Tipsheet: Kansas reminds us how billionaire boosters drive college sports
This week brought another compelling illustration of how billionaire boosters impact the college sports industry.
A gentleman named David Booth pledged $300 million to the University of Kansas, his beloved alma mater, to support athletics 鈥- especially football.
This fellow already had his name on the football stadium, thanks to his earlier $50 million gift. The school will allocate $75 million from this latest gift for further stadium upgrades while using the rest to support athletics.
鈥淚'd say it's transformative and a game changer,鈥 Kansas athletic director Travis Goff told ESPN. 鈥淭his gift makes an immediate impact on our top priority in a profound way, and it also provides us with an incredible revenue stream that gives us a chance to really invest in unique ways in the future of Kansas athletics.鈥
We all know that Kansas is a basketball school, one of the bluest of the blue blood programs. Allen Fieldhouse is one of the sport鈥檚 iconic venues. Coach Bill Self built an enduring juggernaut.
But as the college sports industry evolved with wide-scale conference realignment, KU football got left behind.
When the Jayhawks broke through with a 9-4 finish in 2023, that was their first winning season since 2008. They lost nine or more games 12 times during that unfortunate span.
That sustained futility helped explain why Kansas remained stuck in the hodge-podge Big 12 while conference rivals fled to bigger leagues and greater shared revenues.
But now KU is back, as Mizzou fans will see Sept. 6 when the Jayhawks bring a dangerous team to Boone County for a compelling rivalry game.
Kansas is getting into the football mainstream with massive facility and stadium upgrades, which will eventually include an adjacent mixed-use development.
The Jayhawks are moving back into their stadium this year after renovations displaced them last season. The construction for the next phase will continue after this season.聽
These upgrades has given KU coach Lance Leipold a great story to tell while recruiting. He is engineering a Gary Pinkel-caliber turnaround.
Booth, who is a Lawrence native and founder of Dimensional Fund Advisors, will get to see all of this take shape. Instead of buying a yacht, he is using his spare millions to single-handedly pushing the Jayhawks to the next level.
鈥淥ne of life's greatest privileges is being able to give back to the people and places that gave so much to you,鈥 Booth said in a release. 鈥淜U and Lawrence are a big part of my story, and it means a lot to support the community that invested in me. Philanthropy, like investing, pays dividends over time. Each gift compounds, creating opportunities not just for today, but for years to come. This is really about the future we're building.鈥
With KU muscling up in football, it will be incumbent on billionaire boosters of other programs to dig deeper to keep their alma mater a step ahead.
It鈥檚 insanity when you step back and think about this massive allocation of wealth into college sports, but at least the athletes are finally getting a share of all these billions pouring into the industry.
Here is what folks have been writing about college football:
Bruce Feldman, The Athletic: 鈥(Sam) Pittman is one game under .500 in five years, going 30-31. His second season was excellent, as Arkansas finished No. 21 with a 9-4 mark in 2021. Over the next three seasons, he went 7-17 in SEC play and 18-20 overall. Not bad, considering how much Bret Bielema struggled there, but getting more than six seasons in the SEC for being average is probably asking a lot. His buyout, by SEC standards, is quite manageable. Circle Week 4 at Memphis as a key game. It comes after a trip to Ole Miss and before Notre Dame comes to town. The Razorbacks should be 2-0 out of the gate. Sitting at 2-2 with the schedule about to get much rougher would make bowl eligibility seem quite daunting. They play six teams ranked in the AP Top 25, four of them on the road.鈥
Pete Fiutak, College Football News: 鈥淔or a (South Carolina) program that hasn't won 10 games in a season since 2013, this is it. This is the year Gamecock fans have been waiting for. With the possible top quarterback in the 2026 NFL Draft in LaNorris Sellers - assuming the Arch Is Staying thing is for real - and what should be a phenomenal defense, the talent is there.聽 It's a strong team that came聽really聽close to big things, losing to LSU and Alabama by a combined five points. It was firmly on the bubble to get into the 12-team CFP last year, going 9-3 with a six-game winning streak - including over Clemson - to close out the regular season, and . . . At Missouri, at LSU, Oklahoma, Alabama, at Ole Miss, at Texas A&M, Clemson. This is a 10-2 team with an 8-4 schedule.鈥
Tom Fornelli, : “The (AP Top 25) poll is a perfect reflection of how the Big 12 is viewed. There are good teams in the league, but there aren't any elite teams. No. 11 Arizona State is the highest-ranked team in the league. After the Sun Devils, we don't see another Big 12 team until No. 17 Kansas State. No. 22 Iowa State and No. 23 Texas Tech round out the four teams that finished in the poll, but Nos. 26, 27, and 28 are BYU, Utah and Baylor. So what happened here is the voters filled out their top-15, consisting of the Big Ten, SEC, Clemson, Miami, Notre Dame and the reigning Big 12 champs, then said, ‘all right, now let's throw some Big 12 teams in there at the bottom.’ Four Big 12 teams made the poll, and nine received at least one vote. So those teams that were ‘thrown in there’ varied, which made it difficult for anyone but Arizona State to climb into the top 20. This will change as the season goes on, because there are good teams in the Big 12. We just don't know who they'll be yet because the gap between the league's best and worst isn't as pronounced as it is in the other power leagues.”
Blake Toppmeyer, USA Today: 鈥淭exas A&M being overrated is an August tradition. The Aggies were ranked in the preseason polls in each of the past six years. They finished the season ranked only twice during that span, and only once did they finish higher than their preseason ranking. That doesn鈥檛 mean these Aggies will stink. They鈥檙e equipped with a solid offensive line and a strong backfield. But, combine how they buckled at the end of last season with their history of failing to meet projections, and the AP (ranking No. 19) awarded too much respect.鈥
Nick Bromberg, Yahoo! 榴莲视频: 鈥淎 win over Notre Dame in Week 1 could be the jumpstart Miami needs for a special season. The Hurricanes are still looking for their first College Football Playoff appearance ever. Why not 2025? A healthy Carson Beck could easily replicate his 2023 season at Georgia provided that Miami has adequately replenished its receiving corps. Even if the passing game takes a bit to get going, a strong offensive line should help a lot. The defense could improve with better health and transfer portal additions and allow fewer than 20 points per game for the first time since 2018 last season. A manageable ACC schedule sets up well for the Hurricanes to get into the conference title game and position themselves for a first-round bye.鈥
MEGAPHONE
鈥淭his is going to be a long season, and unfortunately, we live in a world of [Arch Manning is] the greatest ever, or is going to be a bust. And there's not a lot of in between. And it's kind of like where we are as a team. We're either going to be national champs or we're going to be a bust.鈥
Texas coach Steve Sarkisian, on expectations for his quarterback and his team.
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