The University of Colorado is ready to roll into a new era of college athletics, but it won’t come without some challenges along the way.

Last month, the approval of the House vs. NCAA settlement ushered in a dramatic change for college athletics, as schools around the country are now allowed to directly pay student-athletes through revenue sharing, as of July 1. CU is likely to start cutting checks to student-athletes at some point this month.

There is a cap of $20.5 million during the 2025-26 school year that institutions can use to pay their student-athletes, and CU athletic director Rick George has said the Buffs will be “all in.”

To be all-in, CU and many of its peers will have to get creative.

“It’s a tough time for a lot of schools out there, because nobody’s just sitting on money,” George said this past week in an interview with BuffZone. “You’ve got to make some changes and do some different things. We’ve been looking at our expenses, and how do we lower our expenses, and how do we lower our game costs and have a better net there? It’s not just in (generating) revenue, it’s in expenses, too. I think we’ve been really good in managing our expenses over my tenure here.”

Still, CU and other schools will face challenges in working $20.5 million into their budgets.

Even some of the top revenue-generating athletic departments in the country are going to have to make changes. During the 2024 fiscal year, Ohio State athletics reported a deficit of nearly $38 million, despite nearly $255 million in revenue. (CU, by comparison, had a school-record $142 million in revenue for FY24).

Between the 2023 and 2024 fiscal years, CU athletics basically broke even but only because the CU campus provided several million dollars in support. Adding a significant expense to pay student-athletes will lead to some changes and challenges for CU and other schools.

“We’ll grow our revenue significantly this year, but it’s not enough,” George said. “We’ve had to make some cuts. We haven’t filled some positions. We’ve restructured different areas just to be able to meet this challenge. It’ll be a tough year for us fiscally; the next three years, probably.”

CU recently sold naming rights to the Byron White Club at Folsom Field. AstroTurf was installed last month at Folsom Field, which will allow for more concerts — and thus more revenue — at the stadium. CU also increased its number of football season tickets, had a small bump in overall ticket prices and will have seven home games for the first time since 1982.

“All of those things make a difference,” George said.

CU will be aggressive in finding more revenue streams, however, because as college athletics continues to evolve, the Buffs want to remain as relevant as possible.

Although CU just joined the Big 12 last year, history suggests another round of conference realignment isn’t too far down the road. The power teams will lead that charge, and CU wants to be at the table.

“It’s kind of been our premise from the start, that we want to be in the discussion whenever there’s a discussion that comes up in the future,” George said. “For us to do that, we need to win, and particularly in those three sports (football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball), and we need our viewership numbers and our brand to grow.”

Head football coach Deion Sanders, entering his third season at CU, has significantly increased CU’s national profile. Keeping him in Boulder was a priority for George, who inked Sanders to a new five-year, $54 million contract extension in March.

“I think it was important for us to extend coach; I think that was a really important part of our future,” George said. “He’s done a lot for this place, and he brought us back from the worst team in college football to where we’re relevant.”

CU hopes to remain relevant and competitive in the new era of revenue sharing. And part of that includes George being adamant that CU maintains its student-athlete support in areas of nutrition, mental health, education and more.

“We had our priorities going in,” he said. “We wanted our student-athletes to have the same benefits they have today, and we wanted to ensure that we didn’t cut any sports and all of that. We’ve done those things that we said we would do.”

As for the distribution of the $20.5 million, George said CU’s model will be like many of its peers are planning.

“It’ll be a revenue-based model, based on the revenue that sport generates,” he said.

The actual numbers are still in flux, but football and men’s basketball have always generated most of the revenue. During the 2024 fiscal year, football accounted for 77% of the CU athletics revenue, while men’s basketball accounted for roughly 11.2%.

Some sports may not receive much, but George said, “Every sport will get something.”

George said there will likely be a standard contract template, but that some contracts for the student-athletes will vary. Some might receive multi-year contracts, while others could be one-year deals. There could also be liquidated damages if a student-athlete wants to leave CU before the contract has expired.

“I think they’re all going to be different,” George said.

Regardless of how the contracts are constructed, and despite some challenging times ahead, CU is ready to embrace the new model and look to the future.

“We’re ready to go,” George said.