How Top College Athletes’ NIL Earnings Compare to Pro Salaries, According to Opendorse Report

Last Updated on July 25, 2024

NIL recently celebrated its third birthday on July 1, 2024, marking three years since college athletes were first given the opportunity to receive financial compensation for their name, image, and likeness. 

Since 2021, NIL has presented college athletes with a plethora of earning opportunities such as brand endorsement deals, paid appearances, and merchandise sales. NIL activities for college athletes are often facilitated by marketplace platforms, such as Opendorse, and backed by school’s donor-driven collectives. In May 2024, the landmark House v. NCAA settlement all but guaranteed that Power 5 schools will need to disperse roughly $20 million per year to their college athletes starting in Fall 2025. However, most details of the groundbreaking revenue-sharing model remain to be seen. 

This much is clear right now. As NIL grows out of its infancy stage to the brink of a revenue sharing-model, top athletes are primed to profit, now more than ever, during their college playing careers. The increasing amount of earning opportunities for college athletes begs the following question:

Do Top College Athletes Earn More than the Pros?

Blake Lawrence, President of Opendorse, tackled this question by referencing data from NIL at 3: The Annual Opendorse Report. On Page 9 of the report (see above), a data set compares the average expected NIL earnings of the top 25 college athletes with the median league salaries of professional athletes for each respective sport. The values for expected NIL earnings are based on real transactions disclosed through, or processed by, Opendorse between July 1, 2021 and June 7, 2024.

As a whole, top college athletes are currently earning only 35.3% of the professional league salaries across the sports of football, baseball, basketball, volleyball, and softball. Notably in Men’s College Basketball and Baseball, the gap is massive between the NIL earnings of top college athletes and the median salaries of professional athletes.

In 2024, the top 25 Men’s College Basketball athletes earned only 7.6% ($350,000) of the median NBA salary ($4.6 million), while the top 25 College Baseball athletes earnings accounted for just 3.3% ($50,000) of the median MLB salary ($1.5 million). See Page 9 above for more information.

The common thread, for each respective sport, is that the annual median salary of professional athletes largely exceeds the annual NIL earnings of top college athletes. The exception is Women’s College Basketball, which in 2023-24 delivered more NIL compensation for the top 25 athletes than the median WNBA salary.

So Do Women’s College Basketball Athletes Earn More than the Pros?

According to the latest Opendorse report, the top 25 Women’s College Basketball athletes earned an expected average of roughly $89,000 annually in NIL compensation. This amount is $11,000 more than the $78,000 median salary of WNBA players during the 2023-24 season.

Do the top Women’s College Basketball athletes earn more than their peers in the professional ranks?

Yes and no. This claim is misleading without proper context and further considerations.

Outliers Inflate the Value of Average Earnings

The outliers in Women’s College Basketball earn more than their WNBA counterparts. Former Iowa Hawkeye, Caitlin Clark, along with LSU Tigers, Angel Reese and Flau’jae Johnson, all earned over $1 million in their four-year college careers, which is significantly higher than the WNBA’s $78,000 median salary over the four-year span.

Aside from these top three earners, however, most Women’s College Basketball athletes are not out-earning their peers in the pros. The Opendorse data set lists the average expected annual NIL earnings of the top 25 athletes per sport. In reality, the number of Women’s College Basketball athletes earning $89,000 or more in NIL compensation is certainly less than 25 and most likely less than 10 (the NIL valuations of the remaining top ten earners are not disclosed), due to inflated values from the top three earners.

As a result, the $89,000 value of average earning is massively inflated, especially by Caitlin Clark, who took home approximately $3.1 million in NIL compensation during her career. If not for Clark’s contribution alone, the average NIL compensation for the top 25 Women’s College Basketball athletes would come in less than the WNBA’s $78,000 median salary.

What About the Endorsement Deals?

Equally critical, the statistic Opendorse uses in its data set does not account for endorsement deals, paid appearances, and other earning opportunities secured by professional WNBA athletes. Akin to NIL activities for college athletes, these off-the-court opportunities are important sources of earnings for professional athletes, especially those in the WNBA.

Earlier this year, Caitlin Clark signed her rookie contract with the Indiana Fever for a base salary of just over $76,000. This number made headlines, when many fans were shocked to compare the value of her rookie contract to her substantial earnings in college, as well as to NBA standards. However, around the same time, Clark also secured an 8-year, $28 million Nike endorsement deal as well as a host of other sponsorships. As a result, Caitlin Clark will annually earn more as a professional than she earned during her college career.

Only the top handful of Women’s College Basketball athletes will earn more during their college careers than their professional counterparts who make the median salary in WNBA . However, barring any drastic injuries or personal setbacks, top college athletes like Clark will earn more money in professional ranks than they otherwise would garner in the current NIL ecosystem of college sports.

It will be interesting to return to this conversation in a year from now, as the earnings compared between college and the pro ranks are all subject to change with a new revenue-sharing model hanging in the balance.