Cal begins a critical football season on Saturday with a new playbook, a rookie quarterback, an overhauled offensive backfield, holes on the lines of scrimmage and enough questions to fill Strawberry Canyon.
But in a plot twist delivered from an alternate universe, the Bears are in terrific shape financially.
OK, maybe not terrific shape. But certainly solid shape. Respectable shape. Money-isn’t-an-excuse-for-losing shape.
In the most tumultuous era in college sports history, with athletes earning paychecks and schools positioning themselves for the next wave of realignment — and a possible super league — the Bears aren’t kneecapped by a cash crunch.
What in the name of Pappy Waldorf has happened in Berkeley?
Let’s begin with revenue sharing, which has transformed the roster-building process across the power conferences (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC).
On June 6, a federal judge in the Northern District of California approved the settlement terms of the landmark House v. NCAA lawsuit, which allow schools to share revenue directly with players in exchange for the use of their name, image and likeness.
For the 2025-26 fiscal year, the revenue-sharing cap is $20.5 million. Schools aren’t required to share the full amount, but every unspent dollar can undermine talent acquisition and retention.
Decisions on dollar allocations for each sport have been left to the schools, but the general breakdown goes as follows in the power leagues: $14 million to $15 million for the football roster, $3 million to $4 million for men’s basketball and roughly $1 million each for women’s basketball and the remainder of the Olympic sports.
Of course, every allocation model leads to the same endgame: a line-item expense of up to $20.5 million on athletic department budgets.
Five days after the House lawsuit settlement, Cal chancellor Rich Lyons revealed his plan to pay for revenue sharing in the revenue-generating sports: The administration would match every dollar donated by boosters to football up to $6 million and every dollar donated to men’s basketball up to $1.5 million.
In other words, $6 million in donations to football would generate $12 million in rev-share funds available for the roster. But whereas the administration capped its match at $6 million, there’s no ceiling on donations — and fundraising efforts are, in fact, ongoing.
The Bears declined to reveal the amounts raised but said donations already have exceeded the matching totals for both sports. Football coach Justin Wilcox has more than $12 million available, and men’s basketball coach Mark Madsen has more than $3 million to use. (Other means of supporting rev-share efforts are being explored, as well.)
That doesn’t mean Wilcox and Madsen will spend every last dollar before the transfer portal opens for each sport over the winter and spring — the uncertainty generated by the transfer portal creates a need for fiscal flexibility. But for each sport, the Bears seemingly have cleared the threshold required for success.
And Lyons expects both programs to be successful.
“Our revenue sports need to be competitive, like so many of our other sports,” he told the Hotline last winter. “Another six-win regular season (in football) will be disappointing given how much we are investing. We can’t keep investing and not deliver in our revenue sports.”
The dollars are flowing — and not just to football and men’s basketball.
Earlier this month, the Bears announced a record fundraising haul of $82 million for the 2024-25 fiscal year, shattering the previous mark of $58.3 million in 2005. (The total included a $26.6 million gift from the Spieker family, the largest single donation in Bears history.)
The majority of that $82 million haul took the form of pledges. In terms of cash on hand, the Bears collected $17.3 million, which can be spent on any sport and any type of resource. The cash-in-the-door figure represents an increase of 26 percent from the total raised ($13.7 million) in the 2024 fiscal year.
“Alumni and donors are looking for somebody to trust with their money,” said Beth Tafolla-Voetsch, the Bears’ chief development officer, “and the chancellor has been so supportive of athletics.
“He views athletics as a principal engagement mechanism.”
Lyons’ grand plan for Cal athletics is based, in large part, on endowing as many Olympic sports as possible. To date, five are fully endowed: men’s and women’s golf, rugby, men’s swimming and diving and men’s water polo. (The water sports were covered by the Spieker family’s donation.)
Granted, five sports represent a fraction of Cal’s total offerings of 28 Olympic programs, including women’s basketball, but it’s far better than zero. And the savings in operational costs for the endowed Olympic sports can be redirected to … football.
It always gets back to football (just like this column).
The Bears are entering their second year in the ACC with a morsel of momentum. They have won six games in back-to-back seasons — good enough for bids to the Independence and LA bowls but seemingly not good enough, moving forward, for Lyons and general manager Ron Rivera.
Asked how he would define success in 2025, Rivera told assembled reporters last week: “Anything that puts us in a solid bowl game — eight, nine wins. I think that’s what you’re looking for. That shows growth from last year.”
He added: “We all know the clock’s ticking. There’s pressure to be successful, especially in today’s climate.”
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As the pressure on Wilcox escalates, so, too, do the competitive challenges.
Life in the ACC can be uncomfortable, what with the long trips and early kickoffs. And like so many schools, Cal is constantly at risk of losing elite players (hello, Jadyn Ott) to the transfer portal. And Bryan Harsin is the fourth offensive coordinator in the past four years. And, in case anyone forgets, revenue sharing isn’t the only necessary funding source for talent.
External NIL still exists as a means of exceeding the revenue-sharing cap ($20.5 million), so long as the contracts between athletes and businesses are approved by a college sports clearinghouse established this summer.
Which means the Bears need to continue funding football as they have in the past — for travel staff and recruiting and nutrition and everything else required to support the massive operation.
They need to fund revenue sharing, with donations and the administration’s match (and any other funding source) combining for the $14 million to $15 million required.
And like everyone else, they need the local business community to generate NIL opportunities for players above and beyond the revenue sharing.
The cost of success in the post-modern era of major college football — of winning eight or nine games — is steeper than Tightwad Hill. But remarkably, the Bears seem to have it covered.
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