It’s no secret that the dawn of the Name, Image and Likeness era in college athletics hasn’t been kind to Gonzaga University basketball, but recent court rulings and a new TV deal could quickly flip the program’s fortunes.
If the wide-open nature of finances in college athletics has benefited anyone, it’s major universities that have money to spend. Perhaps it’s a Texas Tech being bankrolled by an oil baron, or a Duke that has more wealthy donors than GU has students — but if you’re able and willing to pony up, you can build just about anything.
But compare that to GU, a small institution with a modest endowment that just so happens to have an elite basketball tradition built on player development and scheme — qualities that have become increasingly less important to recruits thanks to NIL — and it’s easy to see why GU has taken a slight step back recently.
GU did well enough for itself despite these challenges, shrewdly using the transfer portal to maintain its elite standard on the court with additions such as Ryan Nembhard, Graham Ike and Khalif Battle.
However, this came at the cost of its high school recruiting and NBA talent development, as the Zags haven’t landed a five-star prospect since 2021 and have seen just one former player selected in the first round of the draft since 2022.
Sure, GU still continued to win NCAA Tournament games and maintained its usual dominance over the WCC — but it didn’t feel quite as overpowering as it did at the turn of the decade. For a while, it seemed like the NIL era had put the Zags’ best days behind them.
Fortunately, that reality looks to be in the rearview mirror thanks to a one-two punch of off-court rulings. First, the marathon House v. NCAA lawsuit finally settled at the beginning of June, which allowed schools to directly distribute up to $20.5 million of revenue to their student-athletes across all sports.
This revenue cap doesn’t apply to NIL deals, either, so boosters are free to continue funneling money toward endorsements for GU athletes outside of the revenue-sharing apparatus.
There’s one obvious advantage that GU holds thanks to this ruling: it doesn’t have to pay football players. Almost every other major player in college basketball has to devote significant funding to acquire and retain up to 105 scholarship football players — and because football is far and away the most lucrative college sport, most athletic departments prioritize spending the majority of their money on the gridiron.
GU doesn’t have to worry about that, meaning that almost all of its revenue can be funneled toward men’s and women’s basketball. Last season, only eight men’s basketball programs spent over $10 million on their rosters. GU has never come close to these numbers. Now, the Zags can join that club thanks to this ruling.
This isn’t to say that the House settlement spells doom for Duke, Kentucky and all of the other blue-blood programs — far from it. Their boosters will still have more than enough money to bankroll athletes with NIL deals. However, this does establish a robust financial baseline for high-profile, basketball-only schools such as GU, St. John’s, Creighton and Marquette, allowing them to keep up with the biggest spenders on the recruiting trail despite having less powerful donor bases.
Two weeks later, the Pac-12 inked a five-year media rights extension with CBS, locking the conference’s games into a marquee television network. While exact figures for the deal haven’t been reported, GU will receive a full revenue share — an immense win for the Zags given their absence from the gridiron.
Importantly, the conference said in a press release that it may sign deals with multiple networks in the future, so more financial opportunities could present themselves down the road for GU’s athletic department.
An influx of money to spend on the roster could do wonders for the Zags off the court. Even despite its shallow NIL pockets, GU placed itself squarely in the running for top recruits largely off of its prestige and coaching, narrowly missing out on five-star high schoolers (Isiah Harwell, Nik Khamenia) and high-profile transfers (Donovan Dent, Rodney Rice) in recent cycles. Would GU have been able to flip these recruits with some extra cash? It’s not unreasonable to think so.
In fact, this has already begun paying dividends for Mark Few and his staff on the recruiting trail, as GU scheduled visits with 2026 prospect Tyran Stokes and 2027 blue-chipper Baba Oladotun — both of whom occupy the top spot in 247Sports’ recruiting rankings for their respective recruiting cycles. Stokes and Oladotun aren’t the only elite recruits that GU is eyeing, as 2026 five-stars Ikenna Alozie and Sam Funches have also both scheduled official visits to the Kennel.
Either Stokes or Oladotun would be a program-changing commitment for the Zags — much like Chet Holmgren’s decision to come to Spokane in 2021 — but the fact that GU is in the mix for high schoolers of this caliber again is an incredibly encouraging sign.
It remains to be seen whether Few will stick around to reap the rewards of this lucrative deal; he’s implied in an interview with Colin Cowherd that he may soon be handing the reins to assistant coach Brian Michaelson, who’s been the coach-in-waiting since Tommy Lloyd’s 2021 departure to Arizona. Regardless of who steers the ship going forward, the future for GU in this new, financially-driven collegiate landscape suddenly looks a whole lot brighter.