What makes a top NIL collective?
Over the past three years, the college sports landscape has been altered. Donor-driven NIL collectives will make up 80% of all NIL dollars spent in college football this season. These organizations have become imperative to fielding a top roster in both football and basketball, yet all operate differently. Coaching has to take control of delivering wins on the field.
The 15 NIL collectives listed below are estimated to spend over $200 million combined this year according to calculations done by On3. This could be the high-water mark of dollars spent by donors on fielding top rosters. If approved, the House v. NCAA settlement would allow institutions to share $20-22 million annually in revenue with athletes. Revenue sharing could start by the 2025-26 academic year.
NIL collectives are expected to exist in the next iteration of college sports to create a competitive advantage, but will not be forced to raise so many dollars. A top NIL collective operates at a high level, working closely with an athletic department while boasting one of the top budgets.
Here are On3’s rankings of the top 15 NIL collectives in college sports:
Two years ago, speaking to businesses in Columbus, Ohio State head coach Ryan Day declared the Buckeyes needed $13 million annually to attract and retain top talent. Turns out the number is $20 million. Sources have confirmed to On3 and new athletic director Ross Bjork has spoken publicly about how Ohio State has spent $20 million on this year’s football roster.
The Foundation’s co-founder Brian Schottenstein told On3 that roughly 10 players are making over $1 million on this year’s roster.
The push to raise those dollars started after the Buckeyes dropped their third consecutive game against Michigan in November, with the majority of the $20 million coming from the donor-driven NIL collectives 1870 Society (for-profit) and The Foundation (registered nonprofit). Ohio State retained 11 draft-eligible players. Day and his staff went all-in on the transfer portal, adding Quinshon Judkins, Will Howard and Caleb Downs.
“I’m not surprised,” a competing NIL collective told On3 about Ohio State’s NIL mentality. “They got to a state of desperation and had to go all-in.”
Spyre Sports Group has emerged as one of the most aggressive fundraising NIL entities in college football. They set the bar early in college football recruiting, signing five-star recruit Nico Iamaleava to a deal that could pay him $8 million by his junior year. The quarterback is now set to start this season as a sophomore.
The fundraising efforts haven’t slowed down. Tennessee touts the No. 6 recruiting class in the country according to the On3 Industry Team Recruiting Rankings and recently picked up the nation’s top-ranked offensive tackle, David Sanders Jr.
“They run a good operation,” an NIL collective executive director told On3. “They’re established and have a lot of money to spend on recruiting in football.”
Led by co-founders Hunter Baddour and James Clawson, The Volunteer Club has grown to 4,191 members, adding more than 1,400 in the last year. Spyre also told On3 it has now procured $30 million in NIL deals for Tennessee athletes since July 2021.
Since bringing together five separate NIL entities to form the Texas One Fund in November 2022, the Texas Longhorns have given Steve Sarkisian every resource to compete. Viewed by peers as one of the wealthiest NIL collectives in the nation, sources tell On3 that it has roughly 60 football players under contract. That number doesn’t include deals it procures for athletes in the local business community. The Texas One Fund also has a working partnership with WME Sports, with a sales team based in Austin working hand-in-hand with the collective to support athletes.
With Patrick “Wheels” Smith running day-to-day operations, the collective secured a private jet agreement for Quinn Ewers with Nicholas Air. And the NIL collective recently announced a partnership with the Longhorn Foundation opening up loyalty points to supporters. Donations to Texas One Fund will earn donors five loyalty points per $100.
“They’re ready to adapt to whatever,” a source told On3. “They feel really comfortable where they’re at and already in conversations about what the House settlement could mean.”
Kirby Smart called out the Oregon NIL war chest and Phil Knight during SEC media days this summer, only drawing more attention to the success the Ducks have found in the NIL Era. Oregon has been an NIL destination since the summer of 2021. Nike co-founder and Ducks’ booster Phil Knight is the co-founder of the Division Street NIL collective. Some of his top former lieutenants from Nike now run the operation, headlined by CEO Rosemary St. Clair, who was a VP/GM of Nike Women.
“They not only have cash, but they’re good people who care about the athletes,” a leading NIL collective leader told On3.
Highlighting Oregon’s unique NIL situation, the Ducks partnered with Division Street to release the “University of Oregon” Air Max 1 in March. The collective has previously dropped exclusive Air Jordan 8s, a Dunk Low and an Air Force 1 Low. Division Street has even established its own apparel line, Ducks of a Feather.
“There’s not a top-10 program in the nation that’s not funded and in a good position to compete, or they wouldn’t be a top-10 program,” Lanning said at Big Ten media days.
Division Street keeps a low profile, not needing to openly ask for donations or announce deals with athletes.
“It’s Phil Knight, Oregon has all the money it needs,” an NIL collective president told On3.
For the opening years of the NIL Era, John Ruiz was the most visible college sports booster in the country. Brash and aggressive, he picked fights with fans and announced details of lucrative NIL packages on social media. Those days are gone, with the CEO of LifeWallet and Cigarette Racing pulling back on his NIL investments.
Canes Connection has become the prominent collective in the space. Sources tell On3 Miami is working with over $15 million for this year’s football team. Cam Ward is believed to be one of the highest-paid transfer quarterbacks, and the Hurricanes surrounded him with a talent portal class. Mario Cristobal enters a critical year three at Miami, starting on Saturday at Florida.
The collective is operated by co-CEOs Zach Burr and Brian Goldmeier, who are successful fundraising professionals with more than 30 years of experience running business development firms in the Miami-Dade area.
“Nobody knows what’s going on down there because they want it like that,” a collective leader told On3. “But they clearly have the dollars to be aggressive in the transfer portal.”
In just two years, Walker Jones and The Grove Collective changed the tenor of NIL conversations around the Ole Miss campus. The NIL entity was playing major catch-up when Jones arrived in the fall of 2022.
Since then, Jones has emerged as a leader in the space. He was a Congressional witness last fall. He’s led the Grove Collection Week over the last two years, raising millions in a matter of days while working hand-in-hand with Ole Miss. Jones told On3 the collective now has more than 6,000 members.
“I hate to admit it, but Ole Miss’ marketing strategy is impressive,” a fellow SEC NIL collective said.
The Grove Collective is beginning to take steps to move from a booster-funded collective to a school-financed third-party agency ahead of revenue sharing. With the beginning of the 12-team College Football Playoff, Ole Miss heavily invested in this year’s roster, landing top transfer defensive tackle Walter Nolen and wide receiver Juice Wells, among others.
The Grove Collective currently has 320 athletes under contract along with 85 corporate sponsors.
“Ole Miss and The Grove Collective are moving in the same direction,” a source told On3. “That’s in large part because of Walker. From the jump, I’ve been impressed how they’ve maximized the portal.”
Ingram Smith delivered a promise when he founded The Battle’s End NIL collective for Florida State football in December 2022.
“I’m not going to tell you that I’m John Ruiz, and I have unlimited money,” the collective’s president said at the time. “But I will tell you that we can be as competitive as we want to be in this space.”
The third-party NIL collective is now in its second college football season supporting the Seminoles. From the beginning, Battle’s End has been one of the most aggressive in the NIL space, allocating significant dollars to roster retention and the transfer portal.
Now expanded to assisting sports like golf and potentially more, multiple sources have told On3 the collective will spend in the $18-million range for all sports in the 2024-25 academic year.
As Smith has emphasized since the beginning, NIL dollars make a difference during college football’s free agency. Especially in the portal, making a competitive financial offer can make all the difference in landing a game-changing player.
“Do you keep the players in the program that you want to keep in the program?” Smith told On3. “Our focus since day one has been retention. Candidly, we’ve never lost a player that we wholeheartedly didn’t want to lose, even be that to the NFL Draft within reality. Jared Verse wasn’t coming back for another year. We’ve kept guys that would have been fifth or sixth-rounders that have come back and turned into second, third-rounders.”
A year ago, 1890 Nebraska sat at No. 19 in On3’s list of top NIL collectives. The Huskers had recently lost out on five-star quarterback Dylan Raiola to Georgia.
Plenty has changed in a year. When Nebraska kicks off its season on Saturday, Raiola will be the starting quarterback. He flipped his commitment to the Huskers last December, just before National Signing Day. Many view Raiola landing in Lincoln as a major NIL statement.
The collective received unprecedented support from Nebraska last month. Included in the partnership, donations made to 1890 will be eligible for Huskers Athletic Fund priority points and can be included in calculating Huskers Athletic Fund membership levels. The changes come with the arrival of new athletic director Troy Dannen, who has taken an all-in approach with NIL.
And with former Husker great Matt Davison partnering with Nebraska businessman Tom Peed and Shawn Peed, Nebraska can compete with most NIL budgets.
“They saw a guy who could turn around a program and invested in him,” a fellow Big Ten NIL collective leader told On3. “The institutional alignment and priority points have made them a gold standard.”
Louisville has emerged as one of the most well-funded NIL collectives in the country over the past year. Led by former Cardinal Athletic Fund staff member Dan Furman, 502 Circle has between 125 and 150 athletes under contract. That includes the entire men’s and women’s basketball teams.
The 502 Circle collective has one of the most robust budgets in the country – sources indicate it to be in the $20 million range for football and men’s basketball combined.
The Cardinals landed the top-ranked football transfer class, and 502 Circle and NIL played a crucial role for new coach Pat Kelsey in reconstructing Louisville’s basketball roster. The rebuild resulted in the Cards’ basketball transfer class also ranking No. 1 in the country.
Missouri and Every True Tiger have set the standard for how NIL collectives will operate in the post-House settlement world. Most donor-funded collectives have opted to raise the majority of their dollars from boosters, but thanks to Missouri’s state law, Every True Tiger has been able to think outside the box.
Specifically, the state law allows the NIL collective to receive institutional funds for distribution to athletes. So Every True Tiger shifted from working as a donor-driven collective to a marketing agency, partnering with Missouri to have athletes promote the Tiger Scholarship Fund.
The structure is viewed as the next possible trend in the NIL collective world when revenue is paid to athletes. Every True Tiger has allowed Missouri to be aggressive this offseason, headlined by Oklahoma offensive lineman Cayden Green.
“Because of the leniency with the state law, the school and NIL collective have been aggressive,” a fellow SEC NIL collective leader said.
Texas A&M’s NIL market has undergone major change in the last two years. One part hasn’t changed, though: The Aggies have deep pockets.
A large reason behind the early success was The Fund. Operating under the radar since the early days of NIL, no website was listed. Investors in The Fund told The Athletic in April 2022 they didn’t understand why boosters would want to advertise collectives. The Fund supposedly generated tens of millions of dollars.
The Fund officially became public in September 2022, operating under a new name: Texas Aggies United. The collective has over 50 football players and athletes from numerous varsity sports.
Yea Alabama has served as the primary NIL collective for the Crimson Tide since February 2023 when it launched. But the entity has only ramped up since Kalen DeBoer arrived in Tuscaloosa, with the former Washington head coach embracing the need to offer top NIL opportunities. Alabama cannot operate on the “Nick Saban discount” anymore, an often-used saying to describe why top recruits previously picked the school over other NIL packages.
The collective has focused on creating authentic NIL opportunities for athletes while ensuring it has the budget to retain and attract top talent. Entering Week One, Alabama has the nation’s No. 2 recruiting class in the 2025 cycle.
“I think I’ve been able to do a good job with that,” DeBoer said on a podcast this spring. “I think our staff will have the type of personalities and type of want to just continue to keep the main thing the main thing, and that’s coach these guys up. Understanding, also, that NIL is a part of it.”
When Jim Harbaugh left Michigan for the NFL in late January, the 30-day transfer portal window opened. With the hire of Sherrone Moore and the Champions Circle NIL collective, the program was able to stave off any transfer portal losses.
“It was everything, we were vulnerable,” a source close to the situation said. “Look at what happened to Washington after the national title game, that could’ve happened.”
Michigan bounced back in the spring portal, restocking depth at a few positions. But Champions Circle hasn’t been limited to football. The collective threw its support behind new basketball coach Dusty May, who helped raise upwards of $3 million and met with top donors.
The NIL collective has over 130 athletes under NIL service agreements across football and men’s and women’s basketball. Led by Jared Wangler, the collective also manages Valiant Management, which has executed marketing deals for over 300 athletes across 28 sports.
The Friends of the University of Notre Dame (FUND) has kept a low profile throughout the NIL Era, but sources have continued to indicate to On3 that it has the NIL dollars to stay competitive on the national level.
With new athletic director Pete Bevacqua now in charge, the Fighting Irish are more open to embracing new revenue opportunities. A registered nonprofit, the FUND supports all Notre Dame athletes with a focus on football.
The FUND has given Marcus Freeman what he needs to attract top talent in the portal, landing quarterbacks Sam Hartman and Riley Leonard in the last two portal cycles. Former quarterback Brady Quinn sits on the board and spearheaded the foundation of the collective.
Raising NIL dollars remains a challenge for Arkansas when it comes to football, but donors stepped up this offseason to land John Calipari. Part of the came with opening up their pockets to ensure the former Kentucky coach has the NIL dollars to spend on a roster.
Multiple sources have told On3 Calipari is working with an “open checkbook” and will have “at least” $5 million annually in NIL funds to disperse. That number could grow to $8 million, sources have told On3.
That will place the Razorbacks at the top of the sport, where typical Power Four college basketball budgets range from $1 to $4 million. And it puts Arkansas Edge in the top echelon of NIL collectives.
