Kentucky basketball head coach Mark Pope joked about the steep price that his 2025-26 basketball roster would cost, but in reality, he wasn’t really kidding. Pope kept the number tongue-in-cheek, but new estimates suggest that the Wildcats will have one of the most expensive rosters in the country.
That number dwarfs the final roster of the John Calipari era. Coach Cal’s final roster at UK was projected to make just under $4 million in NIL value. With revenue sharing and NIL at a whole different level, it’s a good possibility that one individual player is making close to what Calipari’s 2023-24 roster did as a whole.
As part of the upcoming revenue-sharing structure, the Kentucky basketball team is estimated to receive 25-30% of the school’s share of athletic revenue, according to Roberts. This percentage would rank among the highest in basketball, but it’s not the 45% number that Matt Norlander reported over the summer, which would have been about $9 million in rev share money.
If the 25-30% number is accurate, then it will be in the $5-6 million range.
As Pope has built his second roster in Lexington, the Wildcats’ willingness to invest could set the tone for a new era of college basketball. Not one that banners will define, but a tone characterized by budgets.