Updated Saturday, September 5, 2026. Deal values are as reported by On3, CBS Sports, the Houston Chronicle and the schools involved; college contracts are not public, so figures are the best available reporting. Refreshes when new deals land.
Five years into NIL, the biggest deals are no longer shoe contracts and car dealership ads. They are school and collective contracts that look like free agent signings, and the largest of them now clear $6 million a year. Here are the deals, offers and rosters that define the 2026 market.
| Deal | Reported value | What happened |
|---|---|---|
| Darian Mensah to Miami | $6.5M valuation; $8M to $10M reported total cost | Left Duke on the last day of the January portal window; Duke sought a restraining order and the sides settled. Highest paid player in college football |
| Jeremiah Smith stays at Ohio State | $5M to stay; offer of more than $10M refused | Told On3 he was offered $10M plus to enter the portal. The largest known offer to any college player |
| Milan Momcilovic to Kentucky | $6M | Pulled out of the NBA draft in late May; Kentucky beat Louisville for him. Highest paid player in college basketball |
| Flory Bidunga to Louisville | $6M | Centerpiece of a Louisville portal class On3 valued at nearly $20M for a single basketball roster |
| Trinidad Chambliss stays at Ole Miss | Revenue share above $5M a year | Signed to keep him from following Lane Kiffin to LSU; later won a court injunction to play in 2026 |
| Dante Moore returns to Oregon | $5M | Turned down a likely first round NFL selection; Nike among outside deals |
| Tyran Stokes to Kansas | $5M | No. 1 recruit in the 2026 class; one of the largest deals ever for an incoming freshman |
| Sam Leavitt to LSU | $4.5M | Headline of Kiffin’s first portal class, with Jordan Seaton ($4M) alongside |
| Arch Manning’s endorsements | $3.5M plus verified in 2025 | The largest endorsement portfolio in college football: Red Bull, Uber, Topps, Google Gemini and more. Details on his page |
| Jackson Cantwell to Miami | $2.5M | A true freshman offensive tackle valued like a veteran starter |
| Florida and Ripple | Reported $5M a year | A school level partnership announced this week, the kind of institutional deal that funds the athlete deals above it |
How Big the Market Has Become
Opendorse’s data, reported by the Houston Chronicle, tracks the total: about $393 million paid to college athletes in 2021, roughly $1 billion in 2025, and a projected $2.4 billion in 2026. The College Sports Commission said its NIL Go clearinghouse approved $228 million in third party deals in the first six months of 2026, and Learfield reported school NIL partnership revenue above $300 million last year. Seven football programs now carry rosters at $40 million or more; the list is on our most expensive rosters page.
Why the Numbers Are Fuzzy
There is no contract database. On3’s valuations track reported school and collective compensation; a school’s actual cost can be higher (Mensah’s $6.5 million valuation versus a reported $8 million to $10 million price) or lower, and incentives move totals by millions. Endorsement money is a separate layer that only Opendorse verifies. And offers that were refused, like Smith’s $10 million, are known only because the player said so. Read every figure here as reported, not audited.
The Bottom Line
The biggest NIL deal in college sports in 2026 is Darian Mensah’s move to Miami at a valuation of $6.5 million and a reported cost of up to $10 million, with Kentucky’s Milan Momcilovic and Louisville’s Flory Bidunga at $6 million in basketball. The biggest number of all, $10 million plus, was an offer Jeremiah Smith turned down to stay at Ohio State. Full rankings: football and basketball.