NIL deals put just a few bucks in most athletes' pockets

Texas offensive lineman Christian Jones remembers walking up to Bijan Robinson not long ago and asking for a lift, figuring it was least the All-American running back could do for one of the big guys doing all the blocking.

“He said there's a height limit,” Jones said with a smile.

Turns out there's not much space in a Lamborghini for a 6-foot-6, 328-pound teammate.

“The suspension would probably be messed up," Jones added.

Thanks to a bold new era of name, image and likeness compensation deals across college sports, plenty of star players are cruising around campus in a fancy ride. But for every NIL millionaire like Robinson, there are thousands of athletes like Jones who have hardly struck it rich.

“For sure, you have the haves and the have-nots,” said Jake Brandon, who founded a NIL collective at BYU to help put some extra money in the pockets of Cougar athletes. “We’ve given out thousands and thousands of dollars to the athletes, but we haven’t given out millions and millions of dollars to the athletes."

According to the NIL platform INFLCR, the average transaction involving a college football player is $3,396, while a similar platform called Athliance puts it at $3,391. But those numbers are skewed by exceptionally large deals signed by elites such as Robinson and Ohio State's C.J. Stroud; the median deal through INFLCR’s platform is just $53.

That's hardly enough for a tank of gas in Robinson's flashy orange Lamborghini.

“The most common request I get from athletes is, ‘Can you help me get a NIL deal to get groceries this month?' Or, 'I got a flat tire in my sidewall and I don’t have the money to cover it. Can you help me get a NIL deal?’" Brandon recalls telling a local Utah business. "So the majority of people in college football, if you look at the broad...