Mitch Barnhart says 6 programs will split Kentucky's revenue-sharing budget but won't give specifics

As expected, Mitch Barnhart didn’t share specifics on Kentucky’s revenue-sharing plans for the 2025-26 season; however, he did pull the curtain back just a tiny bit.

In his press conference at Kentucky Football Media Day, Barnhart said six programs will split the $20.5 million the department has set aside for revenue-sharing this year: football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, baseball, softball, and volleyball. He also said that the $20.5 million is actually $18.5 million when you account for scholarships.

How much will each of those six programs get? Barnhart is keeping that close to the vest.

“The speculation is wonderful,” Barnhart quipped when asked about fans wanting to know revenue-sharing specifics. “I think that not only do the fans want to know, but our opponents want to know. And so I think we’re going to sort of keep it fluid with us and keep it inside our framework.”

That said, Barnhart made it clear that UK’s coaches are happy with the plan, specifically mentioning “great conversations” with Mark Stoops, Mark Pope, and Kenny Brooks. That’s in large part because the amounts each sport gets can change each year based on each team’s needs.

“I will say this: our coaches are pleased with where we are and what we’re doing. And I think that’s the beauty of this cap system that we’re in, is that it is pretty fluid from season to season, from sport to sport, and it can change. And so to sit here and say, we’re going to focus and put this number on that, it may change by the time we get to the end of the semester. It may change by the time we get to the end of the year, based on rosters, based on who’s in your program and who’s not in your program.

“And so we want to be really thoughtful about how we do that. And we think our best advantage in being able to help our coaches in the best way possible is to be really, really nimble in what we do, and we can only do that, we think, if we structure it this way.”

When asked, Barnhart said that the revenue-sharing money doesn’t roll over, meaning that you have to either use it this year or lose it. Helping matters is that this year’s rosters were funded by NIL dollars set in place before the House Settlement went into effect on July 1. How NIL will be handled now, and the role of collectives seems to change by the minute, especially as lawsuits mount. Federal legislation would certainly help.

“The change that has occurred has been massive,” Barnhart said. “We don’t even have a governance structure in place, really, to be honest with you. So you’re asking people to say, hey, this is absolutely the highway or the pathway we’re supposed to go down. I don’t think that’s a reality in anybody’s world. There’s going to be a clunkiness to it, and a getting-started piece to all of this. And hopefully the waters will smooth a little bit, but it is going to be a little bit clunky at the beginning, you have coaches coming out and saying the NIL piece of NILGo is not working. You have others saying it’s working fine. You have the revenue cap.

“So, everyone’s in the weeds, and everyone understands exactly what’s going on. I’ve been in the middle of those conversations for 10 months, 12 months, and it’s a lot. It is an absolute lot. And I’m thankful for people who want to jump alongside federal legislation and help out of Washington. If anybody wants to help, that would be awesome. That’d be great. If we can get an alignment and get people to help. That would be great. But to sit here and be critical of the system that’s only been in place for four weeks, it’s really, really difficult. So, we’ve got to find our way through it and just gently walk through this thing and let it smooth itself out.”