NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Vanderbilt has plenty of options for divvying up revenue sharing under the House settlement with a two-time national baseball champ and both men’s and women’s basketball coming off NCAA Tournament berths.
Combined with a record of more losing seasons than bowl berths seemingly would make for an easy decision to invest anywhere but football.
Not the Commodores.
“This is the SEC,” Vanderbilt athletic director Candice Storey Lee said. “You have to invest and invest at a high level.”
The decision is tougher with the SEC’s lone private university coming off one of its best all-around athletic seasons in years.
Lee wouldn’t specify if Vanderbilt will follow the 75-15-5-5 formula that has emerged as a popular revenue-sharing plan with the House settlement that would send 75% of revenue-share money to football, followed by men’s basketball, then women’s basketball.
Investing more in football isn’t just the cost of doing business in the Southeastern Conference. Lee and Chancellor Daniel Diermeier lured Clark Lea away from Notre Dame because they wanted to turn Vanderbilt into a consistent winner, which the Commodores haven’t been in decades.
In 2021, Vanderbilt announced its biggest football stadium renovation in 40 years with a complete redesign and rebuild of each end zone. The south end zone will be ready for the season opener Aug. 30.
All the spending is easier to justify after 2024. With quarterback Diego Pavia, the Commodores went 7-5 and won their first bowl since 2013. The season’s highlight was the program’s first win over an AP No. 1-ranked team with the Commodores never trailing against Alabama last October.
Lea said last season’s success is starting to break through the “cynicism” around Vanderbilt football.
“We…
Source link : https://www.nbcsports.com/college-football/news/vanderbilt-ready-to-keep-investing-in-football-after-historic-season-and-house-settlement
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Publish date : 2025-06-18 16:20:00
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