If one was to divide college sports into the 'haves' and the 'have-nots,' the West Virginia Mountaineers would historically occupy the latter category. And in the new era of NIL and revenue sharing, money and status has become more important than it ever has been before.
Because of that, the athletic department in Morgantown seems set on making sure they can shift the fortunes of West Virginia athletics, and they've been hard at work over the past year to make that a reality. And by all indications, that project has been a roaring success.
West Virginia athletics raises record amount of money as football team rises closer to the top of the Big 12
West Virginia athleticsmade history this past year, fundraising record-amount of money. According to a release from the athletic department, they generated $111 million in "philanthropic support," which came close to tripling the previous single-year fundraising record of $38 million. This was helped in part by 7,934 Mountaineer Athletic Club members, which is also a new record for the number of individual donors in a single year.
"The numbers speak for themselves, but what stands out most is the number of people who chose to support WVU Athletics," athletic director Wren Baker said. "Whether through a major gift, annual giving, season tickets or one of our new initiatives, every investment strengthens our ability to support student-athletes and move this department forward. We're incredibly grateful for that commitment."
As a part of that effort, the athletic department raised over $5.5 million directly to it's Championship Resource Fund, which was launched last August as a vehicle to support WVU's in-house NIL fund.
Maybe that's part of the reason that in a recent interview, Bakerdisclosed that WVU football has reached a goalfans had heard head coach Rich Rodriguez pinpoint multiple times as a key to success – being in the top half of the league in overall spending.
"When you look at our recruiting class and our portal class, we tremendously upgraded talent," Baker said. Our overall spend this year, I know it’s in the top half of the league, somewhere between fifth and seventh, and going into next year, we’ve increased that quite a bit to make sure that retention is there. As Rich said in his presser last week, we have the money to retain these guys, and we’re going to.”
If West Virginia can continue to generate money like this, it opens the door for a bright future in the ever-changing landscape of college sports. Right now, money is king. And if West Virginia can continue to generate single-year fundraising totals that rival some of the top schools in college sports, and maintain a spot among the top-half of the spenders in the Big 12, things will get a lot easier for WVU to find consistent success.
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