The Syracuse Orange men's basketball program is navigating a new era - and so far, it's been a rocky road without Jim Boeheim at the helm.
Say what you will about the final stretch of Boeheim’s tenure, but one thing was consistent: the Orange were in the NCAA Tournament conversation almost every year. Now? Syracuse is staring down its third straight season without a ticket to the Big Dance, and after a tough loss to Hofstra dropped the team to 6-4, the questions are starting to pile up.
Boeheim, never one to shy away from speaking his mind, recently joined a local radio show and pointed to one of the biggest challenges facing Syracuse - and really, all of college basketball right now: money.
In the NIL era, the game has changed. According to Boeheim, if you want to compete at a high level, you need serious financial backing for your roster.
“You can still recruit,” Boeheim said, “but at the end of the day you got to be able to come really close money-wise or you’re not getting somebody.”
He estimates that a competitive men’s basketball program needs around $10 million in NIL resources. For comparison, he noted that football programs likely need closer to $20-22 million to stay in the hunt. That’s a massive number, and it underscores just how steep the climb is for programs like Syracuse trying to find their footing in this new landscape.
While Boeheim didn’t specify how much Syracuse has spent this season, he did say it’s more than last year - when the budget was reportedly just over $2 million. That’s progress, sure, but still a long way from the $10 million bar Boeheim believes is necessary to build a competitive roster.
And here’s the kicker: under the NCAA’s new revenue-sharing model, schools are expected to receive about $20 million total for all sports. If football takes the lion’s share - which it almost certainly will - that doesn’t leave much for basketball unless additional investments are made through collectives, donors, or other NIL avenues.
The reality is, players are going to follow the money. That’s not a knock on them - it’s just the nature of the game now. If Syracuse can’t keep pace financially, it risks falling behind more aggressive programs with deeper NIL war chests.
This isn’t just about missing the tournament. It’s about long-term competitiveness.
It’s about attracting and retaining the kind of talent that built Syracuse into a perennial contender under Boeheim. And right now, the Orange are in danger of losing ground.
There’s no going back to the old way of doing things. The NIL era is here, and it’s reshaping college basketball in real time. The question for Syracuse is whether it can - or will - adapt quickly enough to keep up.