In 2017, the FBI became involved in an investigation surrounding the University of Arizona and an alleged $10,000 payment intended to persuade center DeAndre Ayton to join the Wildcats. Less than a decade later, the college sports landscape has completely transformed, with programs now needing to spend millions of dollars to assemble competitive rosters across the Power 5 conferences.
An article published by Matt Norlander of CBS Sports highlights this evolving landscape, breaking down how teams across the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, Big East and ACC stack up in roster spending.
At the conference level, the ACC has the lowest average cost to assemble a roster. However, that average masks a significant difference between the conference’s biggest spenders and those operating with considerably smaller budgets.
The article goes on to describe this discrepancy in numerical detail, stating:
The ACC has the widest gaps by far of any high-major. The usual suspects are in the stratosphere, while the conference also has 12 of its 18 teams under the national average of $13.5 million. There’s more variety in NIL situations and changes and upward and downward trends in this league than any other.
This shows that within conference play, Syracuse could be up against one of the country’s top spenders or one of the bottom spenders in Power 5 on any given night, which is a pretty interesting concept.
But where exactly does Syracuse rank themselves?
According to the article, the Orange fall into Tier 5 of the seven spending tiers, with an estimated roster value of approximately $10 million to $12 million.
Outside of Minnesota, every team in Tier 5 reached the NCAA Tournament last season. Syracuse also faced three teams from this spending tier during the 2025-26 campaign, losing to Iowa State, NC State and Clemson.
Of course, college basketball rosters are constantly evolving from year to year, and spending alone doesn’t determine a team’s success. Still, this provides some useful context for how Syracuse stacks up against programs operating with similar roster budgets.
With the college basketball season just under two weeks away, how do you feel that the Orange will fair with the roster they have constructed? Do you feel like Syracuse should be spending more or less money constructing their roster?