Alabama will now be able to share up to $20.5 million in revenue with its players following the House settlement’s approval last week. Athletics director Greg Byrne has made it clear the university will fully fund its new revenue-sharing opportunity. How the Crimson Tide comes up with the money will be the tricky part.

While athletic programs will now have a budget to pay players directly, they’ll be on their own to raise the funds to do so. For Alabama, that creates a puzzle of trying to produce $20.5 million from a department that lost close to $28 million for the 2023-24 fiscal year after losing $12 million for 2022-23.

During an interview with radio station WJOX on Tuesday, Byrne called that dilemma “bit of a tightrope we're walking right now."

One popularly discussed method of acquiring funds across college athletics has been the use of private equity investment. Tuesday, Byrne said Alabama has been approached by several potential private equity investors. However, so far, the university has not been able to find a model “that makes any sense whatsoever” for its entire athletics program.

“Private equity is not going to care about Olympic sports,” Byrne explained to WJOX. “They’re not going to care about the academics and the responsibilities we have there. They are bottom line driven. They are really good at what they do.”

Alabama currently funds 21 sports, with football and basketball serving as the only money makers. The other programs collectively lose roughly $40 million annually. Tuesday, Byrne noted that while the men’s and women’s tennis programs post the smallest losses, they still operate at an annual seven-figure deficit.

Bryne said that Alabama will remain open-minded in its plans moving forward. However, he noted that turning to private equity isn’t a guaranteed fix and comes with risks of its own.

“At the same time, too, at some point you’re going to have to pay the piper if you have private equity,” Byrne said. “You better make sure you can far exceed the growth you can do on your own if you’re going to bring somebody else in because we do have a responsibility in so many different ways that maybe doesn’t make a lot of business sense but is important to the fiber and the fabric of what college athletics represents.”