Kevin Willard reveals Maryland basketball’s NIL budget, explains “softer” early schedule, talks NY/NJ UMD fans

Beginning next season, college athletics programs can spend as much as $20 million on revenue sharing, also known as paying the players. No one at Maryland has stated publicly how they plan to split that money among the program’s many teams, but there’s no question football will get the majority of the de facto salary pool, because the sport costs so much to operate and generates most of the money

But at Maryland, basketball is more important than it is at a many football-obsessed peer schools. So how much of that $20 pool million will Kevin Willard get to spend on players next year?

On his radio show this week, he revealed an estimated payroll range while talking about how fast the sports has transitioned to pay-for-play. Not long ago, several head coaches lost their jobs and then-Arizona assistant coach Book Richardson spent three months in prison for bribery after being caught talking about paying players.

“I’ll say this, an assistant coach from Arizona got arrested and put in jail for talking about money [a few years ago], and now all of a sudden, we’re going to be spending $4 million, $5 million per year on a basketball roster. It’s changed so dramatically, from calls with agents — if you talked to an agent [a few years ago], you would be suspended by the NCAA. Now, half my day is talking to agents and their clients, and what they want, what they’re looking for,” Willard said.

It’s hard to say where that budget would land Maryland nationally. It’s not an elite-level budget like, say, at Kansas or Duke. But it’s more than this year, when Maryland spent around $3 million according to program sources.

“The coach today, it’s more than just a coach. You’re spending an enormous amount of time looking at next year’s possibilities of getting guys here in the portal and making sure everybody’s happy this year,” he said. “It’s changed dramatically in two years, if you look at what we’re doing and what we’re going to start spending on [players].”

RELATED: Maryland Basketball Scoop: DeShawn Harris-Smith’s future, the big change and a guard recruit

With Julian Reese and Selton Miguel running out of eligibility and Derik Queen likely leaving for the NBA, plenty of money will come off the books for Willard to spend on transfers. Queen and Reese alone are making more than $1 million this season combined. Willard aced the portal last offseason with a group of signings 247Sports’ Isaac Trotter ranked among college basketball’s best transfer classes last week. That’s become the most important part of the job.

“You have to be an NBA general manager. You have to look at what you want to do, how you want to play, who you want to bring back, who you want to pay, how much you can pay, how much you have on your salary. And at the same time, you got to be the main fundraiser and go out and raise all that money. So it has changed dramatically and it’s a different world.”

More below from Willard on paying players, the reason for his “softer” nonconference schedule and fans in New York and New Jersey.