Missouri athletics published an approximately 10-minute-long interview Friday between longtime Mizzou Radio play-by-play announcer Mike Kelly and MU athletic director Laird Veatch, in which the AD discussed the expected changes coming to college athletics.
On Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Claudia Wilken will hold a final hearing in the House v. NCAA class-action case that is expected to reshape college athletics.
The settlement is expected to be approved, which will allow universities to allocate $20.5 million in revenue to student-athletes directly from the university. It is widely expected that football and men’s basketball will receive the bulk of the allocated revenue. Veatch said in his interview with Kelly that Missouri will do the same, but is still in the process of finalizing its plans.
Third-party name, image and likeness deals — how NIL has existed since its inception July 1, 2021 — will still be available, but the major upcoming change is that schools will be able directly distribute revenue to their athletes.
Here is a synopsis of what Veatch said during the interview, and how he expects the upcoming changes to impact Mizzou. Some of Veatch’s answers have been slightly edited for length and clarity:
On how Missouri plans to distribute revenue
“We, like most everyone out there, plan to distribute (revenue) primarily to football and men's basketball. They'll be getting the significant majority,” Veatch said. “But there will be considerable investments in other sports like women's basketball, baseball; and our other student-athletes will have the opportunity to earn revenue-share dollars as well.”
On how scholarships are changing at Mizzou
“We're also really proud that we are actually adding the equivalent of 60 full scholarships to the tune of about $3 million in total starting next year as part of this as well, and a significant majority of those dollars are actually going to our women's sports,” Veatch said. “It's actually about a two-for-one ratio. So a lot of changes, a lot of investment coming, and we are proud that we're going to be in a position to do that, but it's not going to be without its challenges.”
On how Missouri will pay for, fund revenue sharing
“We're highly competitive in the most competitive conference in the country, right?” Veatch said. “We have the commitment of our leadership, our president, board of curators, and … we have such a passionate fan base that is demonstrating more and more that they are truly committed to doing what it takes to step up and get to another level. So, we're going to need a combination of all of those things … to really get where we want to go.
“We're going to need to do our part internally. So, we are doing a real deep dive into our budget process to really reduce expenses in some areas so we can reallocate those to the revenue share dollars. We're going to ...
