NILnomics is a data-driven newsletter uncovering the real numbers behind college sports finances with sharp insights, clear visuals, and exclusive datasets.
Joined April 2025
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May 5
Hey there! If you're new to NILnomics, please consider subscribing to the FREE newsletter.
Each week I break down college sports finances with clear visuals, deep analysis, and original research.
I hope you'll join!
Www.NILnomics.com
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Fresh article from the @NILnomics /@NILNewsstand collaboration!
Jun 12
We scraped every Division I athletic department staff directory and analyzed 68,000 employee records across 368 schools.
A few findings:
• SEC football programs average 66 staff members
• Georgia has 120 people dedicated to football alone
• Ohio State, Georgia, and LSU each have 155 AD-level administrators
• SEC schools average 26 fundraising staff members compared to 10 in the Big 12
The college athletics arms race isn't just about NIL, revenue sharing, or facilities.
It's about people.
New research from @gregchickphd and @NILnomics, exclusively inside NILNewsstand Pro: nilnewsstand-community.circl…
ALT We scraped every Division I athletic department staff directory and analyzed 68,000 employee records across 368 schools.
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NILnomics retweeted
Jun 9
Excellent breakdown.
Jun 9
Every major college athletic conference files a Form 990 with the IRS every year.
Submitted under penalty of perjury. No spin. Just the numbers.
I pulled 10 years of them and built a panel dataset. Here’s what I found. 🧵
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Jun 9
Every major college athletic conference files a Form 990 with the IRS every year.
Submitted under penalty of perjury. No spin. Just the numbers.
I pulled 10 years of them and built a panel dataset. Here’s what I found. 🧵
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Jun 9
This is Part 1 of The Conference Ledger — a four-part NILnomics series built entirely from IRS 990 filings.
Next issue: the money comes in, but most of it doesn’t stay. What conferences keep vs. pass through — and what the per-school payout gap reveals.
Link in comments 👇
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Jun 4
Wanna understand all this super league talk with concrete numbers? Big10, SEC, all the D1 numbers where available, right in one place.
An example: Power Four football generates 46.5% of athletic revenue directly. Add the media, NCAA, & donor flows that exist because P4 plays football (counted as "Other" in MFRS): you get 88%!
The "80% from football" framing was right all along! (w/ @NILnomics). Best viewed on a desktop. Have a click around the "whole D1" and "institutional share" tabs!
kylesaunders.com/athletics-m…
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What a great article about the new revenue share agreement and the SEC meeting.
At the end of the day an proposed SEC separation has a simple goal, give the SEC more money to spend to rebuild their competitive advantage.
Jun 2
Full breakdown — with charts, conference-by-conference data, and a cap projection through 2035 — in this week’s NILnomics.
Link below 👇
nilnomics.com/p/the-thing-ab…
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NILnomics retweeted
Jun 2
Our (w/ @NILnomics) Athletic-finance maps just grew. Now with 200 D1 schools with full MFRS line items now (was 192). It's free, go search for your program!
E.g., Navy: $79M athletic budget, 96% self-gen. FIU: $50M, 30% self-gen. Same conference tier, completely different funding models.
There's a lot more where that came from! :)
kylesaunders.com/athletics-m…
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Nice work. There are conversations taking place to see if they can somehow tie revenue share to revenue and not the averaged out process they have today.
I'll come back to this topic once the court stuff is done in California for the MMR part of this.
Jun 2
Full breakdown — with charts, conference-by-conference data, and a cap projection through 2035 — in this week’s NILnomics.
Link below 👇
nilnomics.com/p/the-thing-ab…
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Jun 2
The SEC breakaway debate has generated wall-to-wall coverage.
Governance. Enforcement. Power politics.
Nobody is talking about the salary cap.
That’s what this week’s NILnomics covers. 🧵
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Jun 2
In a transfer portal era where compensation is the primary recruiting differentiator, that’s not an abstraction.
It’s a structural competitive disadvantage that compounds with every passing year under the current formula.
The SEC has already done the arithmetic.
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Jun 2
Full breakdown — with charts, conference-by-conference data, and a cap projection through 2035 — in this week’s NILnomics.
Link below 👇
nilnomics.com/p/the-thing-ab…
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