Ross Bjork explains how Ohio State decided to split $18 million among athletes

On Thursday, Ohio State athletic director Ross Bjork met with the media to discuss the monumental NCAA v. House settlement. Thanks to Judge Claudia Wilken’s approval, schools will now be allowed to revenue share up to $20.5 million with its athletes.

While each school will have the capability to distribute the $20.5 million, not every school will distribute it in the same way. Ohio State will immediately take $2.5 million and put it toward its athletes’ scholarships. However, at the press conference, Bjork explained how the school decided to split up the remaining $18 million.

“A lot of programs raced out and announced — and they really followed the House case settlement allocation, 75 [percent for football], 15 [for basketball], 10 [to other sports]. What we did is, we use metrics,” Bjork said. “So we said, ‘OK, what does football drive? What does women’s basketball drive? What does volleyball drive?’

“Knowing we’d have 18 million, what are some metrics that can put some parameters around how to allocate it? That was a process through a lot of data, a lot of studying that our staff put together, and then at the end of the day, ‘OK, this is where we think football is.’ So, yeah, I signed off on that, was a part of that discussion. Then, we’ll give those allocations to our coaches, and then they’ll have to decide how to divide it up.”

Bjork announced that football, basketball, women’s basketball and women’s volleyball will be the four programs that receive direct payment in the upcoming year. However, he didn’t reveal what percentage of the $18 million each program will receive.

Nonetheless, it’s safe to assume that football will easily haul in the most money of any program due to the amount of players on the team and the revenue that the sport brings in. From there, most schools give money to basketball, women’s basketball and their fourth sport of choice in descending order.

According to The Columbus Dispatch, football and men’s basketball were responsible for 95% of the athletic department’s sport-specific revenue during the 2024 fiscal year. Thus, it’s no surprise the two programs will benefit the most from Ohio State’s revenue sharing model.

While Ohio State will only directly dish out NIL payments to four sports in 2025, Bjork doesn’t want to cut any sports at the school. He made this clear on Thursday.

“We will maintain all 36 sports,” Bjork said. “[We] have an obligation to the young people in those programs. There’s a lot of historical programs that compete.”

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