D1.ticker Top Ten - the most clicked stories of the past week

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#10: Texas A&M plans to trim its budget by $10M in light of the House settlement, according to the Austin American-Statesman’s Tony Catalina, who cites a fact sheet provided by Aggies AD Trev Alberts. Catalina explains the cuts “will come from about $1M in decreased expenses tied to the number of student-athletes; more than $2M in cuts for sports teams (roughly 2-8% budget reduction); nearly $4M, or more, in cuts to department administrative staff, department support and team support staff; and moving away from the $1.8M provided in Alston Awards. The fact sheet shows a yet-to-be-determined line-item reduction" in disbursements to the 12th Man Foundation,” and “analysis is also pending on ‘admin operational savings,’ which are budget cuts for support staff.” (link)

#9: The Pac-12 signs a media rights extension with CBS Sports through 2030-31 that will include the Football and Men’s Basketball championship games and at least three regular season FB and MBB games on CBS and Paramount+, plus more on CBS Sports Network. Yahoo’s Ross Dellenger adds on the Pac-12’s media rights package: “CBS will anchor the league’s multi-platform media package with as many as four partners expected at a later date. The total value of that package remains unclear, though the final annual per-school figure is expected to fall toward the lower range of a projection that the conference showed expansion targets last year ($8-15M).” Dellenger also reports the league is in discussions with Texas State “as the two parties work toward a membership agreement that would start in the fall of 2026. While no deal is finalized, this months-long courtship is expected to reach a crescendo this week, when the formal extension of an invitation may be made. … Texas State’s potential departure from the Sun Belt – if a deal is reached – is expected to set off a chain of realignment moves within the Group of Six conferences. Officials in the Sun Belt, in fact, have already  held internal discussion over potential expansion targets in Conference USA, most notably Louisiana Tech and Western Kentucky, according to those familiar with the talks.” The Conference USA exit fee is expected to be in the $5-7M range, and there is a $5M entry fee into the Sun Belt, “a figure that could be negotiated down at the discretion of the league’s board of presidents. If Texas State is offered a Pac-12 invitation at a full distribution, the school is expected to accept. … Whether the Pac-12 would extend an invitation to any other program remains unclear.” (link, link)

#8: The Pac-12 has invited Texas State to join the league starting in 2026-27, per the Austin Sports Journal’s Michael Adams. The Bobcats are expected to formally accept the invitation during a Board of Regents meeting Monday morning. (link)

#7: Extra Points publisher Matt Brown reports Southern Utah and Utah Tech will move from the WAC to the Big Sky, with Yahoo’s Ross Dellenger adding: “Per sources, the ASUN & WAC are forming an ‘alliance,’ where 5 FB-playing ASUN members will move in 2026 into the WAC, which will then rebrand as United Athletic Conference. […] The departure of the Utah schools + addition of 5 ASUN schools brings the United Athletic Conference in 2026 to 8 members, seven of them playing football: Tarleton, Abilene Christian, UT-Arlington, Eastern Kentucky, North Alabama, Austin Peay, Central Arkansas & West Georgia. The ASUN will be left with seven more like-minded basketball-centric schools. Those members include Bellarmine, Lipscomb, Queens, Jacksonville, North Florida, Stetson and Florida Gulf Coast. The two conferences - the ASUN & UAC - will remain separate, hold individual championships & each retain their NCAA AQ, but will work together to leverage their collective assets such as a unified media package and a built-in scheduling agreement.” (link, link)

#6: SMU also names Maryland Senior Deputy AD/COO Colleen Sorem as Executive Deputy AD. Sorem will serve as the Chief Administrative Officer for SMU Athletics and lead and manage all administrative operations for the department budget. In addition, Sorem will be responsible for Human Resources, Legal Affairs and will assist with day-to-day operations for athletics. She will also evaluate revenue streams and provide strategic financial guidance. (link)

#5: Florida Gulf Coast shows off its new playing surface at Alico Arena. Have a look. (link)

#4: Interesting video from Learfield CEO Cole Gahagan as Michigan Women’s Volleyball student-athlete Carly Greskovics walks through how the new NIL Go works from the perspective of a student-athlete. Greskovics starts in the Compass app to accept a deal, transitions to NIL Go & completes the process in short order. Inside baseball content for those of you who aren’t behind the NIL Go wall. (link)

#3: NACDA officially announces Texas has won the Learfield Directors’ Cup title. As previously reported, just 4.25 points separated the Longhorns from second-place USC and third-place Stanford. At the conference level, the SEC leads all conferences with 11 institutions in the top 25 – Texas (1), Tennessee (6), Florida (7), Oklahoma (9), Arkansas (11), Georgia (14), Texas A&M (15), LSU (17), Auburn (19), Alabama (22) and South Carolina (23). (link); Full standings. (link)

#2: Coastal Carolina Baseball HC Kevin Schnall, along with AC Matt Schilling, were thrown out during the first inning of the decisive Men's College World Series Game 2 by home plate umpire Angel Campos in a development widely questioned by the ABC/ESPN crew calling the game & criticized by media members around the nation. (link)

#1: Arkansas is reducing its department head count by roughly 10%. Hogs AD Hunter Yurachek: “Yesterday was one of the toughest if not the toughest day in my 16 years as an athletic director. We've obviously had some conversations like that with coaches, but these were different conversations yesterday with our staff members that we had to have. They were conversations with really good friends, really good people. People with families. People that are devastated and going to be impacted. It's just all part of the changes -- major changes -- that are going on in college athletics as we prepare for the revenue sharing that begins on July 1. [...] I went to each of my deputy athletic directors and asked them to find me anywhere from 5 to 10% salary savings within their various units and that was so we didn't hone in on any one unit. Obviously we tried to stay away from, and we did, from our sports and doing anything with coaching staffs -- people directly tied to sports like athletic trainers. We had some requirements for that -- strength and conditioning coaches, nutritionists, mental health professionals. So there's some areas we didn't touch. The majority of these took place on the administrative side.” (link)

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