Kentucky is Near the Bottom of the SEC in Athletic Donations

College sports are a money-making enterprise. In the revenue-sharing era, deep pockets prevail when it’s time to build a roster. Some schools in the SEC have more money to work with thanks to generous donors. It’s an uphill climb for Kentucky against its SEC competition.

Thanks to open records requests from Al.com’s Matt Stahl, we can see which SEC programs get a financial leg-up thanks to boosters. The only omission from the data is Vanderbilt, a private institution that is not subject to open records laws.

In 2025, Kentucky received $32,657,330 in athletic donations. That sounds like a lot, but it ranks second-to-last in the SEC, ahead of only South Carolina at $17.5 million. Furthermore, Kentucky was one of only three schools in the SEC that did not receive contributions specifically earmarked for the football program, joining Arkansas and Mississippi State.

Nine SEC teams received at least $50 million in athletic donations in the 2025 fiscal year. Shockingly, Texas A&M is just over that $50 million threshold, while the Texas Longhorns tripled that. Texas received more than $167 million in athletic donations, with $59.5 million going directly to the football program.

You are reading that correctly. Texas football received more money in donations than the entire UK Athletics Department.

Tennessee ranked second in the SEC with $110 million in athletic donations, and more than $50 million to the football program. Oklahoma, Alabama, and LSU round out the top five in the SEC.

Kentucky Looking to Creatively Fundraise

The Kentucky football program did not record any donations specifically directed to the program. Mark Stoops frequently lamented the fundraising required of his job at the dawn of the NIL era. New head coach Will Stein is using every resource he can to find ways to generate more money for his program.

Last week, Peter Burns made the trip to Lexington with an SEC Network crew to film a feature that will air on the channel over the summer. Before they began a competitive pickleball match, Stein pulled Burns aside to ask him a few questions.

“He’s trying to shake things up. I come in (to Lexington), and I had just come back from a big LSU booster event that I emceed. He was peppering me with questions about what other programs do for their fundraising, what works and what doesn’t work,” Burns told KSR.

“What I took from that is Mitch (Barnhart) had his way for the longest time. Coach Stoops had his way for the longest time. All of that is a different world. Will is coming in like, let’s do things different, and I like that energy from him right from the jump.”

It’s a never-ending arms race in the sport of college football. The dollars once spent on new facilities are now being spent on players. As Stein noted earlier this week, “The $35 million-dollar rosters used to be the highest. Now it’s like $50 [million].” The new Kentucky football coach is doing whatever he can to ensure the Cats can keep up with the Joneses.

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