The Houston Cougars are widely known as one of the premier college basketball programs these days. Houston is known for its toughness and consistency. No other program has won more games than UH during the past nine seasons. What Houston is not known for is its budget. Coach Kelvin Sampson was quite upfront about it earlier on the year about how the Cougars have one of the lowest, if not the lowest budget in all of Power Four athletics. Houston joined the Big 12 in 2023 with the lowest athletics budget among power conferences. While it has increased over recent years, Houston Athletics still is in the $90 million range and at the bottom. Houston had $93 million in revenues , but remained in the red for the second straight fiscal year with close to $99 million in expenses. It was a deficit of $6.1 million in 2025, but that was an improvement from 2024, where UH athletics lost more than $9 million. There was also a 43 percent drop in football tickets this year.…