NCAA Revenue Sharing & NIL – Football

Average Power Conference 2026 Football Roster will exceed $ 23 million:

We estimate that Power 4 Conference football teams will have a median roster cost of $ 23 million for the 2026-27 season … so half are above this number, and half are below. Players are paid via a combination of revenue sharing and third-party NIL:

Median FBS Roster Costs
by Conference 2026-27
Total Payments
to Players ($)		Paid by School via
Revenue Sharing 		Paid via Third-Party
Commercial NIL *
SEC 30,161,00015,600,00014,561,000
Big Ten24,408,00015,600,0008,808,000
Big 12 21,607,00015,600,0006,007,000
ACC 21,240,00015,600,0005,640,000
Power 4 Median ($)$ 23,147,000$ 15,600,000$ 7,547,000

Estimated 2026 Football Roster Costs for all 68 Power Conference teams:

Estimated Roster Costs
P4 Football Teams 2026 *
Conference		Roster Cost
Estimate ($)
TexasSEC46,485,000
OregonBig Ten43,405,000
Louisiana StateSEC40,966,000
Ohio StateBig Ten40,421,000
MiamiACC38,629,000
Notre DameIndependent38,448,000
Texas A&MSEC36,797,000
AlabamaSEC36,490,000
GeorgiaSEC35,173,000
Southern CalBig Ten34,728,000
TennesseeSEC33,696,000
Texas TechBig 1233,320,000
MichiganBig Ten32,964,000
MississippiSEC31,815,000
OklahomaSEC31,470,000
Penn StateBig Ten29,208,000
AuburnSEC28,852,000
FloridaSEC28,524,000
ClemsonACC27,786,000
MissouriSEC27,505,000
NebraskaBig Ten27,440,000
South CarolinaSEC27,355,000
IndianaBig Ten27,253,000
Florida StateACC26,391,000
WashingtonBig Ten26,357,000
VanderbiltSEC25,457,000
KentuckySEC24,538,000
WisconsinBig Ten24,484,000
HoustonBig 1224,456,000
UCLABig Ten24,332,000
ArkansasSEC23,935,000
MarylandBig Ten23,720,000
IowaBig Ten23,649,000
ColoradoBig 1223,179,000
Michigan StateBig Ten23,115,000
Brigham YoungBig 1223,041,000
Mississippi StateSEC22,942,000
Texas ChristianBig 1222,683,000
MinnesotaBig Ten22,575,000
Oklahoma StateBig 1222,146,000
Southern MethodistACC22,044,000
UtahBig 1221,947,000
Virginia TechACC21,908,000
LouisvilleACC21,906,000
North CarolinaACC21,876,000
IllinoisBig Ten21,854,000
Georgia TechACC21,750,000
Kansas StateBig 1221,690,000
Arizona StateBig 1221,524,000
RutgersBig Ten21,321,000
PittsburghACC21,240,000
VirginiaACC21,084,000
NorthwesternBig Ten21,035,000
BaylorBig 1220,967,000
West VirginiaBig 1220,925,000
DukeACC20,492,000
North Carolina StateACC20,456,000
ArizonaBig 1220,401,000
CaliforniaACC20,378,000
PurdueBig Ten20,367,000
StanfordACC20,324,000
Iowa StateBig 1220,098,000
SyracuseACC20,074,000
CincinnatiBig 1220,049,000
Wake ForestACC20,022,000
KansasBig 1219,900,000
Central FloridaBig 1219,800,000
Boston CollegeACC18,797,000

* Data on third-party NIL is private, and schools keep this information closer to the vest than even the original formula for Coca-Cola. However, we believe these estimates are reasonably accurate and likely on the conservative side. Alabama’s General Manager has stated that some schools with high aspirations are spending over $ 40 million to assemble championship contending teams, which is consistent with our data. There are also unsupported estimates of $ 60 million football rosters, but as we occasionally say in the accounting biz, those are clown numbers bro.  See our methodology page for how we arrived at these estimates.

We currently do not have 2026 estimates for Group of 6 football teams solid enough to post.  But best indications are that most G6 football team roster costs are likely in the range of $ 1 million to $ 3 million (virtually all revenue sharing) which is consistent with the 22% of athletic revenue benchmark arrived at in the House v NCAA settlement. However there are a handful of CFP aspiring G6 schools clearly paying much higher than this.

Total NCAA I Football teams 2026-27:

There are currently 364 NCAA I Schools of which 138 sponsor FBS programs, 126 sponsor FCS programs and 100 schools that do not sponsor football. Of the total number of NCAA I schools, 337 are participating in revenue sharing, and 37 have opted out:

NCAA I Schools 2026-27
Total # of
Schools		Participating in
Revenue Sharing
SEC 1616
Big Ten1818
ACC 1717
Big 121616
Pac-12 88
American1412
Mountain West109
Sun Belt1414
Mid-American 1313
Conference USA1010
FBS Independents22
Total FBS Teams
138135
Total FCS Teams126102
NCAA I Schools w/o Football10090
Totals - NCAA I Schools
364327

Estimated Roster Costs – College Football Playoff teams 2025-26:

Here are our estimated roster costs for the 2025 College Football Playoff (CFP) teams. The term “roster cost” is used rather than “team payroll” since athletes are not considered employees of college athletic departments. Our estimated average is just under $ 26 million per team, of which approximately $ 15 million is directly paid by schools via revenue sharing and $ 11 million is paid via third-party NIL: 

Estimated Roster Costs
CFP Teams 2025-26 *		ConferenceEstimated 2025
Roster Cost ($)
Texas A & M SEC$ 34,275,000
Ohio State Big Ten33,500,000
Texas Tech Big 1228,000,000
OregonBig Ten26,100,000
MiamiACC24,406,000
OklahomaSEC24,400,000
MississippiSEC23,800,000
GeorgiaSEC22,600,000
Indiana Big Ten21,100,000
AlabamaSEC20,900,000
Tulane American**
James Madison Sun Belt**
Average per team **2025-26$ 25,800,000

* While estimates for revenue sharing payments are straightforward, estimate calculations of third-party NIL are challenging primarily because teams are very protective of this data. Using the best currently available supporting information, we made adjustments based on the following factors:

  • Our estimated roster costs include only third-party NIL that is included the athlete’s compensation package as committed to by the school. A school’s offer to a player typically includes both revenue sharing and third-party NIL components. Additional third-party compensation received by an athlete beyond what the school has guaranteed is not included as a roster cost. This is one reason why our estimates are lower than some published estimates of football teams with “payrolls” supposedly exceeding $ 40 million.
  • Revenue sharing began July 1, 2025 – this is also the starting date requiring submission of all third-party NIL payments exceeding $ 600 to the College Sports Commission (CSC) for approval. Consequently, many NIL collectives fully distributed their funds prior to July 1 to avoid having to submit these payments to the CSC for approval.  Some of these payments also included compensation covering more than one season. This NIL Collective  “money dump” is another reason why our estimates may be significantly lower than others – our estimates are specifically for the fiscal year July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2026.

** We do not have sufficient revenue sharing data for the two non-power conference schools who received bids to the 2025 CFP.  However the roster costs of these two teams would clearly be a fraction of the other ten … likely in the range of $ 4 million give or take.

 

Questions on our data? Contact us at: NIL-NCAA.com

Statistics compiled & edited by Patrick O’Rourke, CPA Washington, DC