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.
So could Summer McIntosh swim ncaa now? What’s the difference between being pro and collecting NIL money?
I eagerly await my Masters NIL deal…
Gymnastics stands out: women’s median $1,000, mean $51,730; men’s median $1,840, mean $112,676(!!!!) with 17.6% of MAG deals being greater than $10,000. There are so few MAG athletes and a few have huge social media followings; I suspect they’ve greatly skewed those numbers.
SCORE: NCAA:1 :: SWIMMERS:0
I don’t get it.
NIL was not done for the swimmers, just football or basketball to move from bagman money in McDonalds paperbags or leased cars to legitimacy….
Are all of the NIL deals through a collective or third parties? For example, why wouldn’t my company sign an NIL with my kid? Company deducts it, income is shifted to the kids lower tax bracket.
That wouldn’t really be any different than you hiring your kid as an employee, right? I’m not sure that NIL changed this story.
They’re not donations, they’re sponsorship dollars, so they’re not any more deductible for your company than any other marketing expense, unless you’re donating to a collective with 501(c)(3) status.
I’m guessing the top names are making the most, the swimmers who you can name and win/score records with your average swimmer making little.
I wonder if the teams can help out with swimmers finding more NIL money.
College teams (including swimming) are absolutely helping athletes find NIL money and in fact, are making such promises / efforts during the recruiting process.
This has nothing to do with the House lawsuit.
Two things can be true
More than I made 🥲