Athletic director Ross Bjork expects Ohio State’s athletic department to be the first to record an annual operating budget of $500 million in the coming years.
“It’s going to happen,” Bjork said. “It could happen in three years from now. It could happen two years from now or five years from now. But we will have a $500 million athletic budget at some point in time very soon. We have that capability.”
Since replacing Gene Smith at the helm of the athletic department two years ago, Bjork has seen soaring revenues from ticket sales, sponsorship and licensing, as well as record fundraising following their national championship in football in 2024.
The university’s athletic department exceeded $300 million in operating revenue for the first time during the 2025 fiscal year, according to its annual financial report to the NCAA.
The department’s total of $336.1 million marked a significant spike from its previous high of $279.5 million from the 2023 fiscal year. Revenue and expense figures from this fiscal year ending on June 30 are not yet available.
Ohio State is a behemoth in college sports not only due to the stature of its football program, but also due to its sponsorship of 36 other varsity sports, leaving it tied with Stanford for the most among power conference schools.
Both factors have led the athletic department in recent years to pursue additional ways to generate revenue, especially as it also manages new expenses related to revenue-sharing with athletes that began last year following the settlement of three antitrust cases against the NCAA.
Bjork has sought to cultivate more donors as well as part of their fundraising efforts.
“There’s a lot of data that shows we have 12 million fans,” Bjork said. “If 1% of those people would join the Buckeye Club, what’s the math on that? One hundred and twenty thousand. Right now, we have about 25,000 donors, and that’s a great number, but how do we take the size and scale of Ohio State and maximize it?
“There really is no ceiling for our program from an engagement, enterprise, value, revenue, all of those things. That’s what we’re really going to focus on. Take vision, turn it into action and make sure we’re nationally competitive. We have to make sure there’s some financial sustainable model.”
Joey Kaufman covers Ohio State football for The Columbus Dispatch. Email him at jkaufman@dispatch.com and follow him on @joeyrkaufman on X.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio State’s Ross Bjork projects to have $500 million athletics budget ‘very soon’
Reporting by Joey Kaufman, Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Joey Kaufman, Columbus Dispatch | USA TODAY Network
