What is NIL?
NIL means name, image, and likeness.
That is a player's name, face, and fame.
Since July 2021, college athletes can get paid for those things.
Businesses and fans pay for ads, social posts, appearances, and autographs.
College athletics money, from public records
Public Cap
What can your team actually afford?
Power 4 football · revenue sharing · what they can spend · NIL on file.
NIL 101
How college athletes get paid. Plain words. You can read this in about three minutes.
Who pays it?
Brands pay.
Local businesses pay.
Collectives pay too.
A collective is a group of boosters and fans tied to a school. They pool money for athletes.
What changed in 2025?
House v. NCAA is a court case about athlete pay.
A judge approved the settlement in June 2025.
For the first time, schools can pay their own athletes.
That pay is called revenue sharing. The school shares some of its sports money with players.
A cap is the most each school can pay. Every school that takes part gets the same cap.
Year 1 (2025–26) is $20.5M. Year 2 (2026–27) is $21.58M ($21,583,913).
These next figures are national totals, not a school figure. The College Sports Commission said that in the 2025–26 cap year, which ended June 30, 2026, the College Athlete Payment System recorded $1,770,453,776 in revenue-sharing payments to 34,915 athletes at 307 schools. Total distributions tracked were $1,975,973,365, including $42,034,090 in Alston awards and $163,485,499 in new or incremental scholarships. 319 schools opted in, 307 paid athletes directly, and 68 reached the $20.5 million cap or came within 5% of it. The commission states the 2026–27 cap is $21.58 million. It publishes national totals only. It does not list school-by-school amounts, and none of this is added to a school’s booked House spending on this site (College Sports Commission, Oct. 1, 2026).
Protect College Sports Act
Passed the Senate Sep 28, 2026 (77-22) — not yet law.
The Senate bill is S. 4668. Senators Ted Cruz and Maria Cantwell wrote it. The House has not passed it. The President has not signed it (Senate roll call).
On top of the House cap, a school could add not more than $22.5 million a year to keep athletes who already played a full season there. It could add up to $5 million more, tied to what that school already pays athletes in women's, Olympic, and other non-revenue sports. Those two add-ons together are as much as $27.5 million. They are a ceiling in the bill, not money we have booked for any school (bill text, section 114).
The House cap on this page stays the same. Year 1 (2025–26) is $20.5M. Year 2 (2026–27) is $21.58M ($21,583,913).
One transfer does not cost a season. A second transfer means sitting out the next year, unless a sport is dropped, the head coach leaves, the athlete was sexually assaulted or harassed at the school, or the athlete is going to graduate school.
The eligibility clock is five calendar years, with time out for things like pregnancy, military service, a religious mission, or a serious injury.
Schools and the NCAA would get a limited shield from antitrust lawsuits when they enforce the eligibility, transfer, and pay rules in the bill.
An FBS football head coach or coordinator cannot do another school's head-coach job during the same season.
It would set one national set of NIL rules. Boosters and groups tied to a school are covered.
The bill does not decide whether athletes are employees. It leaves that question alone.
NIL money vs. school money
These are two different checks.
| Outside NIL deals | School money | |
|---|---|---|
| Who pays | Brands, local businesses, and collectives | The school |
| Is there a limit? | Not the school cap. Deals over $600 get a review. | Yes. The yearly cap above. |
| Count toward the school cap? | No. These deals sit beside the cap. | Yes. This is the money under the cap. |
| Who checks it? | A clearinghouse, for deals over $600. | The school, against the cap. |
Who checks the deals?
Outside NIL deals over $600 are reviewed.
The review desk is a clearinghouse. That just means a place that checks deals before they count.
The College Sports Commission runs that deal review, with help from Deloitte. That commission is the group set up to look at these deals.
The check is meant to see that the deal is a real job at a fair price. It is a review, not a promise that every deal is perfect.
Are players employees?
Not right now.
Courts and Congress are still arguing about it.
Does every player get paid the same?
No.
Stars and key positions get more.
Many players get little or nothing.
How does this connect to our numbers?
House spend is money a school has paid athletes under the cap, shown here only when a public filing is on this site, and an empty cell means we do not have a number (Methods, Texas, Ohio State).
Capacity is what a program can afford in a year from the public filing stack — media, sponsorships, tickets, and booked gifts — and it is not the House cap (compare two schools).
Reported NIL is a survey range or a labeled modeled band for the football roster, mixing school pay and outside deals, and it is not a filed total or leftover (see the board).
The checkbook bowl asks whether the bigger football spender won the big game.
What can your team actually afford?