The University of Iowa athletics department has restructured a $50 million loan the department took from the university during the COVID pandemic, allowing for repayment over 30 years instead of the originally upon 15 years.
The athletics department has already been paying on the loan for five years and has repaid $5 million of the original amount. The interest rate on the loan will remain at the same 2.5% it started at in 2021 for the full 30-year term.
According to The Gazette, the original loan agreement signed in 2021 gave UI Athletics 15 years to pay off the $50 million and required the interest rate to be repriced every five years — not to exceed 5%.
The loan was supposed to be repriced July 1, but UI officials said it instead was amended July 1, 2025.
“The loan was amended effective July 1, 2025 to modify the term from 15 years to 30 years and set the interest rate at 2.5 percent for the full term,” UI spokesman Steve Schmadeke told The Gazette. “The agreement is not repricing the interest rate every five years as required in the original loan agreement.”
Schmadeke noted increased financial pressures on athletics departments across the country as the reason for the change.
“Like almost every athletics program in the U.S., UI Athletics’ net revenues are being stressed in the new revenue-sharing era that began in FY 2026,” Schmadeke said. “The university agreed to relieve some of this pressure by extending the loan payment term to 30 years and fixing the interest rate at 2.5 percent.”
The Gazette reports that UI Athletics project a 7.5% revenue increase from last year’s $169.6 million to $182.3 million, which also was helped by a 41% jump in donations from $17.1 million to $24.1 million.
Expenses also increase, with $21.3 million budgeted for student-athlete revenue sharing. As for its annual loan contribution, UI Athletics dropped its 2027 payment to $2.4 million from $2.5 million last year.
