OIe Miss AD Keith Carter Pleads for Help Amidst 'Significant' Rise in Roster Costs

The cost of doing business in college athletics only continues to inflate. Especially in college football, where the days of $20 million rosters being seen as enough to compete for a national championship are gone.

Now, as this offseason showed, the new number that could “buy” a national championship team is getting closer and closer to $50 million. But these rising costs, especially when it comes to putting together rosters, aren’t unique to just football.

During a recent interview with Rebels247, Ole Miss athletic director Keith Carter said it applies to all sports.

"I would say generally anywhere from 20 to 50 percent over, year over year," Carter said of rising costs. "It's significant. It's significant."

Even in a world where revenue sharing is now permitted within college athletics, thanks to the landmark House vs. NCAA case that earmarked over $20 million in athletic department revenue to be shared with the student-athletes, the cost of winning is just getting higher.

So much so, that Carter, like many of his other counterparts in athletics, wonders if this whole thing is sustainable long-term.

"If you're Texas or Ohio State or (Texas) A&M that's got these huge budgets, you can sustain it for a while," Carter said. "But I don't think forever. Some will last longer than others depending on what your budget is, I guess is what I'm saying. But it's just not sustainable year over year."

Not Sustainable

Some athletic departments have already seen the impacts of this high spending on rosters, which has led to schools cutting sports entirely or reducing the amount of scholarships for a given sport.

And it’s not just at small schools either, it has already happened in the SEC, where Arkansas announced it would cutting its mens and women’s tennis program.

Sustainability has become a new buzz term in college athletics. Which is why many are using the current examples of non-revenue sports being cut in order to fund a football team’s roster as the reason for a new system to be brought into place.

For all of the history that the House vs. NCAA case made for college athletics, it hasn’t stopped the pitfalls of the system prior. Schools are having to choose between offering opportunities for student-athletes across all sports or doing whatever it takes to win in the revenue sports.

While so much of the current system is being plagued by programs not competing and/or following the same rules, Carter believes that can be fixed.

"I think all of us are willing to follow the rules if we know what they are," Carter said. "That's where I think we've got to get there for sure."

How those new rules come into place is a big question right now. Yet, according to Carter, the answers need to be found soon.

"These markets have risen to a point again where this year we're going to be OK," Carter said. "We're always going to fight the good fight in this space, but we need some reform to help us get back on track."

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