The NIL Top 10: Who are the highest-paid college athletes?

The pay-for-play era of college sports is less than four years old, yet its impact on schools and student-athletes has so far been nothing short of revolutionary. Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) earns thousands of university-aged sportspeople six-figure salaries each year and makes millionaires of some six dozen more student-athletes. Big-name college players have cited the deals as reasons to stay in school an extra year or two instead of turning professional at a younger age. 

Hundreds more top-tier athletes are cashing in even before stepping on campus, with annual valuations that dwarf the average American worker’s salary. More high schoolers with the talent to jump directly to pro sports are instead choosing to attend college, thanks to NIL.

“It’s created legitimate avenues for young athletes to leverage their personal brands,” explained Dave Meluni, an associate professor who teaches NIL classes in Syracuse University’s Sport Management program. “These new avenues add real value to the high school and college sports landscapes. It’s hard to overstate what a game-changer NIL has been for players, teams, schools and organizations, almost entirely for the better.”

Some of the most valuable college NIL-earners of all time, including University of Iowa’s Caitlin Clark (about $3.8 million per year) and USC’s Bronny James (about $5.9 million at its peak), recently turned professional, leaving openings at the top for 2025. Here at Volt, we put together information from industry-leading sources, expert insights and our research to craft our NIL Top 10 heading into the turn of 2025:

1. Shedeur Sanders ($6 million)

The University of Colorado quarterback and son of NFL Hall-of-Famer Deion Sanders has ranked in most NIL lists since the moment he arrived in Boulder last season after two years playing football at HBCU Jackson State. Sanders’ impressive play at Colorado has earned him sponsorship deals with the likes of Nike, KFC, Mercedes-Benz, Beats by Dre, Google and Gatorade, among nearly a dozen other major brands. The assistance of his famously outspoken and marketable father, who’s also the Buffaloes’ head coach, and his older brother, who serves as the team’s videographer, has helped build Sanders’ social media profiles and catapulted him into a league of his own for NIL money.

2. Livvy Dunne ($3.8 million)

A fifth-year senior gymnast at LSU, Dunne is completely self-made when it comes to NIL value. Unlike the college football and basketball players surrounding her on this list, the 22-year-old uneven bars specialist built her NIL value almost exclusively on social media instead of pay-for-play, roster bonuses and the like from her school. Dunne’s nearly 14 million combined social follower count is triple anyone else in our NIL Top 10 and has earned her countless endorsement deals from major brands including Nautica, Body Armor, American Eagle, Forever 21, Grubhub and Vuori.

3. Travis Hunter ($3.7 million)

Another beneficiary of the Deion Sanders-led Colorado Buffaloes hype machine, Hunter has made a name for himself as the best two-way player in college football over the past couple of seasons. He’s a legitimate contender for the Heisman Trophy this season, awarded to the nation’s best football player, and has inked deals with the likes of EA Sports, Celsius, Cheez-It, 7-Eleven, Leaf Trading Cards and American Eagle Outfitters, to name a few. Hunter is projected to be the top pick in April’s 2025 NFL draft, which would earn him an average of some $10 million per year in salary. The fact he’s already making nearly half of that as a college student speaks volumes about his skill and marketability.

@_travishunter Finishing out the season strong with the new @CelsiusOfficial Essentials line! #CelsiusBrandPartner #CelsiusLiveFi ♬ original sound – Travis Hunter

4. Cooper Flagg ($3.2 million)

A 17-year-old freshman at Duke University, Flagg saw his NIL value skyrocket this past summer when he put on a show at Team USA’s basketball camp in Las Vegas. Scrimmaging against the likes of NBA legends LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant and Anthony Davis before they competed in the 2024 Paris Olympics, Flagg held his own with dazzling three-pointers, put-back layups and even a couple of dunks. The Newport, Maine, native will spend the next six months playing for one of college basketball’s most prominent and recognizable brands — Duke — and is projected to be the top pick in July’s 2025 NBA Draft. Flagg has already inked a lucrative sponsorship deal with New Balance and starred in ads for Gatorade as well as Cort Furniture.

5. Arch Manning ($3.1 million)

The backup quarterback for one of the country’s best college football teams this year, Manning’s marketability comes in both his talent and his last name. The grandson of NFL Hall-of-Famer Archie Manning and nephew of Peyton and Eli Manning, Arch has been on national football scouts’ radars since middle school and was a top recruit coming out of high school in 2023.

He’s proven his worth at the college level in limited action behind University of Texas teammate Quinn Ewers, but the branding behind his last name has ultimately made Manning a more NIL-marketable player. His valuation has mostly plateaued over the past year because outside of the millions that Texas reportedly paid him to join its team, a sports-card partnership with Panini America and a $50,000 deal to promote the new EA Sports NCAA 2025 video game, Manning hasn’t done any other endorsement deals.

6. Cam Ward ($2.7 million)

Three sure-fire ways to climb the NIL rankings: 

1. Play quarterback for a major-market school in a Power 4 conference. 
2. Be a senior with a decorated track record of success on the field. 
3. Lead your team to a top-five ranking with a great chance to make this year’s College Football Playoff.

The 22-year-old Ward, in his first season at Miami after transferring from Washington State, checks all three boxes. The Hurricanes started this season 9-0 thanks to his spectacular play and are a near-lock to make next month’s playoffs. Meanwhile, Ward is a frontrunner for the Heisman Trophy. In October alone, he signed major sponsorship deals with Adidas and Bose, adding to his previous deals with C4 Energy, EA Sports and Leaf Trading Cards, among other companies. Acqua di Gio also hopped aboard Ward’s NIL train in early November.

Ward’s spot on our Top 10 list also factors in the estimated $1 million that Miami paid to land him in the transfer portal last spring.

7. Dillon Gabriel ($2.5 million)

The 23-year-old Gabriel is one of the few remaining college athletes who played during the pre-NIL era, and his longevity combined with crescendoing success as a fifth-year senior at one of the country’s top football schools has sent him soaring up the NIL charts. The University of Oregon quarterback has led the Ducks to a perfect 9-0 start this year and, like Cam Ward and Travis Hunter, is a leading candidate to win the Heisman Trophy. His NIL value includes deals with Uber, Celsius, Beats by Dre, online jeweler GLD and EvoShield as well as high six-figure sums he’s reportedly earned in transferring first from the University of Central Florida to Oklahoma in 2022, then from Oklahoma to Oregon last spring.

8. Jalen Milroe ($2.3 million)

Earning the starting quarterback spot at the University of Alabama has also meant earning a spot in the NIL top 10 since player rankings started four years ago. The Crimson Tide has been the country’s most successful program by far over the past 15 years with a whopping six national championships since 2009. Yet with legendary coach Nick Saban retiring at the end of last season, and now four years without a national championship and three years without a Heisman Trophy winner, the program has lost perhaps a slight bit of its all-time-high luster. That’s in part why the electric-yet-turnover-prone Milroe finds himself eighth on our list instead of first, like his predecessor Bryce Young. Milroe has sponsorship deals with Celsius, Panini America, Hey Dude Shoes and Beats By Dre, among several other companies.

9. Mark Sears ($2.1 million)

The senior University of Alabama basketball star will be much closer to the top of the list come spring 2025 when college football season ends and at least four of the six athletes ranked ahead of him declare for the NFL draft. The 22-year-old point guard is one of the faces of this year’s college basketball season, thanks to Alabama’s surprise run to the 2024 Final Four back in April. Analysts project the Crimson Tide will again contend for a conference title and the national championship this season, and Sears is a preseason favorite for national player of the year.

@marksears1 Link in bio #fyp #fy ♬ Hot Boy (feat. Lil Baby) – Nardo Wick

10. RJ Davis ($2.1 million)

Another basketball star from a blue-blood program, Davis has been an impact player for the North Carolina Tar Heels since he first stepped on campus back in 2020. Now 23 years old and the clear leader of a loaded UNC team with national championship aspirations, Davis has a long list of NIL partners that include JBL Audio, Hanes, Wingstop, Keurig, Reebok and Marriott, among other major brands.

Like Sears, Davis should move up in the NIL rankings during the coming months. He could also leapfrog the Alabama star as the season progresses, depending on how both players perform and where their teams are in the standings.

No looking back

Ask any scholar, agent, expert, athlete or coach about NIL, and favorability toward the new program will almost certainly be mixed, but mostly positive. Many agree that some form of player compensation is necessary, but a smaller group argues that NIL in its current state is out of control, turning amateur sports into the Wild West. One claim just about everyone will agree on: NIL, in some form or fashion, is here to stay.

“It’s well-established in the college sports landscape at this point, and frankly something that had been overdue for a long time,” Meluni said in a phone interview with Volt.

Instead of fighting back, most successful leaders in sport are embracing the new reality. Kelvin Sampson, head men’s basketball coach at the University of Houston, is the latest example.

“A big part of the conversation with recruits now is NIL, and as a program, you have to make that a priority if you want to land and retain top players,” Sampson told Volt. “The relationships and what the university offers from an academic standpoint will always be important, but the NIL piece is now one of the driving factors in how players decide where they’re going to play.”

Sampson, who boasts a 264-79 record in 12 seasons at UH — including an appearance in the 2021 Final Four — said the Cougars’ men’s basketball team contracts support staff to help players understand financial literacy and budget their NIL expenses wisely. He acknowledged that most of his players earning NIL checks are seeing more money than at any other point in their lives to date and that managing it correctly will be “important for their future.”

“Not everyone goes on to play professional basketball,” he said. “We want to help all of our guys that desire to go pro make it, but the reality is it doesn’t always happen that way. So we have to put them in the best position for what else is next, and having some NIL savings can be a great way to start on the right track.”