College Football
College Football Business
Follow the money. Fix the game.
The clearinghouse for fixing college football. One place to see what players, coaches, commissioners, administrators, lawmakers and media have proposed to fix the sport, who agrees and who doesn’t, and the money behind every argument: NIL and revenue sharing, coach pay, TV deals, subsidies and school budgets. Every quote and figure links to its source.
229 sourced entries from 117 people, filterable by topic, person, type and era.
18 proposals, from a commissioner to a super league, with who supports and opposes each, plus 3 outside reform plans.
117 person pages with role and every entry.
NIL and revenue sharing, coach pay and buyouts, media rights, deficits, donors and endowments.
Who pays, where it flows and who decides: revenue by source FY2005 vs FY2025, a cited flow chart, salaries and decision makers.
183 sourced deals: apparel, multimedia rights, stadium naming, bowl and CFP sponsors, investors, and TV ad money by industry and network.
Who controls college football on TV, plus a watch guide for all 68 teams. Arizona State: $58.48/mo for every game (prices as of 2026-10-12).
68 school pages with EADA, Knight-Newhouse and Form 990 data.
SEC, Big Ten, ACC, Big 12 and Notre Dame compared: markets, endowments, budgets.
Sourcing rules, definitions, data years, gaps and attribution.
Key money numbers
$268.5M
2025 season (FY2026)
Schools committed about $268.5M in buyouts to 15 fired FBS head coaches in the 2025 cycle, more than double the previous record of $132M (2023).
[S39] [S42]$10.2M -> $72.4M
2007 vs FY2025
SEC payouts per school went from $10.2M (2007) to $72.4M (FY2025), about 7x in under 20 years.
[S58] [S53]$950K -> ~$7.06M
2006 vs 2025
In 2006 the average top-division head coach earned $950K. In 2025 the average Power 4 head coach (among those with public data) earned about $7.06M, and nine coaches topped $10M.
[S33] [S29] [S31]94%; $20.6M; $8,500
FY2023-24
94% of Division I athletic programs (330 of 352) spent more than they generated in 2023-24. The median gap was $20.6M, and the GAO puts the median student's share at $8,500 over four years.
[S45] [S46]14 of 53
FY2025
Only 14 of 53 public Power 4 athletic departments covered their own expenses in 2024-25.
[S47]$4.5B
2026-27
Opendorse raised its 2026-27 NIL market estimate from $2.8B to $4.5B, admitting it missed by more than half.
[S20]$1.6B; 60% vs 95%
2025-2035
The NCAA is withholding $1.6B from future payouts to fund the House damages. Non-power schools cover 60% of it, while over 95% of the damages go to power-conference football and basketball players.
[S28]$534.7M
FY2025
Penn State's athletics debt more than tripled in a year to $534.7M, driven by a $700M Beaver Stadium rebuild.
[S71]More in the Money hub →
Latest quotes
“If change is not accessed or not achieved at that national level, there will be more and more conversation about how we as a conference function and our own decision-making. We have had rules in the past that apply only to our conference that are more restrictive generally than what might happen nationally. That type of conversation has been initiated, and I would expect it to continue, but we'll wait to see what happens at the congressional level.”
At SEC basketball media days, warned that if Congress fails to set national standards, the SEC will look harder at writing its own, more restrictive conference-only rules, and said those talks have already started.
“I think I've always communicated that we've never said no that won't happen, that won't be a point of support. I think there's an openness to playoff expansion on our part -- I think certainly there's an openness. Attitudes change over time and perspectives change, and so we'll see where that leads us from a final decision standpoint.”
Long a skeptic of a 24-team College Football Playoff, said the SEC has an openness to expansion and expects a final decision 'probably sooner rather than later,' ahead of the Dec. 1 deadline.
“We gathered our athletics directors in mid-September to look even more deeply at the issues. Resulted in the tabling, which means it's not right now. We'll see what happens with the congressional activity. We also have some court decisions on transfer issues that have to be considered. I'm, if you will, agnostic on whether or not it comes back, but I think tabling was the right action at this point.”
After SEC presidents tabled a proposal to make intraconference transfers sit out a season, said tabling was the right call while Congress and pending court rulings on transfers play out, and that he is agnostic on whether it returns.
“Because if you want to have a national championship, there's a whole bunch of things where you need to have a national rule.”
At the Women Leaders in Sports convention in Chicago, said the Protect College Sports Act would 'absolutely' make college sports more sustainable, and that conferences can make some of their own rules but national championships need national eligibility rules.
“The longevity of the championship game still hangs in the balance a little bit.”
Told the Charlotte Business Journal (reported by ACCSports.com on Oct. 13, 2026) that the ACC title game's future depends on whether the CFP grows to 24 teams, with a decision expected by Dec. 1; ACC coaches would rather go straight from the regular season into the playoff.
“So, there's probably some things in it you like, some things you don't like — that's usually the case when you have compromise in agreement. But I think all coaches – I mean, we don't really have any rules right now. We just don't. There's no rules. So, hopefully something good will come out of it.”
At his Tuesday press conference, said he isn't spending energy on the Protect College Sports Act but repeated that the sport has no real rules and hoped the bipartisan compromise produces some.
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Data credit: Knight-Newhouse College Athletics Database, a joint project of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics and the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University.
