On Wednesday night, after a dominant win over UCF, Houston head coach Kelvin Sampson took the podium alongside players Mercy Miller and Kalifa Sakho. The Cougars had just steamrolled their way to another Big 12 victory, and the mood in the Jim Nantz Media Center was upbeat. But as the players stepped away and Sampson began fielding questions on his own, the conversation took a turn.
What started as a wide-ranging answer-touching on everything from player development to program-building-eventually zeroed in on a topic that’s become increasingly central in college sports: NIL, and more broadly, money. That’s when Sampson dropped a soundbite that would travel far beyond the walls of that press room.
“We’re poor.”
Just two words, but they hit like a headline. And in today’s college athletics landscape, where finances often dictate success, they resonated.
The context? Houston is behind.
Not just a little behind-decades behind. In fundraising.
In ticket sales. In facilities.
Compared to the rest of the Big 12, UH is playing financial catch-up in a major way.
Sampson wasn’t wrong. He wasn’t even saying anything new to those who’ve followed Houston’s transition into the Big 12.
But in saying it so bluntly, he gave the world a quote that would overshadow the rest of his 23-minute press conference. It didn’t matter that he only spent 93 seconds on NIL.
It didn’t matter that the bulk of his answer was focused on broader program-building themes. What people heard-and repeated-was: “We’re poor.”
By the next day, Sampson clarified his remarks. He pointed out that Houston is nearly 30 years behind the original Big 12 members in media rights revenue, fundraising infrastructure, and ticket sales history. And he’s right again.
Let’s break that down. From 1996-when the Big 12 was formed-through Houston’s entry in 2023, schools like Texas Tech, Baylor, Oklahoma State, Iowa State, Kansas, and Kansas State each pulled in over $500 million in media rights revenue.
Houston? Less than $60 million over that same stretch.
That’s not a gap-it’s a canyon.
And it’s not just about media rights. Those schools had decades to build donor bases, sell out games featuring powerhouses like Texas and Oklahoma, and invest in facilities.
Arizona and Arizona State were raking in Pac-12 money. Colorado bounced between the Big 12 and Pac-12.
Utah and TCU joined power conferences over a decade ago. Meanwhile, Houston was grinding it out in Conference USA and the American Athletic Conference, scraping together what it could.
Despite all that, Sampson has worked magic. Before he arrived, Houston had won seven conference titles in 54 years.
In his 11 seasons, they’ve won six. That’s not just a turnaround-it’s a full-blown transformation.
And in the Big 12, that kind of success doesn’t happen by accident. Houston came into the league and immediately made noise, winning the conference by two games in 2024 and by four in 2025.
That’s not supposed to happen for a newcomer, especially one without the financial muscle of its peers. But it did.
Because Sampson built more than a team-he built a culture.
If we’re talking post-COVID college basketball dominance, Houston is in the conversation with the heavyweights. UConn has two national titles.
Baylor, Kansas, and Florida have one each. But Houston?
Seven conference titles, two Final Fours, and more NCAA Tournament wins than anyone else in that span. Sixteen wins, to be exact-more than UConn, more than Gonzaga.
But now comes the hard part: sustaining it.
In this new era of NIL and revenue sharing, success comes with a price tag. After his now-famous quote, Sampson elaborated: “The way our recruiting is going, we have to stop at some point because we don’t have enough money to keep bringing in really good players.”
That’s not just a coach venting. That’s a coach waving a red flag.
The reality is, staying at the top level of college basketball means competing not just on the court, but in the marketplace. Talent costs money.
Facilities cost money. Staff, travel, nutrition, marketing-it all adds up.
And in the Big 12, the bar is high.
That same day, new football coach Willie Fritz echoed a similar sentiment. His goal?
Win a national championship. And to do that, he knows he has to help drive fundraising and ticket sales.
It’s all connected. Sampson’s comments, while perhaps inelegant in delivery, were pointing in the same direction: Houston has the culture, the coaching, and the competitive fire-but it needs the financial fuel to keep the engine running.
So yes, the “we’re poor” line grabbed headlines. But the message behind it is what matters.
Houston has done more with less than just about anyone in the country. But if they want to keep hanging banners and making deep tournament runs, they’ll need more.
More donors. More ticket sales.
More NIL support.
Because in the Big 12, winning is expensive. And staying on top? That’s the real cost.