Tate | It’s the cost of doing business | Sports

This began as a report on how an already pandemic-stressed University of Illinois athletic budget will be impacted by twin summer lightning strikes: (1) name-image-likeness legislation that will allow Illini scholarship athletes to seek endorsements beginning Thursday and (2) the Supreme Court’s 9-0 decision on Alston vs. NCAA.

But first, some perspective.

Taking just the last 15 years, the DIA budget has exploded from $44 million in 2006 to $118.4 million in 2019 before receding in the COVID-19 fallback.

Salaries have ballooned, athletic director Josh Whitman noting that 86 staffers, who earn at least $80,000, took voluntary pay cuts during the pandemic, when 86 was almost the exact number for Ron Guenther’s entire department almost two decades ago. Long-term mortgages never go away, most notably the $171 million State…

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