Ohio State football has most NIL deals of all Buckeyes sports teams

On Feb 10, 2022

Brutus Buckeye waits for the football team to take the field against the Indiana Hoosiers during the NCAA football game at Memorial Stadium in Bloomington, Ind. on Sunday, Oct. 24, 2021. Ohio State won 54-7.

A little over a quarter of all name, image and likeness deals secured by Ohio State athletes since last summer have been among football players.

That’s according to data included in a presentation that was given at the university’s board of trustees meeting on Thursday.

Football players reported 27.4% of all of the Buckeyes’ activity, which counts as the overall number of deals, ranking the most among any of the 36 varsity sports teams.

Through Jan. 23, OSU athletes had disclosed 619 deals that earned a combined nearly $3 million.

Women’s volleyball reported the next-highest percentage of activity at 8.6%, followed by men’s basketball (5.6%), men’s tennis (5.4%) and men’s lacrosse (4.6%). Rounding out the top-10 was wrestling (4.6%), women’s swimming and diving (4.5%), women’s gymnastics (4.1%), softball (3.8%) and women’s rowing (3.7%).

Others included in the sport-by-sport breakdown were men’s swimming and diving (3.3%), women’s lacrosse (3%), men’s ice hockey (2.9%), men’s volleyball (2.8%), baseball (2.2%), men’s gymnastics (1.9%), men’s track and field (1.8%), men’s soccer (1.7%), women’s cheer and dance (1.6%), women’s tennis (1.5%), women’s basketball (1.3%), women’s ice hockey (1.2%), women’s track and field (0.9%), women’s soccer (0.9%) and women’s field hockey (0.7%).

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Each team has had at least one player reach a deal since such endorsements and sponsorship agreements with third parties became permitted under NCAA rules last July.

It’s in line with early predictions from industry experts that anticipated a marketplace to emerge for athletes beyond just football and men’s basketball, the two most visible college sports.

But football is still at the forefront and generated the most lucrative deals over the first seven months of the NIL era at Ohio State.

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The school reported that football players earned a combined $2.68 million across 173 deals, making up 89.7% of the total compensation reported by OSU athletes.

The average of $15,537 per agreement among the Buckeyes’ football players is much higher than the national average for the sport at $2,741.

In the slides from its presentation, OSU said most deals by its athletes have been on the smaller end between $25 and $500 for each one.

Joey Kaufman covers Ohio State football for The Columbus Dispatch. Contact him at [email protected] or on Twitter @joeyrkaufman.