{"id":736105,"date":"2026-02-07T17:22:31","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T17:22:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/736105\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T17:22:31","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T17:22:31","slug":"kelvin-sampson-walks-back-comments-about-houstons-nil-funding-i-shouldnt-have-said-were-poor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/736105\/","title":{"rendered":"Kelvin Sampson walks back comments about Houston’s NIL funding: ‘I shouldn’t have said we’re poor’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following his comments about Houston\u2019s<\/a> NIL<\/a> funding on Wednesday, Cougars coach Kelvin Sampson<\/a> offered clarification. He said the UH athletics department was \u201cpoor<\/a>\u201d as a result of the move to the Big 12.<\/p>\n

Sampson praised Houston Athletics, but pointed out other Big 12 schools\u2019 financial standing. That\u2019s the result of the conference change when the Cougars made the leap from the American Athletic Conference.<\/p>\n

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Upon joining the Big 12, Houston had to take a decreased media share in 2023-24 and 2024-25 as part of a two-year phase-in. UH will get a full share starting in 2025-26. But Sampson said the decreased share made an impact on the school as it adjusted to its new conference.<\/p>\n

\u201cI shouldn\u2019t have said we\u2019re poor,\u201d Sampson said Thursday<\/a>. \u201cWe\u2019re not poor. We\u2019re anything but poor. We\u2019ve got a great athletic department. The NIL thing, though, that\u2019s not a bottomless pit. You\u2019ve got to continue to work at that. And the schools that have been in the Big 12 the longest, they have an advantage.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut that\u2019s nothing to do with anything we\u2019ve done wrong. It has everything to do with how many years they\u2019ve been at a full media share. We\u2019ve been in the American Athletic Conference. That\u2019s the only reason they\u2019re ahead of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kelvin Sampson\u201d \u2018I have to\u2019 work on NIL in-season<\/p>\n

In the meantime, though, Kelvin Sampson said NIL still requires a year-round effort. In fact, he had discussions with assistant coach Kellen Sampson, his son, just this week.<\/p>\n

Sampson also has had similar conversations with Houston football coach Willie Fritz<\/a>. But doing work on NIL during the season comes with the territory in the new era of college basketball, he said. It\u2019s part of being competitive in the race for a national championship.<\/p>\n

\u201cI run the basketball program,\u201d Sampson said. \u201cI\u2019m not going to sit there and wait for them to come to me, and neither is Willie. He and I have had some awesome, awesome conversations, just exchanging idea. We\u2019ve been around a little bit.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut this NIL thing, every year\u00a0\u2013 I look at what other programs are doing. Kellen and I spend a lot of time. We\u2019re doing NIL this week. I have to. We want to continue to win, but you\u2019ve got to keep working at it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Following his comments about Houston\u2019s NIL funding on Wednesday, Cougars coach Kelvin Sampson offered clarification. He said the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":736106,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7,106236,49,48,1788],"class_list":{"0":"post-736105","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-kelvin-sampson-74-purnell-swett","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-football","12":"tag-regwall"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116030508056429573","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=736105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/736106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=736105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=736105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=736105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}