On his weekly radio show on Monday, Oklahoma State head coach Mike Gundy tried to pit the Cowboys’ spending versus that of the No. 7 Oregon Ducks’ ahead of their Week 2 matchup.
After saying his Oklahoma State program spent “around $7 million over the last three years,” Gundy turned his attention to its next opponent.
“I think Oregon spent close to $40 [million] last year alone. So, that was just one year. Now, I might be off a few million,” Gundy said. He continued: “From a nonconference standpoint, there’s coaches saying they should [play teams with similar budgets].”
Ducks head coach Dan Lanning addressed the comments in his weekly press conference later that day, saying that schools have to spend money if they want to have a top-10 football program.
“Some people save to have an excuse for why they don’t,” the coach said with his own bit of shade. “I can’t speak on [Oklahoma State’s] situation; I have no idea what they got in their pockets over there.”
In 2023-24, Oregon’s total operating expenses for football were $54.8 million, 22nd in the country and nearly $21 million more than 45th-ranked Oklahoma State’s ($34 million) in the same period, according to information from Sportico’s collegiate financial database.
However, both teams have long been beneficiaries of well-resourced athletic departments and wealthy boosters.
In 2023-24, its last season as a member of the Pac-12, Oregon’s athletic budget of $168.1 million ranked 27th among the 105 public schools in the Football Subdivision (FBS) and was $56.4 million more than the national average. Compared to its current home in the Big Ten, the budget would have come $14.5 million under the conference’s average of $186.6 million. The Ducks generated $168.6 million in revenue in the time period.
Oregon’s most famous alum—Nike founder Phil Knight, who has a net worth of $35.1 billion—reportedly pledged “unlimited” NIL money to bring a national title to campus. He also backed the school’s NIL collective, Division Street, which was once at the center of the NCAA’s early NIL-enforcement probes back in 2022. Not long after that investigation quieted down, Division Street was the subject of a class-action lawsuit filed by current and former female athletes who alleged that the organization favored the school’s male athletes.
Meanwhile, Oklahoma State’s athletic budget was $133.6 million in 2023-24, 40th in the country and $10.3 million more than the Big 12 average. The school pulled in $134.1 million in revenue that year.
The Cowboys have been a longtime benefactor of T. Boone Pickens, the oil magnate turned hedge fund operator who passed away in 2019. At the time of his death, according to the school, Pickens donated at least $652 million to his alma mater, with the money split between academics and athletics. Much of the donated funds led to the growth of OSU’s Athletic Village, which houses the school’s baseball and track & field venues along with two different training facilities. The Pickens estate continues to support the school.
Lanning’s retort might be a sore spot for Gundy, whose contract was restructured in December after a dismal 3-9 season in 2024, with the $1 million savings reportedly being allocated toward the players. (Gundy will make $6.75 million this season, the first of a four-year contract that originally called for a $7.75 million annual salary.)
The Cowboys were winless in Big 12 play last season and missed out on a bowl game for the first time since 2005. The Ducks last year were throttled by eventual national champion Ohio State—the biggest-spending school in America—in the Rose Bowl back in January. A decade earlier in 2014, the Ducks lost to the Buckeyes in the national championship game.