Four years ago, college athletics changed forever.
Players were once locked out of earning any additional money for themselves based on their likeness. Instead, the university got to pocket the cash from all jersey sales in the campus team store.
Now? It might not be the days of slipping an envelope of cash under a dorm room door, but it’s not far from being the “Wild West.”
There are 17-year-old high school athletes giving Division I head coaches lists of demands (often including a minimum Name, Image and Likeness deal). It’s been a massive shift in the power dynamics of college sports.
Depending on where you stand, you either think it’s great to give some leverage to the student-athletes, or you think NIL deals are turning collegiate sports into professional sports.
Regardless, one thing is absolutely certain: massive, multimillion dollar NIL deals aren’t going anywhere.
What Are NIL Deals?
NIL deals give student-athletes the opportunity to profit from their own brand through business ventures, partnerships, sponsorships and endorsement deals.
Before 2021, NCAA rules prohibited student-athletes from earning money based on their likeness, but a Super Court decision in NCAA v. Alston led to the adoption of a policy that allowed student-athletes to retain their eligibility while also profiting off their likenesses.
NIL deals come in a number of forms (which we’ll break down later), but they all share one thing in common: They are not dependent on athletic performance.
That’s part of the reason why Texas Longhorns backup quarterback Arch Manning was making significantly more than starting quarterback Quinn Ewers.
These deals are struck between the student-athletes and third parties and have vastly changed the recruiting landscape of collegiate athletics. Some high school athletes are setting minimum price tags, leaving schools to confirm if a collective on campus can pony up the cash.
And just how much cash are we talking about? Millions.
Here are the top projected earners for 2025, via On3.
The Top Earning College Athletes via NIL Deals
The Different Types of NIL Deals
There are a few different types of deals. In some cases, collectives will reach agreements with student-athletes, which allow the collective to seek out NIL deals on behalf of the student-athlete. In some cases, these groups will pay the student-athlete up front, then take a percentage of the ensuing NIL deals.
Other deals are participation based and see a collective pay athletes for appearances, signings and social media influencing.
There are also collectives that provide middle-man services, connecting athletes with brands that want to pay them for their NIL rights.
Some deals are focused on group licensing. A collective might reach out to third-party companies with three or four players from the same team in an attempt to sell the entire group. The profits are then split among the group members.
Overall, it depends on the student-athlete and the collective in place that they choose to work with. The one constant is that a company looking to partner with a student-athlete rarely connects with the student-athlete directly. Instead, they contact the collective in place and negotiate from there.
Trends in NIL Deals Across College Sports
Considering that endorsement deals and athletes have been coupled together for a long, long time, there’s no reason to expect that NIL deals are going anywhere.
On the contrary, in fact.
All signs point to NIL deals getting more and more expensive for top-level talent. If someone who has never played a minute of collegiate basketball can sign for nearly $4 million, it’s not hard to imagine the nation’s No. 1 quarterback commanding $5 million to sign in the near future.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Highest Paid College Athletes via NIL Deals.
