Clemson athletics spending more than ever in 2025. How are they paying for it?
The House settlement that allows college to share money directly with their athletes and add more scholarships is coming with a $26 million price tag for Clemson.
Which begs the question: How’s Clemson going to afford that?
The short answer, per Clemson athletic director Graham Neff, is this: His department expects to increase total revenue by about $40 million from last year to this year.
That means Clemson athletics — which made $193.9 million in fiscal year 2024 — will generate well over $200 million in annual revenue going forward.
With those additional earnings, Clemson aims to comfortably offset a combined $26 million in new revenue sharing expenses ($20.5 million) and scholarship expenses (roughly $6 million) it’s committed to paying, starting in 2025-26.
The natural follow-up: Where’s all the new revenue coming from?
That’s a longer answer that includes a number of conference initiatives and on-campus strategies — and yes, asking fans, donors and students for more money.
“That’s one that I’m incredibly sensitive on,” Neff said.
New ACC initiatives lead the way
Clemson’s largest earnings will come through the Atlantic Coast Conference’s newly adopted “success initiative” and “brand initiative” models.
Under the success initiative, which started last year, ACC schools earn additional money for postseason success in football and men’s/women’s basketball (bowl appearances, NCAA Tournament appearances and so on). Under the brand initiative, the ACC schools with the highest football/basketball TV viewership will also get more money starting this year (the exact details and methodology aren’t known).
ACC schools get rewarded for College Football Playoff appearances, too. Clemson athletics earned $4 million last year when coach Dabo Swinney’s team won the ACC and qualified for the 12-team CFP. A national title run would net $20 million.
All told, Clemson anticipates earning about $120 million in “new revenue” over the next six years ($20 million annually) off the ACC’s success and brand initiatives. And that’s before any additional millions that would come off a long CFP run.
Those earnings make up half of Clemson’s $40 million in new revenue.
“That’s a significant lift for us,” Neff said.
Alcohol sales will also be impactful.
Clemson, one of the Power 4’s last remaining holdouts on alcohol sales, started selling it at sporting events in April to great success — over its first 15 events, it sold 39,392 units of beer/seltzer for $470,927 in gross revenue, according to information obtained by The State through a public records request.
Earnings for Clemson’s seven football home games should be even higher — especially when you consider fans bought 27,181 alcoholic beverages during a Savannah Bananas baseball game at Memorial Stadium, generating $346,684.
The Bananas game was the first of what Neff hopes is a larger trend of Clemson bringing non-sporting events, such as concerts, to its athletics venues.
Clemson Ventures, founded last year to focus on “maximizing revenue-generation strategies” for Clemson athletics, is another part of the puzzle. The group, which has a former NBA executive as its CEO, has inked a number of sponsorship deals, including one with Novant Health for Clemson’s mascots to wear “jersey patches.”
Ads on players’ jerseys are currently banned by the NCAA, but Neff said Clemson is receptive to additional sponsorships to venues (such as on-field logos) as long as they’re done in a “thoughtful way.” There are “non-negotiables,” like keeping the names Memorial Stadium and Frank Howard Field intact, but additional ads could make their way into the football stadium as early as this fall.
“In a very measured, strategic way is how we’re looking to go about it,” Neff said.
How will the common fan be affected?
Changes that affect the average Clemson fan come from smaller, but still significant, buckets.
In March, the school announced it was raising football season ticket prices for 2025. This summer, it raised the “giving levels” for IPTAY, its athletics fundraising arm. And Clemson students will pay an athletics fee for the first time ever this fall, $300, after the board of trustees approved the change last year.
Neff acknowledged those changes to “consumer-facing components” were tough.
“Ticket prices were increased in a very thoughtful, analytical manner, as were IPTAY membership levels,” he said. “That’s not something we take lightly.”
Football season ticket prices at Memorial Stadium increased 20% from $500 to $600 for a lower-deck seat and 11% from $450 to $500 for an upper-deck seat. Averaged out over a seven-game home schedule, that’s an increase of $14.29 per game in the lower deck and $7.14 per game in the upper deck, as compared to 2024 prices.
IPTAY, Clemson’s athletic fundraising arm that operates separately from the university, also raised its “giving levels” for donors. Donors receive perks such as better parking and the ability to request football road game tickets based on how much money they give to athletics annually.
The minimum donation for each of IPTAY’s 12 giving levels rose at least 10%, according to the Clemson-affiliated organization. The largest percentage increases came on the two lowest giving levels. The “Paw” donor status rose from $60 to $75 (25%). “Purple” donor status went from $200 to $250 (also 25%).
Clemson students will also pay a new athletics fee — $150 per semester and $300 total — starting this fall. It’ll be used “solely for athletic operations expenses directly associated with student-athlete services and student experience,” Neff said last year.
Clemson had a total enrollment of 29,077 students in 2024, per the university. Had the $300-a-year athletics fee been applied to last year’s student body, it would’ve generated $8.72 million in new revenue for the department.
Clemson athletics tightening its own belt
On top of all the ways Clemson is generating more money and asking for money, there’s one more key component, Neff said: “Expense management.”
In other words, looking inward.
Coaches and administrators are “creatures of habit,” Neff said, but Clemson athletics is actively scrutinizing its expenses (this is also happening at a university-wide level). There could be reductions, Neff said, in “how we travel, where we travel, how we schedule administrative staff and support.” A number of administrative jobs within the department are currently unfilled.
“While we’re proud and have been so focused on revenue generation, that expense management is significant,” Neff said. “… There’s a lot of that type of efficiency and lens from a higher ed standpoint. And so we need to do our part with that as well.”
Clemson athletics takes pride in rendering balanced budgets. Last fiscal year, while some power conference schools reported losing millions of dollars, Clemson essentially made and spent around $193 million, leading to a net loss of a couple hundred thousand dollars, per its most recent NCAA financial report.
Neff has said he has “incredible confidence” in how Clemson is positioned in 2025.
“There’s a lot of really strategic things that we’re pulling on on both sides of the lever — revenues and expenses — in order to satisfy the new $26 million dollar-plus expense,” Neff said. “That’s really important for us.”
This story was originally published August 11, 2025 at 8:00 AM with the headline "Clemson athletics spending more than ever in 2025. How are they paying for it?."
