Kentucky Wildcats News: UK ranks near bottom of SEC in athletic donations

TL;DR

The University of Kentucky ranked second to last in athletic donations among SEC schools in 2025, receiving over $32 million. Notably, none of these funds were designated for the football program.

Key points

Kentucky ranked second to last in SEC athletic donations for 2025
UK received $32,657,330 in total donations
No donations were earmarked for the football program

Mentioned in this story

University of KentuckyVanderbilt UniversitySouth Carolina

Southeastern Conference

Matt Stahl is a sports writer for AL.com and, through a series of open records requests, has reported on last year’s donation revenue and broken down the 2025 totals by school across the Southeastern Conference.

Other than Vanderbilt — which is a private school and is therefore not subject to open records laws — every team in the SEC was accounted for in Stahl’s story, and the news was quite eye-opening for the University of Kentucky.

Of the 15 schools listed, Kentucky ranked second to last in 2025 and was ahead of only South Carolina.

UK received $32,657,330 in athletic donations and — despite that total — had zero earmarked specifically for the football program.

Their total was well short of the nine other teams that received north of $50 million, and even the other three schools received between $45 and $49 million. It was also less than what six schools received for football alone.

Despite being at a clear disadvantage when it comes to football donations, new head coach Will Stein is making the most of what he has to work with by cooking up the 9th-ranked recruiting class for the 2027 season.

Let’s hope that Stein can continue changing things for the better when it comes to the future of Kentucky Football.