NIL Money Map — where college sports money comes from

Where the money comes from

Ranked hometowns for the players currently shown on the map — the filters above apply here too.

Rank by

Place size

Min. players

State

Length

How this works

This map traces NIL money in modern college sports back to the hometown of every player who earns it.

Read every number as “income earned by players from this place,” not “money that went to this place.” The dollars are legally the player's. We place them at the town the player calls home to show where college-sports income originates — often small, lower-income towns that a raw dollar map would hide.

Where the numbers come from

College NIL pay is mostly private, so almost every figure here is an estimate. We build each player's number with a “most-documented-wins” waterfall, and label which tier every player fell into:

Reported A figure publicly reported for that specific player (e.g. a known contract). Highest confidence — used as-is.

TNS Football: that player's valuation from The NIL Standard, shown exactly as they publish it (a single figure, so no range). Their figures are independent estimates of annualized NIL market value, not reported deals.

On3 That player's published On3 NIL valuation — the public standard, itself a model, and only the top ~100 players nationally are public.

est Everyone else: an archetype estimate from the player's position and role (starter / rotation / depth) — or, if higher, his recruiting profile (ESPN star rating and rank, worth most in his first year), calibrated so each school's roster sums to that school's pay budget. For football players The NIL Standard lists as “Valuation Pending,” this estimate is scaled down by 7% — the gap between our model and theirs across the players on the map we both value. Below about $100K they actually value comparable players higher than we do, so for the deepest benches the scaling is conservative.

Data sources

Rosters & hometowns — ESPN's roster API, reconciled against Ourlads depth charts (the membership authority that tracks transfer-portal moves within days).

Football player valuations — The NIL Standard — 2026 valuations, as of September 24, 2026.

Player valuations — On3's public NIL rankings.

Role / depth — projected depth charts (Ourlads), with class seniority only as a tie-break.

Recruiting — ESPN recruiting rankings (ESPN 300 and every P4 school's signing classes, 2022–2026), priced from reported freshman deals and ESPN's 2026 position-cost reporting.

Football pay budgets — The Athletic's September 2026 estimates for all 68 Power 4 schools and Notre Dame. Position rates — an ESPN GM position-cost survey.

Local income — U.S. Census American Community Survey (5-year) household income, by place and county.

Reading “% of local income”

This view compares a town's traced athlete earnings against the entire annual household income of everyone who lives there.