How are schools divvying up money between sports in modern era? Here's an inside look at Duke's approach

WASHINGTON, D. C. — For the last three years, before or during the opening of the men’s basketball transfer portal, coach Jon Scheyer frequented the office of his boss, Duke athletic director Nina King, to discuss the cost of basketball prospects as he prepared for recruiting.

Surely, he’d tell her, the prices won’t get any higher. “I’d go to Nina and say, ‘I think we’ve reached the peak,’” says Scheyer. “And then I’d feel like a complete idiot.

” But as costs climbed, so did Duke’s increases in resources for its athletic programs, most notably men’s and women’s basketball and football. The men’s hoops team currently has the top-rated recruiting haul following consecutive years of finishing with the No. 1 class; the women’s program signed three top-30 players this year; and the football program had enough investment to sign, a year ago, a quarterback to a two-year contract worth nearly $8 million.

The investment rebuffed a narrative that emerged in this era of direct athlete compensation — that small, private universities, with budgets dwarfed by fellow football powerhouses, might slip into irrelevancy. In fact, King heard the doubts enough to utter during a 2024 interview the words, “We do not want to be left out. ” Months later, the Blue Devils are in the midst of one of the most successful athletic seasons in the modern history of college sports.