The NCAA has a data dashboard that publishes parameters on every athlete NIL transaction registered in their system. This article will pick apart the numbers, both generally and for swimming.
The database allows you to filter results based on sport, type of transaction (royalties, social media post, public appearance, etc), and time frame. All data below comes from the time frame of August 1, 2023 to July 31, 2024 in an attempt to capture an entire school year (this also means that for swimmers, no post-Olympic deals are included).
Analysis – All Sports
| Median Disclosure Value | Average Disclosure Value | Median Total Athlete Earnings | Average Total Athlete Earnings |
| $87 | $2,072 | $500 | $19,889 |
The most striking observation from the table is how much higher the mean disclosures and earnings are than the medians. This indicates that there are a small number of outlier earners at the top skewing the mean higher. This first pie chart reaffirms this thought. Over half of all NIL transactions were less than $100, while nearly 80% were less than $1000. Still, a small percentage of the transactions were for more than $10,000. Many of these likely come from top men’s football and basketball players, the only consistent revenue-generating sports for the NCAA.
The second pie chart shows that over half of all NIL deals go to football and men’s basketball players. Swimming is part of the “others” category.
Based on the sport distribution data, we know that overall male athletes are signing more NIL deals than female athletes. However, in some sports such as soccer and lacrosse, women account for more NIL deals than men. That being said, there are more total women’s roster spots in these sports, so that doesn’t necessarily mean that female athletes are getting more per-capita.
Analysis – Swimming & Diving
| Median Disclosure Value | Average Disclosure Value | Median Total Athlete Earnings | Average Total Athlete Earnings |
| $75 | $376 | $191 | $1,176 |
The first thing to remember with this data is that it doesn’t include swimmers who don’t have any NIL deals at all (and whose values would therefore be $0).
Unsurprisingly, values are lower across the board in swimming when compared to other sports. The median football and men’s basketball players earned $843 and $4,875 respectively, while the median swimmer earned $191.
What’s consistent with other sports is the trend of having a few high-earning outliers skew the mean higher – most likely swimmers such as Leon Marchand and Gretchen Walsh.
Over 95% of swimmer NIL deals are less than $1,000. However, there are NCAA swimmers with five-figure deals. By filtering through the transaction types, we know that these transactions come from social media. There are also public appearance deals in the $5-10k range. Again, these likely come from swimmers with serious international credentials beyond college.
For swimming, most NIL deals are listed as gender neutral, likely because of combined gender teams. Therefore, it is impossible to look at potential gender discrepancies in swimmer NIL deals.
NIL was happening with or without swimming so not sure what the comments in here are trying to get at blaming swimmers for an NCAA wide issue/problem
Thank you Grant House for dismantling college sports in the pursuit of giving the athletes in your sport 1/8 of a months worth of rent
That’s how class action lawsuits work
In the context of NCAA swimming & diving, median NIL earnings is a mostly useless statistic. There are lots of swimmers and divers competing, but a much smaller number of stars. I think it would be a lot more interesting to analyze the NIL earnings of the top 50 earners.
A more interesting number would be median NIL earnings, exclusive of zero. Including zero as a payment, which it sounds like they have, is sooooo wrong. It’s like looking at the U.S. median base salary and including people who do not work.
Don’t they say that the first thing to remember about this data is that it doesn’t include swimmers without an NIL deal? So they aren’t included.
Bruh, they brought about the dismantling of some programs for peanuts. This is terribly sad
I thought Marchand couldn’t make NIL because he was here on a student visa. Legally not allowed to work within the US.
They can collect endorsements outside of the US.
You can’t make this stuff up. We threw the baby out with the bathwater so some wet behind the ears college athlete could make 500 bucks. The harsh thing is that it is likely that this is the high water mark for most. Once businesses and advertisers realize that 95% of these athletes have zero marketing value, it’s going to come crashing down, and we will be right back at the drawing board with these same athletes crying about it not being fair. Just watch, I would bet money on it.
But how much did Grant House make????
$400 gazillion