A new report from the Lexington Herald-Leader says the Wildcats’ basketball roster is worth an estimated $22 million.
What’s the price tag on a national championship? That’s what Kentucky intends to find out.
According to the Lexington Herald-Leader, the 2025-26 Wildcats roster carries a staggering payroll of roughly $22 million, making it by far the most expensive in college basketball history. For comparison, most top-tier programs are floating somewhere around the $10 million range.
The number reportedly doubled expectations and is more than five times what John Calipari’s final roster cost in 2023 — less than $4 million — even with five top-40 recruits and multiple NBA draft picks.
Kentucky reportedly dropped $22 million on its basketball team this season.
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“It went through the roof,” one source told the Herald-Leader. “It just became a massive bidding war among everybody.”
And Kentucky, led by second-year coach Mark Pope, wasn’t shy about outbidding the competition.
“Put NIL, put the transfer portal on the list,” Pope said earlier this year. “Our job is to go be the best at everything. We’re not shying away from that. It’s important to us.”
He wasn’t kidding. The Wildcats enter the 2025-26 season ranked No. 9 in the AP preseason poll and loaded with talent: SEC Preseason Player of the Year Otega Oweh, elite transfers like Kam Williams and Mouhamed Dioubate, plus a trio of top-ranked freshmen and international prospect Andrija Jelavic.
The $22 million figure doesn’t just include traditional NIL deals, either. A significant chunk is coming from Kentucky’s revenue-sharing allocation, which sources say is between 25–30% of the school’s $20.5 million cap. For reference, most schools are allocating about 15% to men’s basketball.
And while administrators hope future caps and the College Sports Commission will slow this kind of spending, for now it’s open season. And Kentucky has the biggest wallet.
No pressure, Mark Pope.
(Photo by Steph Chambers/Getty Images)
Of course, after spending all this money, the Wildcats will be expected to win. One coach told CBS Sports that Pope would have to be a “complete bozo” not to win a national title soon “since UK can do things no other school can financially.”
Anything short of a Final Four might be seen as failure. And a $22 million failure is a tough pill to swallow.
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