$6.5 million. That’s the confirmed NIL deal now attached to Darian Mensah, Miami’s transfer quarterback — the highest valuation of any college athlete in America, ahead of players who’ve spent years building a national brand. Mensah threw his first pass for the Hurricanes this season.
The number itself is startling. What’s more startling is how normal it’s become to see one. Two years after the House v. NCAA settlement cleared the way for schools to pay athletes directly, college sports has quietly built a compensation system that pays some 19- and 20-year-olds more than most NFL rookies — through two separate pipelines running at once, not one.
Here’s who’s actually earning it, and why the math behind the numbers changed twice in the past two years.
1. Darian Mensah — $6.5 Million
Mensah transferred to Miami as one of the most sought-after quarterbacks in the portal, and his $6.5 million valuation is now the highest confirmed figure On3 tracks in any sport. It carries a green checkmark in On3’s system — meaning it’s a verified contract number, not a projection of what Mensah could theoretically be worth to a brand.
2. Milan Momcilovic — $6 Million
Momcilovic shot an NCAA-best 48.7% from three-point range at Iowa State last season, then took his name out of the NBA Draft and re-entered the transfer portal — a decision that turned into a bidding process between Kentucky and Louisville. Kentucky won, at a confirmed $6 million, making the 6-foot-8 forward the highest-valued player in college basketball.
3. Flory Bidunga — $6 Million
Bidunga transferred from Kansas to Louisville at the same $6 million confirmed valuation, part of a roster Louisville is reportedly spending roughly $20 million to build. Two basketball programs paying seven figures for a single transfer is itself a marker of how far the market has moved since the first NIL deals were signed in 2021.
4. Arch Manning — $5.4 Million
Manning’s $5.4 million made him the highest-valued player in any sport heading into 2026, before Mensah’s and the two big men’s confirmed deals overtook it. As Texas’s starting quarterback and the most recognizable surname in football, Manning’s number reflects national brand value as much as on-field production — the same dynamic that made him a marketing story before he’d played a full college season.
5–6. AJ Dybantsa and Jeremiah Smith — $4.2 Million Each
Dybantsa, a BYU forward, and Smith, Ohio State’s star wide receiver, sit in a tie at $4.2 million — a reminder that basketball and football both produce top-tier NIL earners, even outside the quarterback position that otherwise dominates this list.
The Part That’s Actually New: Schools Are Now Paying Directly
NIL money — brands and collectives paying athletes for their name, image and likeness — has existed since 2021. What changed in July 2025 is the House v. NCAA settlement: schools that opt in can now pay athletes directly out of athletic-department revenue, up to a capped amount. That cap started at roughly $20.5 million per school for 2025-26, calculated as 22% of average Power Five athletic revenue, and is projected to reach about $21.3 million for 2026-27 — climbing toward an estimated $32.9 million by 2034-35 as the formula compounds. A new oversight arm, the College Sports Commission, polices it. The settlement also required the NCAA and Power Five conferences to pay $2.8 billion in back damages to athletes who were barred from NIL deals before 2021.
The critical detail most coverage glosses over: revenue sharing didn’t replace NIL — it stacked on top of it. An athlete can now collect a direct school payment and sign outside deals with brands or collectives simultaneously. That’s the actual reason valuations roughly doubled in a single cycle. It isn’t that one pool of money got bigger. It’s that two pools now run in parallel, and On3’s methodology finally caught up to measuring both at once.
Why On3’s Numbers Suddenly Look Different
On3, the industry’s dominant tracker, switched its NIL Valuation model on July 1, 2026 — from an algorithm estimating an athlete’s marketing potential to a deal-based model reporting confirmed contract value, flagged with a green checkmark when a number is verified. It’s a meaningful shift: the old model measured what a brand might pay a given athlete. The new one measures what a school or collective actually did pay. That’s why several of the numbers above read higher, and more volatile, than the NIL rankings from a year earlier — they’re not the same measurement.
The Outlier: Livvy Dunne’s Money Has No Revenue-Share Behind It
Every name above plays a sport that generates the media rights and ticket revenue funding direct school payments — football or basketball. LSU gymnast Livvy Dunne’s $4.1 million valuation, the highest of any female college athlete by a wide margin, is built on a different foundation entirely: American Eagle, Vuori, Motorola, Nautica, and a multi-million-dollar partnership with the platform Passes. Gymnastics isn’t one of the revenue-share sports, so none of that $4.1 million comes from a school check — it’s pure brand value, assembled the same way Coco Gauff and the highest-paid female athletes built theirs, just four years earlier in the career. LSU basketball guard Flau’jae Johnson, signed to Jay-Z’s Roc Nation and partnered with Puma and Amazon, leads women’s college basketball specifically at $1.5 million.
The Actual Lesson in the List
None of these athletes have played a professional game. Several haven’t finished a full college season at their current school. What they’ve already built — verified contracts, brand portfolios, in Momcilovic’s and Bidunga’s cases entire transfer decisions driven by valuation math most front offices would recognize — is the exact instinct that separates the athletes who convert a playing career into lasting wealth from the roughly 80% of NFL retirees who face financial trouble within two years of their last game. The players on this list are negotiating like professionals before they’re eligible to be drafted as one. That head start compounds the same way Michael Jordan’s ownership stakes did — except it now starts at 19, not 40.
More from Absolute Baller:
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Frequently Asked
Who has the highest NIL valuation in college sports in 2026?
Miami quarterback Darian Mensah, at $6.5 million, per On3's NIL Valuation — which moved to a deal-based model on July 1, 2026, tracking confirmed player contracts rather than projected marketing value. He's followed by Kentucky forward Milan Momcilovic and Louisville center Flory Bidunga, both at $6 million confirmed, and Texas quarterback Arch Manning at $5.4 million.
What is the difference between NIL and revenue sharing in college sports?
NIL (name, image and likeness) money comes from brands, boosters and collectives paying an athlete for endorsements or appearances — it existed before the House v. NCAA settlement. Revenue sharing is new: since July 2025, schools that opt in can pay athletes directly out of athletic-department revenue, up to a capped amount. The two are not either-or. An athlete can collect a school revenue-share check and still sign outside NIL deals with brands or collectives — the systems stack.
How much can a college pay an athlete directly under the House settlement?
The cap started at roughly $20.5 million per school for the 2025-26 academic year and is projected near $21.3 million for 2026-27. It's calculated as 22% of the average athletic revenue at Power Five schools, and is expected to keep climbing — toward roughly $32.9 million by 2034-35 on current projections. A new oversight body, the College Sports Commission, enforces the cap.
Who is the highest-paid female college athlete in 2026?
LSU gymnast Livvy Dunne, at a $4.1 million NIL valuation — well clear of any other woman in college sports, built entirely on brand deals (American Eagle, Vuori, Motorola, Nautica, and a multi-million-dollar partnership with the platform Passes) rather than a revenue-share check, since gymnastics isn't one of the sports funding those payouts. LSU basketball guard Flau'jae Johnson leads women's college basketball specifically, at a $1.5 million valuation.
Why did NIL valuations change so much in 2026?
On3, the industry's main valuation tracker, switched its methodology on July 1, 2026, from an algorithm that estimated an athlete's marketing potential to a deal-based model that reports confirmed contract value — flagged with a green checkmark when a deal is verified. The new numbers read higher and more volatile because they're tracking real payouts, including revenue-share contracts, instead of an estimate of what an athlete could theoretically command.