According to Jedd Fisch, the Washington Huskies are budgeting $15 million under the impending House revenue-share settlement for the football team. On top of third-party deals that are negotiated through Montlake Futures, Washington’s NIL collective, there’s a lot of money flowing into college football, and the head coach wants to be prepared.
“The players all understand what the revenue-share number is going to be, and what their so-called income will be beginning July 1, 2025,” he said. “And [the deals] will be 12-month contracts that they’ll be signing, that will be standardized through the entire Big Ten.”
But instead of promoting a member of his staff to general manager or making an outside hire, Fisch opted to hire The 33rd Team, an NFL think tank led by former New York Jets general manager Mike Tannenbaum, as outside consultants.
“Mike Tannenbaum and his team is somebody that we’re using as a resource,” Fisch said. “Somebody that we’re using for our players to be able to speak with and discuss what it looks like when you’re making decisions when you’re making financial decisions when you’re making career decisions, we wanted to bring in somebody that had no real motives, nobody really connected to our program substantially, but also somebody that can help guide [director of player personnel] Matt [Doherty] and myself in making some critical financial decisions as we’re now budgeting close to $15 million or more to take care of players.”
Some of those financial decisions might consist of how to divvy up funding for different position groups, as several of Washington’s road losses showed that the Huskies need to make some major upgrades along the defensive line in order to find consistent success in the Big Ten.
With some outside consultants who have plenty of experience building NFL rosters around a salary cap, Washington could prove to be an innovator in the unknown future of college football.