Bret Bielema predicts potential $40 million rosters in 2025, reveals Illinois had $5 million budget in 2024

As college athletics braced for a decision on the House v. NCAA settlement, NIL dollars continued to fly as the transfer portal window opened. Budgets began to increase for top programs as they tried to secure big-time talent.

Illinois coach Bret Bielema heard about the surge in spending through his conversations with the AFCA and others around the sport. Under the House settlement, a clearinghouse would go in place and require approval for NIL deals worth more than $600, On3’s Pete Nakos detailed the role a delay of final approval could have on football’s spring transfer window.

In fact, Bielema predicted schools were spending upward of $35 million on rosters – and, in some cases, could reach $40 million. He noted his Fighting Illini team worked with a $5 million budget as they went 10-3, but also said that might not be sustainable if other programs keep spending.

"You're gonna see teams this year…that are probably in the neighborhood of $30-35, maybe even…$40 million rosters."

With a House settlement looming, @IlliniFootball HC @BretBielema believes we could see major spending before guardrails are fully established. pic.twitter.com/8086JKi9ln

— College Sports on SiriusXM (@SXMCollege) May 16, 2025

“The good news is, there’s some things that are going to change college football that have never been seen before that I think will be a good thing,” Bielema said on SiriusXM College Sports Radio. “There’s probably some growing pains we’ve got to go through. This is the last – in theory, the last world where we’ve been combining an NIL world that’s really unchartered, unprotected and, really, without consequences. So you’re going to see teams this year in college football, just because I know the landscape I’m dealing with, that are probably in the neighborhood of $30-35, maybe some of them close to $40 million rosters – which is insanity, at its best, but it’s also awesome for our kids.

“Last year, we finished fifth in our conference, 18-team conference. We had about a $5 million pool that we were working off of, but the four teams ahead of us, I think, were north of $20 million. You can pull that off once in a while, but to pull that off year-in and year-out is just not in the deck of cards that we’re dealt.”

Bret Bielema also acknowledged it takes spending on rosters to contend in the NIL era, although revenue-sharing could be on the way if the House v. NCAA settlement receives final approval. However, he hopes to see more consistency at some point, aptly summing up his point.

“To get everybody [in] a ballpark that everybody’s kind of in that same thing, whether we’re all shopping at Walmart or Louis Vuitton, as long as we’re all shopping in the same mall, I can live with that,” Bielema said. “But we have to be able to have some type of parameters to make sure that makes it consistent for everybody.”