Revenue-share money is mostly football: the average school's football share is $13.1M (63.8%), and men's basketball gets $4.3M.
Back to the trend of the day: College athletes get their own studio on campus to stream live online
Poly Rating · from the trend of the day
NIL Deals by Sport 2026: Where NIL Beats Game Revenue
Women's basketball overtook men's basketball in commercial NIL money in 2024, taking 10.2% of all commercial NIL dollars, while teams like Arizona State's still lost $4.5M a year.
- No. 1: Women's basketball NIL
- 10 places
01Final list
The leading AIs each built their own list of ten independently. Here is one result that is easy to check: every place has a reason, a source, and the list of AIs that included it.
A bright badge means this AI put the entry on its list. A dim badge means it did not.
- 1
Women's basketball NIL
10.2% of commercial NIL dollars, passing men's basketball in 2024, while teams lose millions (ASU -$4.5M). Revenue-share averages $1.4M against $4.2M for men.
Included it: Claude, MiMo. Did not include: ChatGPT, Meta, Gemini, StepFun, Kimi, DeepSeek, Wenxin.In their lists: Claude: see list · MiMo: 1
2 AIs put it here - 2
Women's gymnastics NIL
In the top 10 sports by NIL pay (one of six women's sports there), while gymnastics revenue runs in thousands of dollars per athlete. The share data date from 2022–23.
Included it: MiMo. Did not include: Claude, ChatGPT, Meta, Gemini, StepFun, Kimi, DeepSeek, Wenxin.In their lists: MiMo: 2
What each AI noted 1
- MiMoplace 2
One of six women's sports inside the top 10 for NIL pay, with an ABC-guaranteed title game — in a sport where reported program revenue is measured in tens of thousands of dollars.
1 AIs put it here - 3
Softball NIL
One pitcher, NiJaree Canady, signed a $1,050,024 deal and then a second $1M-plus deal, in a sport with under 1% of NIL activity. Fans say she brought Texas Tech more than $2M.
Included it: MiMo. Did not include: Claude, ChatGPT, Meta, Gemini, StepFun, Kimi, DeepSeek, Wenxin.In their lists: MiMo: 3
What each AI noted 1
- MiMoplace 3
Two separate deals above 1 million for one pitcher in a sport that accounts for under 1% of NIL activity.
Source ↗
1 AIs put it here - 4
Women's golf NIL
About $2.25M in golf NIL valuations at one program, Miami, in a sport with almost no ticket or TV money. Kai Trump alone has ~5.4M followers. These are estimates.
Included it: Claude, MiMo. Did not include: ChatGPT, Meta, Gemini, StepFun, Kimi, DeepSeek, Wenxin.In their lists: Claude: see list · MiMo: 6
2 AIs put it here - 5
Women's volleyball NIL
An expected $5,868 a year in NIL per athlete and under 1% of NIL activity. Still, the title game is guaranteed on ABC and a pro league launched in 2026 citing college NIL growth.
Included it: MiMo. Did not include: Claude, ChatGPT, Meta, Gemini, StepFun, Kimi, DeepSeek, Wenxin.In their lists: MiMo: 4
What each AI noted 1
- MiMoplace 4
Under 1% of NIL activity, a guaranteed ABC championship broadcast, and a pro league launching in January 2026 — the audience arrived before the ledger did.
Source ↗
1 AIs put it here - 6
Women's tennis NIL
UNC freshman Anna Frey has about 3M followers and an NIL value of $681K to nearly $700K. Tennis brings in negligible gate revenue, so her audience is the business. This is one athlete's case.
Included it: MiMo. Did not include: Claude, ChatGPT, Meta, Gemini, StepFun, Kimi, DeepSeek, Wenxin.In their lists: MiMo: 5
What each AI noted 1
- MiMoplace 5
A freshman with about 3 million followers and a sub-700,000 valuation — in a sport with almost no gate revenue, so the audience is the entire business.
Source ↗
1 AIs put it here - 7
Men's swimming and diving NIL
4th of all sports with 1.8% of NIL pay in early 2022, while its gate and TV money is near zero. A later 2022 count put it 8th.
Included it: MiMo. Did not include: Claude, ChatGPT, Meta, Gemini, StepFun, Kimi, DeepSeek, Wenxin.In their lists: MiMo: 7
What each AI noted 1
- MiMoplace 7
1.8% of all NIL compensation in 2022 — fourth among sports — in a sport whose ticket and TV revenue rounds to zero.
Source ↗
1 AIs put it here - 8
Women's swimming and diving NIL
6th among all sports for NIL pay in 2022. Its championships earn no rights fees of their own; they sit inside a $115M bundle that covers 40 championships.
Included it: MiMo. Did not include: Claude, ChatGPT, Meta, Gemini, StepFun, Kimi, DeepSeek, Wenxin.In their lists: MiMo: 10
What each AI noted 1
- MiMoplace 10
Sixth among all sports for NIL pay in 2022 — swimmers monetize audiences their meets never reach.
Source ↗
1 AIs put it here - 9
Women's soccer NIL
In the 2022 top 10 sports for NIL pay. Its revenue is part of the 8% not covered by football, men's basketball and non-sport income.
Included it: MiMo. Did not include: Claude, ChatGPT, Meta, Gemini, StepFun, Kimi, DeepSeek, Wenxin.In their lists: MiMo: 8
What each AI noted 1
- MiMoplace 8
Soccer sits in the top 10 for NIL pay — one of six women's sports there — while football and men's basketball take 92% of the department's revenue.
Source ↗
1 AIs put it here - 10
Wrestling NIL
Big Ten wrestling now has NIL and revenue-sharing rankings by program, despite having no major media deal. No published share figure exists yet, so this ranking is a judgment.
Included it: MiMo. Did not include: Claude, ChatGPT, Meta, Gemini, StepFun, Kimi, DeepSeek, Wenxin.In their lists: MiMo: 9
What each AI noted 1
- MiMoplace 9
Big Ten wrestling now publishes NIL rankings program by program — roster money is flowing in a sport with barely a TV window.
Source ↗
1 AIs put it here
02Worth knowing
What the AIs noticed while building the list.
Collectives still send 21.2% of their spending to men's basketball, yet women's basketball now wins more commercial (brand) NIL money than men's basketball does.
Sport shares depend on the time window: women's basketball is quoted at 26.2% of NIL pay (January 2022), 18.5% (March 2022) and about 4.5% of a $1.67B market (2024). Most per-sport figures here are from 2022–2024.
Cal's StreamU studio, which opened in October 2026, is open to athletes in every sport, with 10 hours of weekly programming. Arkansas, Texas A&M, Baylor and Houston studios are still only planned.
Opendorse counts per player and per sport differently: men's basketball players earned about twice what women's players did, yet six of the top 10 paying sports were women's sports.
03Questions people ask
Are NIL deals ruining college sports?
The money is growing, not collapsing: Opendorse puts the 2026-27 NIL market at $4.5B, up 50% on its earlier estimate.
Source ↗What is an NIL deal in sports?
A paid agreement to use an athlete's name, image and likeness: endorsements, appearances or content. 31.4% of commercial NIL activities include the athlete's own social posts.
Source ↗What is the NIL deal in college sports?
Schools can share up to about $21.3M a year with athletes (one source says $21.58M), on top of third-party NIL deals. Football gets 63.8% of that revenue-share money.
Source ↗What are NIL deals by sport?
Opendorse projected $1.1B a year for football, $388.9M for men's basketball, $134.4M for Olympic sports and $75.0M for women's basketball.
Source ↗04How we counted
In plain words, no formulas.
1The question
Top 10 College Sports Where Athletes Earn More From NIL Than Their Sport Earns From Ticket and TV Revenue
2Why this topic
Two independent sources are set against each other: what a sport brings into the department and what its athletes earn on their own. This explains why campus studios like Cal's are open to every varsity team, not only football and basketball.
3Where it applies
United States, NCAA Division I, men's and women's sports
4What we looked at
- Each sport's share of NIL compensation and deal count
- Each sport's share of athletic department revenue (tickets, media, conference payouts as reported by sport)
- Size of the gap between the two shares
- How much of the sport's NIL activity is athlete-made content (streams, social, lifestyle) rather than appearances or collective payments
- Opendorse 'NIL at 3' (2024) — Projected annual NIL spending by sport group: football $1.1B, men's basketball $388.9M, Olympic sports $134.4M, women's basketball $75.0M
- Opendorse Annual NIL Report 2026 — Share of NIL compensation and activity by sport, with women's and men's sports counted separately
- Opendorse market report (via FootballScoop) — How revenue-share money splits by sport (football 63.8%) and average pay by sport and position
- U.S. Department of Education EADA — Revenue and expenses each school reports for each sport every year
5Who ranked
The leading AIs, each building its own list of ten independently and naming a source for every place: Claude, ChatGPT, Meta, Gemini, MiMo, StepFun, Kimi, DeepSeek, Wenxin.
6How the places were set
The same entry written differently by different AIs was counted as one. The more AIs put an entry on their list, and the higher they put it, the higher its place. "AI agreement" shows how many of the AIs had it on their own list. Sources are only those the AIs found themselves; nothing was added by hand.
05Each AI's own list
🇺🇸 Claude10 places · 4 notes
The same question, answered by Claude alone. The final list above combines all the AIs.
- 1California (Cal)
The only school with a working Twitch studio: all varsity athletes, 10 hours of weekly shows, and a PS5 lounge.
- 2Texas A&M
A $38.9M football roster, a StreamU studio due 'in the coming weeks' and an app that put 500+ athletes' content on their own channels.
- 3Texas
The priciest roster in college football at $47.9M, with NIL content-creation workshops run for athletes.
Source ↗ - 4Baylor
Next on the StreamU list, with its own Baylor+ video platform since 2023, but no money data in the sources I found.
Source ↗ - 5Arkansas
A StreamU studio is coming and Hogs+ is the in-house video operation, so tools are close but still unproven.
Source ↗ - 6Houston
On the StreamU studio list, but money and reach are untested, since I found no spending figures.
- 7Ohio State
Athletic director Ross Bjork says the school will max out the $21.3M cap, yet I found no creator tools.
- 8USC
About 20 full-time content staff and a near-eight-figure budget, aimed at the school's brand and its 1,688 posts in December 2025.
Source ↗ - 9Florida
About 20 content staff, six on football, and 18,000+ posts in seven months, built mostly to promote the Gators.
Source ↗ - 10LSU
A $42.8M football roster (over $50M with incentives per industry sources) and no creator studio in my research.
Source ↗
What Claude noticed
Only 68 of 319 opted-in schools reached the revenue-share cap or came within 5% of it in 2025-26. The cap is a ceiling most schools never hit.
Power 4 athletes average $13.5M in commercial NIL, versus $173,000 for the Group of 6. About 37% of Power 4 pay comes from outside revenue-sharing.
The biggest content operations (USC, Florida) run on school accounts. Cal's studio is the first to give athletes the cameras themselves, and nobody has yet said who owns the channel afterwards.
Five years into NIL, rev-share money is mostly football: the average school's football share is $13.1M (63.8%), and men's basketball $4.3M.
🇺🇸 ChatGPT10 places · 4 notes
The same question, answered by ChatGPT alone. The final list above combines all the AIs.
- 1University of California, Berkeley — Cal Golden Bears, ACC, 2026
The first operating StreamU campus studio promises 10 hours of athlete-led programming every week, with professional production resources available across varsity sports.
Source ↗ - 2Louisiana State University — LSU Tigers, SEC, 2026
LSU's multimedia operation includes approximately 100-plus staff members and twice-monthly athlete content sessions: a broader production system than a single livestream room.
Source ↗ - 3Ohio State University — Ohio State Buckeyes, Big Ten, 2026
A dedicated NIL business operation combines athlete podcasts and video production with direct access to more than 1,100 athlete profiles.
Source ↗ - 4University of Michigan — Michigan Wolverines, Big Ten, 2026
Michigan's Venmo creator campaign assigned one athlete to each of 27 varsity programs, deliberately distributing content opportunities beyond a handful of football stars.
Source ↗ - 5University of Oregon — Oregon Ducks, Big Ten, 2026
Oregon added NIL-specific content production personnel, placing creative assistance alongside dealmaking rather than treating endorsements as a separate paperwork exercise.
Source ↗ - 6Baylor University — Baylor Bears, Big 12, 2026
Baylor has an NIL platform with more than 30 national brand partners and a planned StreamU studio, but the video-production part has not yet crossed from promise to operating facility.
Source ↗ - 7Texas A&M University — Texas A&M Aggies, SEC, 2026
Every willing Aggie athlete can open a personalized merchandise storefront; livestreaming would add a second, more audience-driven business model if the planned studio opens.
Source ↗ - 8University of Arkansas — Arkansas Razorbacks, SEC, 2026
Arkansas is in the first wave of planned StreamU expansion, but a promised production room is not equivalent to ten documented hours of broadcasting.
Source ↗ - 9University of Houston — Houston Cougars, Big 12, 2026
Houston combines a future StreamU location with an existing athlete merchandise marketplace, but athlete-led streaming remains an announced opportunity rather than measured output.
Source ↗ - 10University of Southern California — USC Trojans, Big Ten, 2026
USC's Nike partnership runs through 2036, but brand exposure for selected athletes is not the same thing as providing a studio they can use to build independent channels.
Source ↗
What ChatGPT noticed
The average Big Ten school NIL budget is reported at $48.2 million, nearly twice the Big 12 average of $24.3 million. Yet the first confirmed StreamU studio opened at ACC member Cal rather than a Big Ten spending leader.
Opendorse puts commercial funding at 36.8% of Power Four NIL budgets. Schools that help athletes build their own audiences could support a revenue stream separate from roster compensation.
LSU's 100-plus-person branding operation predates Cal's StreamU launch, showing that the newest technology platform is not necessarily the largest existing creator-support system.
Michigan's 27-athlete Venmo initiative explicitly uses personal social accounts; Cal's StreamU streams use a school-associated Twitch channel. The critical long-term distinction is who keeps the audience relationship after graduation.
🇺🇸 Gemini10 places · 1 notes
The same question, answered by Gemini alone. The final list above combines all the AIs.
- 1California Golden Bears (Cal)
Pioneered the NCAA's first permanent on-campus Twitch studio with 10 weekly broadcast hours, giving all 850 varsity athletes direct creator tools despite a modest $24M total NIL pool.
Source ↗ - 2Arkansas Razorbacks
Balances a massive $46M SEC payroll with StreamU's second live broadcast hub, guaranteeing non-revenue athletes prime-time channel distribution.
- 3Oregon Ducks
Combines a $49M Big Ten spending ceiling with Division Street's dedicated digital media lab, building personal branding portfolios rather than just institutional promo clips.
- 4Texas A&M Aggies
Committed to opening an on-campus StreamU studio backed by a $47M budget, extending creator tools beyond their high-profile football collective.
- 5Baylor Bears
Leads the Big 12 in creator enablement by pairing a planned StreamU streaming facility with an agile $31M athletic spending ledger.
- 6Houston Cougars
Leverages Big 12 membership to deploy a designated StreamU studio, turning urban media resources into athlete personal brand development.
- 7Ohio State Buckeyes
Pumps an astounding $51M into athletic rosters while directing in-house creative firepower mostly toward Buckeye brand promotion over athlete IP.
- 8Texas Longhorns
Distributes $50M through aggressive collective pools, but independent streaming tools remain secondary to corporate brand alignment.
- 9LSU Tigers
Backs a $44M SEC program with its South Stadium creator studio, fostering genuine crossover influencers like Flau'jae Johnson across Olympic sports.
- 10Georgia Bulldogs
Commands a $48M war chest built on SEC gridiron success, though internal creator resources concentrate almost exclusively on team marketing over player channels.
What Gemini noticed
Programs with lower total NIL payrolls like Cal, Baylor, and Houston are leveraging turn-key studio partnerships like StreamU on Twitch to offer non-monetary creator value that athletes retain as permanent personal equity after graduation.
🇨🇳 MiMo10 places · 4 notes
The same question, answered by MiMo alone. The final list above combines all the AIs.
- 1NCAAwomen's basketball NIL (2026)
Its athletes took 26.2% of early NIL money and over 10% of some schools' revenue-share pool — against a tournament worth 65 million a year and teams that still lose millions.
Source ↗ - 2NCAA women's gymnastics NIL (2026)
One of six women's sports inside the top 10 for NIL pay, with an ABC-guaranteed title game — in a sport where reported program revenue is measured in tens of thousands of dollars.
- 3NCAA softball NIL (2026)
Two separate deals above 1 million for one pitcher in a sport that accounts for under 1% of NIL activity.
Source ↗ - 4NCAA women's volleyball NIL (2026)
Under 1% of NIL activity, a guaranteed ABC championship broadcast, and a pro league launching in January 2026 — the audience arrived before the ledger did.
Source ↗ - 5NCAAwomen's tennis NIL (2026)
A freshman with about 3 million followers and a sub-700,000 valuation — in a sport with almost no gate revenue, so the audience is the entire business.
Source ↗ - 6NCAA women's golf NIL (2026)
About 2.25 million in golf NIL valuations flowing to one program — for a sport that sells essentially no tickets and no TV time.
Source ↗ - 7NCAAmen's swimming and diving NIL (2026)
1.8% of all NIL compensation in 2022 — fourth among sports — in a sport whose ticket and TV revenue rounds to zero.
Source ↗ - 8NCAAwomen's soccer NIL (2026)
Soccer sits in the top 10 for NIL pay — one of six women's sports there — while football and men's basketball take 92% of the department's revenue.
Source ↗ - 9NCAAmen's wrestling NIL (2026)
Big Ten wrestling now publishes NIL rankings program by program — roster money is flowing in a sport with barely a TV window.
Source ↗ - 10NCAAwomen's swimming and diving NIL (2026)
Sixth among all sports for NIL pay in 2022 — swimmers monetize audiences their meets never reach.
Source ↗
What MiMo noticed
Women's basketball leapfrogged men's basketball in commercial NIL compensation for the first time in 2024 — 10.2% of commercial dollars — even as collectives still route 21.2% of their spending to men's basketball (citation:16).
Onesoftball pitcher signed deals worth over2𝑚𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑠𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑡𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡𝑎𝑐𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑡𝑠𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟12millioninasportthataccountsforunder14.5 billion for 2026 (up 50% on its own prior estimate), while the College Sports Commission's clearinghouse had validated355𝑚𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑏𝑦𝐽𝑢𝑙𝑦2026𝑎𝑛𝑑355millionbyJuly2026and582 million by Aug 31, 202631290211.
Women'sbasketball's NIL share is quoted as 26.2% (Jan 2022), 18.5% (Mar 2022) and roughly 4.5% (75𝑀𝑜𝑓𝑎75Mofa1.67B market, 2024) — same sport, three windows and denominators2456916.
Swimming'splace in the NIL tables shifted from '4th and 6th' in March 2022 to 'women's sixth, men's eighth' two months later69224.
🇨🇳 StepFun10 places · 2 notes
The same question, answered by StepFun alone. The final list above combines all the AIs.
- 1USC Trojans (2026)
An Emmy sits on a desk in the athletics department — and the in-house lab that built it was created for all its athletes, not just the stars.
Source ↗ - 2Cal Golden Bears (2026)
The first campus studio built for athletes to run their own live shows — 10 hours a week, all sports, multi-camera — inside a conference Opendorse prices at $29.4M.
- 3Texas Longhorns (2026)
$46.5 million in estimated athlete compensation — the highest single school figure published — while its biggest stars still stream through other people's channels.
Source ↗ - 4Ohio State Buckeyes (2026)
$40.4 million and a conference that turned student production into a TV network — but the StudentU studio time goes to media students, not to the athletes.
Source ↗ - 5Oregon Ducks (2026)
The second-richest program on the board at $43.4M, and home to the one athlete whose audience genuinely outruns his price tag.
Source ↗ - 6Notre Dame Fighting Irish (2026)
$38.4 million and its own in-house media company that exists, in its own words, to 'educate, elevate and empower student-athletes'.
- 7Texas A&M Aggies (2026)
$36.8 million and a live Twitch channel that already runs watch-alongs with its own talent — with a StreamU studio still only 'expected'.
- 8Arkansas Razorbacks (2026)
The only school pairing a Twitch channel with a paid subscription network — Hogs+ — so athlete content has somewhere to earn money.
Source ↗ - 9Baylor Bears (2026)
Signed up to the same Twitch studio programme as Cal — but in the conference Opendorse prices at $24.3M, a quarter of the Big Ten's average.
- 10Houston Cougars (2026)
Last in line for the studio Cal already has — a promise of creator tools in the same conference as Baylor, with no published athlete-content operation of its own yet.
Source ↗
What StepFun noticed
The cap is not the ceiling: 68 schools reached the $20.5M cap in 2025-26 or came within five percent of it, and Opendorse says Power 4 programs pull 36.8% of NIL budgets from commercial sources above the cap — which is why Texas' estimated $46.5M is more than double the $21.3M limit.
Post volume is the closest published proxy for content staffing, and it varies wildly: USC produced 1,688 posts across all platforms in December 2025, while Florida created more than 18,000 posts over seven months.
🇨🇳 Kimi10 places · 2 notes
The same question, answered by Kimi alone. The final list above combines all the AIs.
- 1Cal (UC Berkeley) — first campus Twitch studio, open to every varsity athlete (2026)
The school with an ACC-sized NIL budget just became the first in America to hand every varsity athlete a professional streaming studio — 10 hours of athlete-run programming a week.
- 2Texas — the ~$45M roster with no athlete-run studio (2026)
Texas spends more on players than anyone (a ~$45M roster, a $23M transfer class) — and its athletes' biggest content platform is still a national TV commercial, not a channel they own.
Source ↗ - 3Ohio State — $40-50M roster, professional media machine, school's channel (2026)
Ohio State's roster costs up to $53M and its content operation is among the best in college sports — but the camera mostly points at the Buckeye brand, not channels athletes keep after graduation.
Source ↗ - 4Oregon — Knight money plus the best brand-content culture (2026)
With $40M+ roster spending and two decades of Nike-built content instincts, Oregon is the school most likely to turn a StreamU-style studio into something athletes actually watch.
Source ↗ - 5Texas A&M — a ~$50M wallet that is also getting a StreamU studio (2026)
The Aggies are discussed in the same ~$50M breath as Texas — and unlike the Longhorns, they're on the short list for one of the next on-campus Twitch studios.
Source ↗ - 6Miami — pays the No. 1 athlete, still no athlete-owned channel (2026)
Miami will pay Darian Mensah $6.5M this year and built a top-three roster budget — but every dollar is performance money; the Hurricanes offer nothing like a studio where athletes build audiences they keep.
Source ↗ - 7LSU — big money plus real personal-brand coaching (NILSU) (2026)
Between the $40M+ roster budget and NILSU's twice-monthly content creation sessions with an award-winning creative team, LSU is the rare school teaching athletes to build a brand they take with them.
Source ↗ - 8Arkansas — mid-tier money, first-mover on the studio list (2026)
The Razorbacks can't out-spend the SEC's giants, so they're doing the next best thing: one of the four campuses getting a StreamU Twitch studio in the coming weeks.
Source ↗ - 9Tennessee — top-three spender, quiet on creator tools (2026)
Tennessee runs the No. 2 athletic budget in the country ($285M) and a high-$30Ms roster — serious money, but its athletes' audience-building still happens on the school's channels, not their own.
- 10Baylor — Big 12 money, but a front-row seat in the StreamU rollout (2026)
Baylor's NIL budget lives in the $24M Big 12 tier, yet its athletes are about to get the same pro-grade Twitch studio as schools spending twice that on rosters.
What Kimi noticed
The average Big Ten school now puts $48.2M a year into athlete compensation (rev-share + third-party NIL), ahead of the SEC's $44.5M — while the ACC ($29.4M) and Big 12 ($24.3M) sit at roughly half. The cap is $21.3M; the average Power 4 school spends $36.6M, with 36.8% of it above the cap.
A $40 million football roster is now simply 'the cost of admission': at least seven programs are above that line, and Illinois — spending around $20M — sits near the bottom of the Big Ten economy. The cap meant to create a level field functions, in one AD's words, like 'a floor with a ceiling painted on it.'
🇨🇳 DeepSeek10 places · 3 notes
The same question, answered by DeepSeek alone. The final list above combines all the AIs.
- 1University of California, Berkeley (Cal)
The only Power 4 school with an on-campus Twitch studio open to all varsity athletes for live content they control — and the audience they build stays with them.
- 2Clemson University
A 12,000-square-foot Branding Institute with two photo studios, two video studios, and a podcast studio — accessible to all athletes, not just football stars.
Source ↗ - 3Louisiana State University (LSU)
The Brand employs roughly 60 full-time staffers and another 90 part-time — a content operation larger than many professional teams, with a podcast and radio studio open to athletes.
Source ↗ - 4University of Southern California (USC)
BLVD Studios was the first in-house creative lab explicitly for all athletes — now a 20-plus-person creative team on a near eight-figure budget that won an Emmy.
Source ↗ - 5University of Texas at Austin
The Longhorn Sports Agency with Learfield Studios combines on-campus content producers with a robust NIL agency, already generating millions of impressions through athlete-driven series.
- 6Ohio State University
The Buckeye Sports Group folded two collectives into a single entity with Learfield Studios dedicated to athlete-driven content, podcasts, and video series across 36 sports.
- 7University of Oklahoma
The Sooner Evolution Center, announced in June 2026, bundles podcast and video recording studios with NIL education and brand development — operated by Sooner Sports Productions.
- 8University of Arkansas
A planned StreamU Twitch studio brings a dedicated live-content facility to all athletes, part of the network's expansion beyond Cal.
- 9Texas A&M University
A planned StreamU studio with the same all-athlete access model as Cal — and an athletic department already under NIL watchdog scrutiny, making transparent creator infrastructure especially valuable.
- 10Baylor University
A planned StreamU studio brings live-content infrastructure to a Big 12 program without the football-first spending of its SEC and Big Ten peers — a different model of creator support.
What DeepSeek noticed
Big Ten schools average $48.2 million in total NIL spending across all sports, while SEC schools average $44.5 million. But the gap between conferences is smaller than the gap within them: at least 20 Power 4 programs are believed to be spending above $30 million on football alone, and a few as high as $50 million, against a revenue-share cap of $21.6 million.
USC produced 1,688 posts across all platforms in December 2025 alone, while Florida created more than 18,000 posts over a seven-month span in 2025. The volume is staggering — but the question is whether those posts build the athlete's audience or the school's.
The College Sports Commission is reviewing potential NIL violations at between five and 10 Power 4 schools, with some programs reported to be spending up to $50 million on football rosters. The schools with transparent creator infrastructure — studios open to all athletes, documented programming — are better positioned to demonstrate compliance than those relying on opaque third-party deals.