kelsey breathed new life into a program that, under Payne’s leadership, went 12-52 and averaged 11,986 tickets sold per game (6,504 scanned) at Yum! with 22,090 seats! Center. Between Kelsey’s formal introduction on March 28 and April 12, the athletics department sold more than 670 new season tickets; which allowed it to eclipse sales in the first year of Payne’s tenure.

By steering the program back to its former status as one of the most profitable sports in the country, the athletics department hopes to see a 30% increase in season ticket sales (to 12,000) and two “premium” games at 90% capacity – one non-conference and one in-game ACC.

Proposed FY25 men’s basketball revenues of $25.8 million increased from $23.9 million in FY24.

“There are some indications that basketball will do better than it has in the last few years,” Heird said. “Like I say, ‘If you’re not willing to be optimistic in this job, why are you doing it?’”

If Kelsey gets things going at Yum! Re-center, Heird’s job becomes much easier. According to Forbes, the men’s basketball program averaged annual revenues of $52 million and profits of $30 million during the 2014-15 season and 2016-17 campaigns.

Expenditures to reduce financial burdens

Heird said there is a way U of L could turn $20 million a year in athlete compensation into $15 million.

Step 1 is to increase funding for the Alston Awards Division — annual scholarships of up to $5,980 for academic achievement — from approximately $1.7 million to $2.5 million per year.

Step 2 increases scholarship costs by $2.5 million. This shouldn’t be too difficult, given that under the proposed agreement he would be able to offer scholarships to every member of his teams, within squad size limits.

However, these limits have not yet been determined. Again, we don’t know how Title IX will factor into the equation.

Heird said there have been a lot of conversations about football among ACC leadership. The popular duty number distributed throughout the country is 85, which would eliminate passers-by. As for men’s and women’s basketball, he said he doesn’t anticipate any significant changes to the teams, down from 13 and 15, respectively.

“We have some equivalency sports where you give up half scholarships and quarter scholarships to try to fill out a 30-, 40- and sometimes 50-man roster over the course of 12 scholarships; what will these numbers be? looks like?” Heird said. “I think that’s where these conversations are going to be.”

Contact Louisville men’s basketball reporter Brooks Holton at [email protected] and follow him on the X at @brooksHolton.