The Oregon Ducks and Ohio State Buckeyes have NIL budgets of $23 million per year, according to University of Nebraska athletic director Troy Dannen, who recently spoke out about the role of NIL in college football. He noted that Nebraska's budget is less than $10 million per year, giving it an unfair advantage, but he expects change soon.
“We have a big advantage here (at Nebraska),” Dannen told Football Scoop in a recent interview. “We have no debt, we have a great reserve team, we have a great fan base, we have the facilities. I think in the next few years we'll be competing head to head. But right now, we're not competing head to head.”
Oregon was NIL Powerhouse Those numbers are the highest in college sports, and clear evidence is the NIL earnings of quarterback Dillon Gabriel and wide receiver Evan Stewart. Both Ducks players, Gabriel and Stewart, rank in the top 10 for NIL earnings among football players, coming in at No. 8 and No. 10, respectively.
Dannen is optimistic that a proposed $2.8 billion settlement between the NCAA and the Power Five college sports conferences will help level the playing field, but the settlement is not yet final because it must be approved by U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken, and parties in the litigation could challenge the terms of the agreement.
The terms of the settlement give schools the right to directly compensate student-athletes through revenue sharing and could potentially lift restrictions banning non-lifetime contracts. If that happens, it's unclear what those organizations will or won't be able to do.
But what concerns Dannen about his outlook is that the settlement doesn't mention third-party NIL compensation, which could give student-athletes even more options for how they make money, potentially creating even more disparity between schools. But Dannen is confident about the future.
“Let me say one thing about NIL: It's not going to last forever,” Dannen said. “There's an antitrust settlement going through the courts this year. As part of (the settlement), 1890 (Nebraska football organization) is going to be banned. The organization is going to be banned.”
Dannen's view may be seen as wishful thinking given the forces at work: Collective industry executives argue that any attempt to break up NIL could be met with lawsuits to enforce collective rights.
It's impossible to know exactly how this will play out, but the adage “the rich get richer” seems to hold true, at least for the time being. Whether that's fair or not will be up to fans and donors.
