Houston athletic director Eddie Nunez during the introductory press conference, Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024, in Houston, Texas.

U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken approved the House v. NCAA settlement Friday night, allowing universities to pay current players directly starting July 1. Schools can share up to $20.5 million of their revenues with players during the upcoming academic year.

The quick turnaround poses challenges for athletic directors nationwide, but Houston’s Eddie Nuñez remains fully committed. 

“We’ve kinda spoken about this throughout the year, so yes, we will be fully supporting our student athletes at the full amount of the $20.5 million,” he told reporters in May. “We’re all in. We’re gonna do this the right way.”

Nuñez and his staff have been working to increase Houston’s revenue since he took over as athletic director in August 2024, a critical task given that the Cougars operate with the lowest budget among Power Four schools. Now, with the implementation of direct revenue sharing, things just got a bit more complicated.

 “We looked at the percentages from before I got here, from our time in the American, about what sports generated what percentage of the revenue. Then we added what we’ve gathered from our first year in the Big 12. We combined that with our own internal budget and data: which sports bring in revenue through ticket sales, media rights and other sources,” Nuñez told The Cougar in January.  

Now the question remains: Will that mean every single student-athlete or every team?

“There are some sports, honestly, that don’t bring in any revenue. But even with that in mind, we’re committed and both the Chancellor and I have said this to try to do something for every team,” he said. “I want to distribute what we can as broadly as possible, while understanding that sports like football and men’s basketball will likely be higher, because of their role in media and TV revenue, and that’s okay. We need football to be extremely successful, because when football is strong, it helps elevate every other program.”

sports@thedailycougar.com

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“Houston ‘all in’ as revenue sharing set to begin under House v. NCAA settlement” was originally posted on The Cougar