How much does a national title cost? $1 million? $5 million? $8 million? Well, according to Michigan’s Dusty May, the answer is around $10 million. That’s how much the Wolverines spent on the 2025-26 roster that brought the basketball national title to Ann Arbor earlier this month.
The news was reported by On3’s Pete Nakos and confirmed by a recent interaction with the press. Dusty May talked to Front Office Sports about future investments. When asked by the latter publication whether the Michigan Wolverines expect to spend more money on next year’s roster, the coach’s answer was:
“We do. Obviously, our guys have been able to generate a lot of revenue outside of what they were contracted for throughout the season. Postseason, the autograph signings, the restaurants, the hotels that are basically hiring our guys like they formerly did coaches. So yeah, that number has actually increased. The 10 [million] has increased since the season. We anticipate it to be much greater next year because of the job our players did this past season.
“We’re very grateful – myself as a coach, our assistant coaches and players – for all of those that laid the foundation for the sport to be where it is now, in a healthy place, generating the type of revenue. And our job is to leave it in a better place than we found it for the next generation of coaches and players,” he added.
It goes to show how the NIL revolution continues to change the face of college sports, with the cost of rosters across all disciplines, but especially in football and basketball, continuing to balloon.
Dusty May’s plan to bring Jalen Reed up to speed for the 2026-27 season
This Wednesday, Dusty May also spoke about the Michigan Wolverines with Jalen Reed, an unexpected late addition through the transfer portal.
“Right now, there’s risk with the give-and-take with everyone that you sign,” May said on Wednesday. “With Jalen, we felt like if he can get back to full strength and healthy, he’s a really good basketball player. We’re also gonna be very patient with him and his timetable to make sure he’s back ready to go. We also have a lot of faith in our sports science department and Matt [Aldred] and Chris [Williams] to invest the time and the professional expertise that they have to get him back to playing at the level he’s playing at.”
For the past four seasons, Reed had been with the LSU Tigers. While he saw considerable time as a starter in his first two years, the last two years were cut short due to injury. An achilles heel injury that cut his redshirt junior year to just six games, and an ACL tear that capped him at 14 games as a junior last season.
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