College athletics are changing rapidly as some form of paying the athletes becomes the norm, be it NIL or, perhaps soon, revenue sharing. And as that occurs, athletic departments are gearing up to bolster their revenues.

This week, Tennessee made the first ripples in the pond, announcing a surcharge to ticket prices that will be directed to paying athletes under revenues sharing. The move got mixed feedback, but NBC Sports’ Nicole Auerbach shared on “The Paul Finebaum Show” on Tuesday that the Volunteers might have been first, but they will not likely be the only program to do this.

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“It’s funny, I was on the phone with an athletic director at a different Power Four school as that was breaking and that athletic director said, ‘Hey, I think we’re going to be doing something very, very similar and calling it something very similar,’ because I think that they think transparency is important, at least,” Auerbach said. “If they’re going to ask for more money at least tell them it’s going toward paying the revenue share that goes toward athletes. I just think it rubs a lot of people and fans the wrong way when you know the millions and millions of dollars that these athletic departments bring in. And then this is also a few years into the NIL era where fans are being asked to contribute to collectives and to help stay competitive by helping to pay the players for their fanbases.”

And despite being formally in existence for just a handful of years now, NIL collectives already have taken on a similar air of political fundraising committees, urging donors make a contribution to help their cause win. That alone — plus the fact that spending a lot on a roster does not guarantee success — can be taxing on donors and, increasingly, the rank and file fan being asked to pitch in.

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Auerbach was sympathetic to these fan grievances, and to the needs of athletic departments to set aside enough money to cover upwards of $20 million annually, potentially, in revenue sharing with athletes.

But to pass on costs to fans when the athletic departments themselves are deeply staffed and work and function out of often palatial facilities, that can be a difficult bit of medicine to go down.

“But I just think it’s been a few years of this, where I just think it’s really tough to ask fans to contribute to have to cover essentially player salaries when the athletic departments and the conferences are lavish,” Auerbach said. “They’re promoting these media rights deals they have. They’re promoting their facilities and how much they pay their coaches. I can understand how that would be a tough pill to swallow for the regular fan who just got a price hike.”

Auerbach also suspects the groups that are more likely to be hit by this are the fans who might only make it out to a handful of games a year, or make some specific annual trip — the generally more monied season-ticket holders will certainly be given pause, too, though.

Overall fan engagement with teams will not drop off, but Auerbach thinks there could be a hit in who buys tickets and how many get sold if the price keeps climbing.

“They’re still rooting really hard for their favorite teams,” Auerbach said. “But, you know again, it’s that financial engagement of a season ticket holder. Someone who maybe usually goes for a couple games each year or makes the trip with their college buddies back each year, like do those people get tired of kind of being asked to fund this new era of college sports? I think that’s what everyone’s worried about, make sure that you’re competitive financially in the new world, but also you don’t want to alienate your fanbase.”

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