Some of the greatest athletes in the world run for college teams. Athletes like Abby Steiner, Grant Holloway, and Britton Wilson all became World champions just weeks after completing their college seasons. However, college track and field is legitimately in trouble, and nobody seems to be paying attention. NIL is here and it doesn’t appear to be going anywhere. As a result, many people assumed all college athletes are about to get paid. But that was a lie, because before we ever opened pandora’s box, I already knew it wasn’t going to end well for the track athletes.

In the age of NIL Bronny James and Arch Manning are both freshmen who are worth more than 2.5 million dollars! But they also haven’t played 1 minute for either of their teams in the NCAA yet, and their last names are incredibly familiar. So when it comes to college track athletes in the age of NIL, we must admit what is really going on in the NCAA. If you follow the money, you will quickly realize that NIL is all about paying college athletes, and you can’t pay people with money that doesn’t exist. 

Why do college athletes get NIL deals? 

NIL was invented to solve a problem that the NCAA has faced for decades. The National Collegiate Athletic Association is a nonprofit organization that wants “to Provide a world-class athletics and academic experience for student-athletes that fosters lifelong well-being.” In general they have done this incredibly well as a non-profit, but there are 2 major exceptions to this rule.

The first is Division 1 FBS football, particularly for what used to be the Power 5. Thanks to conference realignment the Pac-12 is dead and Stanford is in the ACC. That means that the only conferences that make any real money are the Big Ten, Big 12, ACC, and of course the SEC! Believe it or not, there is not one NCAA school outside of those conferences that turned a profit on college athletics last season. But the other exception is Division 1 men’s basketball, and once again it doesn’t even apply to everybody. It’s the NCAA tournament that actually matters, particularly for programs who come there often and win a whole bunch of games when they get there.

How much money is made in college track and field?

Outside of this college sports is barely making any money, so where does that leave track and field. Well all that revenue the NCAA makes from basketball and football gets reinvested back into other sports, and of course track is on that list. For the colleges that do make real money from football or basketball, they also use that money to fund other sports. Those sports, the revenue sports are the same ones who get all the NIL money. Keep in mind football is primarily where the NIL dollars are.

Right now the NIL conversation is getting out of hand. There is now talk of introducing revenue sharing for major college football. That’s basically paying the players like they are in the pros. They already get full scholarships, 85 of them to be exact. Track and field only has 18 for the women, and 12.6 for the men! But if you pay them out from the revenue beyond those scholarships there would be no money left. Right now any profit that football is making is basically used to pay for the rest of the athletic department to continue to function. And Track and Field doesn’t make any revenue money at most schools. So ask yourself where the money for the track coach’s salary is coming from?

Only a few track teams in the nation can even get close to breaking even and that’s just because they host a bunch of meets, and charge everyone else’s teams to attend! The truth is that the more we focus on paying the athletes, the less money there is for some of them, “the track athletes” to even have a team to compete for at all.

How much money do college track athletes make from NIL?

Some track athletes make NIL money. But it depends on how you look at it. Some track athletes have legitimate NIL deals, but not for the same reasons that the Quarterback for USC football has one. For men’s track and field, you won’t find much data on NIL deals for the men on google. But that’s because men’s track gets no television coverage, and doesn’t make money for the college, so simply being the fastest in the nation gives nobody a great reason to give you a deal. Those athletes also don’t have larger social media followings either.

On the women’s side the On3.com actually keeps rankings of projected NIL values. Amongst the top 6 women in track and field, none of them have ever been an All American. In fact only one of them has ever even competed at the NCAA championships. Katelyn Tuohy is the only national champion on the list at all and she is ranked number 8! What all those women ahead of her in the top 6 have in common is they have more than twice her social media following. That clearly has nothing to do with their performance on the track! So NIL money in track and field, apparently has almost nothing to do with how good you are in the sport even if you are the best. So it’s easy to see why there is almost no money available for the rest of the athletes who lose to them.

The Bottom Line

College track athletes work incredibly hard competing against some of the best in the world and don’t get anywhere near enough credit. It is understandable to want to be compensated for all that work, and NIL seems like it is the way to do it. But whenever a rule changes, it’s almost always done with somebody in mind. If you are the quarterback for Texas football, NIL is here to pay you out. But if you are the best 100 meter sprinter for Longhorns track team, that rule really had nothing to do with you. If you have to go out looking for NIL deals, the reason is because you are looking for something that probably doesn’t exist. If it did they would have likely called you already. And if this thing gets any more out of hand, the money that actually pays for many track teams could be threatened really soon. So if you are college track athlete and serious about making money from NIL, there’s only one thing that I have figured out that works. I just hope you are really great at TikTok dances to pull it off.

LOOK GOOD, FEEL GOOD, RUN GOOD.

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