COLLEGE STATION — Texas A&M athletics plans to trim its department budget by almost $10 million as a result of the recent House v. NCAA settlement, which requires universities to pay their student-athletes.

Trev Alberts, A&M’s athletic director, told reporters Monday about the department’s plan to increase scholarships, reduce spending and staff, and create a new position to deal with the ramifications of the settlement, which calls for student-athletes to be paid by their schools.

Student-athletes were previously able to sign endorsement deals or make salary demands from third parties under loosened name, image and likeness rules. Alberts said he was “really excited about having a hard cap” and excited about work on NIL Go, a clearinghouse that will review NIL deals.

“This (settlement and resulting committee) has to work for the future of college athletics,” Alberts said. “It’s worth saying, you know, an unregulated market that we’ve lived in the last three to four years is not in the best interest of anybody, including the student-athletes.” 

A&M’s plan is not finalized, with some savings and cut estimates still being calculated, according to a fact sheet provided by Alberts. The settlement — a result of a 2020 class-action lawsuit against the NCAA — approved by a federal judge earlier this month says that each university must pay athletes $20.5 million out of their revenue-sharing agreements. The decision took over a year to be finalized after the NCAA agreed last May to settle the suit. Texas A&M trimmed several athletics positions in April 2024, just before the NCAA bowed out of its legal fight against revenue sharing.

“I knew that this (settlement) was coming,” he said, “but, you know, I think any time you have a transition, (staff changes are) kind of normal in a sense.” 

How Texas A&M is finding the money to pay its players

Alberts, 54, said he felt the department was “a little heavy” in its executive staffing. Hecame to A&M in March 2024 after serving two-plus years as the AD at Nebraska, where he was an All-American linebacker in the 1990s. 

The total of the cuts, along with projected revenue increases, will provide an additional $26.5 million in “financial resources,” the fact sheet states. Texas A&M athletics in fiscal year 2024 made $266.4 million in operating revenues and spent a total of $243.7 million, according to public records obtained by kbtx.com in College Station. Most of that $22.7 million in profit was due to football, which raked in more than $118 million compared to $90 million in expenses. That includes over $27 million being paid to former coach Jimbo Fisher, per KBTX.

Football is A&M’s only revenue-creating sport, Alberts said, but revenue-sharing will be spread among six Aggies programs: football, baseball, men’s and women’s basketball, softball and volleyball.

“We’re going to have (a) best-in-class, fair-market value, NIL strategy,” Alberts said. “It’s where I think Texas A&M has a great strategic advantage… bringing all of our combined assets together to create the best fair-market value NIL strategy for all of our student athletes, (that) should be a separator for us.

“How do we leverage the largest living alumni in the SEC?…”

The changes following the settlement are already being felt, said Alberts, who spent over an hour Monday on campus, discussing the future of the school and college athletics as a whole with local media members.