Which college football team has the highest payroll?

Texas and Ohio State sit at the top of the Institute's 2025-26 estimates at roughly $31-37 million in total football roster cost, combining NIL collective spending with the revenue-share allocation to football. Oregon is immediately behind. All figures are estimates; collective spending is not fully disclosed.

How big is the gap between the top and bottom Power 4 payrolls?

On Institute midpoint estimates the highest-payroll P4 program runs roughly 2.7 times the roster cost of the lowest. The gap is wider on the NIL collective line alone, because the revenue-share allocation is capped and compresses toward a common ceiling while collective spending does not.

Is the $20.5 million revenue-share cap the whole payroll?

No. The cap applies to what the school itself pays across all sports, and football typically receives 70-75 percent of it at football-dominant programs. Third-party NIL collective money sits entirely outside the cap, which is why total roster costs at the top exceed the cap by a wide margin.

College Football Payroll by School: All 68 P4 Programs

Q: What counts as college football payroll?

Football payroll is NIL collective spending attributable to the football roster plus the school's revenue-share cap allocation to football. The revenue-share side runs through the athletic department under the House settlement and is capped; the collective side sits outside the cap at separately incorporated entities and is not consolidated with athletic-department reporting.

Read this first

These are estimates, not disclosures. Here is exactly what that means.

No school publishes its football payroll. Two separate channels fund a roster and only one of them is visible. The revenue-share allocation runs through the athletic department under the House settlement, is capped at roughly $20.5 million across all sports in year one, and is partially traceable through NCAA and EADA filings. The NIL collective channel sits at separately incorporated entities that are not consolidated with athletic-department reporting, and it is not capped. Every collective figure on this page is an Institute estimate built from trade-press reporting, not a filed number.

Ranges are shown deliberately. Where a program is listed at $22–27M, the Institute's read is that the true figure is inside that band — not that it is $24.5M. The midpoint column exists to make the table sortable and comparable, and should be treated as a sorting device rather than a measurement.

Two clocks. Athletic-department revenue is a fiscal-2025 figure filed by the school. Payroll is a 2025-26 season estimate. Head-coach names are current to the date stamped on the table. These are three different measurement dates sitting in one row, and the stamp on the table is the date the Institute last checked all three — not the date any individual number was measured by whoever measured it.

Verified August 22, 2026 Scanned daily Estimates · not filed figures

Table 1

Estimated 2025-26 football payroll — all 68 Power 4 programs

Payroll is NIL collective spend attributable to the football roster plus the revenue-share cap allocation to football. AD revenue is total athletic-department revenue on the most recent fiscal-2025 reporting. The final ratio column is the one that does not appear anywhere else: what share of the entire athletic department's revenue the football roster alone now consumes.

Click any column header to sort.

#	Program	Conf.	FB Payroll ($M, est.)	Midpoint ($M)	AD Rev. ($M, est.)	Payroll / AD Rev.	Tier	Head Coach (2025-26)
1	Ohio State	B1G	$31–37	$34	$280	12.1%	TOP	Ryan Day
2	Texas	SEC	$31–37	$34	$332	10.2%	TOP	Steve Sarkisian
3	Oregon	B1G	$30–37	$33.5	$225	14.9%	TOP	Dan Lanning
4	Alabama	SEC	$28–33	$30.5	$225	13.6%	TOP	Kalen DeBoer
5	Georgia	SEC	$28–33	$30.5	$203	15.0%	TOP	Kirby Smart
6	LSU	SEC	$26–31	$28.5	$200	14.2%	TOP	Lane Kiffin
7	Miami (FL)	ACC	$25–31	$28	$165	17.0%	TOP	Mario Cristobal
8	Michigan	B1G	$25–30	$27.5	$262	10.5%	TOP	Kyle Whittingham
9	Notre Dame	Ind.	$25–30	$27.5	$180	15.3%	TOP	Marcus Freeman
10	Penn State	B1G	$25–30	$27.5	$220	12.5%	TOP	Matt Campbell
11	Tennessee	SEC	$25–30	$27.5	$210	13.1%	TOP	Josh Heupel
12	USC	B1G	$25–30	$27.5	$180	15.3%	TOP	Lincoln Riley
13	Auburn	SEC	$23–28	$25.5	$175	14.6%	TOP	Alex Golesh
14	Texas A&M	SEC	$23–28	$25.5	$260	9.8%	TOP	Mike Elko
15	Indiana	B1G	$22–28	$25	$155	16.1%	TOP	Curt Cignetti
16	Florida	SEC	$22–27	$24.5	$195	12.6%	UPPER-MID	Jon Sumrall
17	Oklahoma	SEC	$22–27	$24.5	$220	11.1%	UPPER-MID	Brent Venables
18	Ole Miss	SEC	$22–27	$24.5	$170	14.4%	UPPER-MID	Pete Golding
19	Nebraska	B1G	$21–26	$23.5	$165	14.2%	UPPER-MID	Matt Rhule
20	South Carolina	SEC	$20–25	$22.5	$165	13.6%	UPPER-MID	Shane Beamer
21	Washington	B1G	$20–25	$22.5	$170	13.2%	UPPER-MID	Jedd Fisch
22	Wisconsin	B1G	$19–24	$21.5	$175	12.3%	UPPER-MID	Luke Fickell
23	Illinois	B1G	$18–23	$20.5	$135	15.2%	UPPER-MID	Bret Bielema
24	Iowa	B1G	$18–23	$20.5	$160	12.8%	UPPER-MID	Kirk Ferentz
25	Kentucky	SEC	$18–23	$20.5	$150	13.7%	UPPER-MID	Will Stein
26	Michigan State	B1G	$18–23	$20.5	$170	12.1%	UPPER-MID	Pat Fitzgerald
27	Minnesota	B1G	$18–23	$20.5	$145	14.1%	UPPER-MID	P.J. Fleck
28	Missouri	SEC	$18–23	$20.5	$160	12.8%	UPPER-MID	Eli Drinkwitz
29	UCLA	B1G	$18–23	$20.5	$150	13.7%	UPPER-MID	Bob Chesney
30	Clemson	ACC	$17–23	$20	$170	11.8%	UPPER-MID	Dabo Swinney
31	Florida State	ACC	$17–23	$20	$195	10.3%	UPPER-MID	Mike Norvell
32	Arkansas	SEC	$17–22	$19.5	$160	12.2%	MID	Ryan Silverfield
33	Maryland	B1G	$16–21	$18.5	$155	11.9%	MID	Mike Locksley
34	North Carolina	ACC	$16–21	$18.5	$160	11.6%	MID	Bill Belichick
35	Virginia Tech^‡	ACC	$16–21	$18.5	$161	11.5%	MID	James Franklin
36	Mississippi State	SEC	$16–20	$18	$130	13.8%	MID	Jeff Lebby
37	Purdue	B1G	$16–20	$18	$125	14.4%	MID	Barry Odom
38	Rutgers	B1G	$16–20	$18	$130	13.8%	MID	Greg Schiano
39	Louisville	ACC	$15–20	$17.5	$155	11.3%	MID	Jeff Brohm
40	Northwestern	B1G	$15–20	$17.5	$120	14.6%	MID	David Braun
41	Texas Tech	B12	$15–20	$17.5	$130	13.5%	MID	Joey McGuire
42	Utah	B12	$14–20	$17	$140	12.1%	MID	Morgan Scalley
43	Arizona State	B12	$14–19	$16.5	$125	13.2%	MID	Kenny Dillingham
44	BYU	B12	$14–19	$16.5	$130	12.7%	MID	Kalani Sitake
45	Baylor	B12	$14–19	$16.5	$125	13.2%	MID	Dave Aranda
46	Duke	ACC	$14–19	$16.5	$130	12.7%	MID	Manny Diaz
47	Kansas State	B12	$14–19	$16.5	$125	13.2%	MID	Collin Klein
48	NC State	ACC	$14–19	$16.5	$145	11.4%	MID	Dave Doeren
49	Oklahoma State	B12	$14–19	$16.5	$135	12.2%	MID	Eric Morris
50	TCU	B12	$14–19	$16.5	$120	13.8%	MID	Sonny Dykes
51	Arizona	B12	$13–18	$15.5	$115	13.5%	MID	Brent Brennan
52	California	ACC	$13–18	$15.5	$125	12.4%	MID	Tosh Lupoi
53	Georgia Tech	ACC	$13–18	$15.5	$125	12.4%	MID	Brent Key
54	Iowa State	B12	$13–18	$15.5	$115	13.5%	MID	Jimmy Rogers
55	Pittsburgh	ACC	$13–18	$15.5	$125	12.4%	MID	Pat Narduzzi
56	SMU	ACC	$13–18	$15.5	$115	13.5%	MID	Rhett Lashlee
57	Stanford	ACC	$13–18	$15.5	$165	9.4%	MID	Tavita Pritchard
58	Syracuse	ACC	$13–18	$15.5	$115	13.5%	MID	Fran Brown
59	Virginia	ACC	$13–18	$15.5	$130	11.9%	MID	Tony Elliott
60	West Virginia	B12	$13–18	$15.5	$120	12.9%	MID	Rich Rodriguez
61	Cincinnati^‡	B12	$12–17	$14.5	$119	12.2%	BOTTOM	Scott Satterfield
62	Colorado	B12	$12–17	$14.5	$110	13.2%	BOTTOM	Deion Sanders
63	Houston	B12	$12–17	$14.5	$115	12.6%	BOTTOM	Willie Fritz
64	UCF^‡	B12	$12–17	$14.5	$109	13.3%	BOTTOM	Scott Frost
65	Vanderbilt	SEC	$12–17	$14.5	$115	12.6%	BOTTOM	Clark Lea
66	Kansas	B12	$11–16	$13.5	$115	11.7%	BOTTOM	Lance Leipold
67	Boston College	ACC	$10–15	$12.5	$115	10.9%	BOTTOM	Bill O’Brien
68	Wake Forest	ACC	$10–15	$12.5	$110	11.4%	BOTTOM	Jake Dickert

Tier bands are computed on the payroll midpoint: TOP $25M and above, UPPER-MID $20–25M, MID $15–20M, BOTTOM under $15M. ^‡ Virginia Tech, Cincinnati, and UCF do not appear in the Broadcaster’s Field Guide v1 master table, which covers 65 programs. Their rows here are Institute estimates added August 22, 2026, built from fiscal-2025 NCAA and EADA revenue filings and the Institute’s own coach tracker, and they carry a wider error band than the rest of the table until the next full refresh.

Sources. On3, 247Sports, ESPN (Peters/Rittenberg), Sports Business Journal, The Athletic, and contemporaneous trade-press reporting on collective disclosures and revenue-share allocations; NCAA and EADA annual financial reporting for athletic-department revenue; USA TODAY coach-salary database plus trade-press reporting for private universities. Head-coach compensation is maintained separately on the Coach Compensation & Buyout Tracker.

Table 2

How the payroll splits: collective money versus capped money

The total is the headline, but the composition is the story. The revenue-share column is capped and compresses toward a common ceiling — nearly every football-dominant P4 program lands in the same $13–15M band. The collective column is uncapped and does not compress at all. That is why the spread at the top of Table 1 is a collective-spending spread, not a revenue-sharing spread. The Institute splits the two channels for the 31 programs where trade-press reporting supports a defensible estimate on both sides.

Program	Conf.	NIL Collective ($M, est.)	Rev-Share to FB ($M, est.)	Total Midpoint ($M)	Collective Share
Texas	SEC	$18–22	$13–15	$34	59%
Ohio State	B1G	$18–22	$13–15	$34	59%
Oregon	B1G	$17–22	$13–15	$33.5	58%
Georgia	SEC	$15–18	$13–15	$30.5	54%
Alabama	SEC	$15–18	$13–15	$30.5	54%
LSU	SEC	$13–16	$13–15	$28.5	51%
Miami (FL)	ACC	$15–18	$10–13	$28	59%
Michigan	B1G	$12–15	$13–15	$27.5	49%
Penn State	B1G	$12–15	$13–15	$27.5	49%
USC	B1G	$12–15	$13–15	$27.5	49%
Tennessee	SEC	$12–15	$13–15	$27.5	49%
Notre Dame	Ind.	$12–15	$13–15	$27.5	49%
Texas A&M	SEC	$10–13	$13–15	$25.5	45%
Auburn	SEC	$10–13	$13–15	$25.5	45%
Florida	SEC	$9–12	$13–15	$24.5	43%
Ole Miss	SEC	$9–12	$13–15	$24.5	43%
Oklahoma	SEC	$9–12	$13–15	$24.5	43%
Wisconsin	B1G	$6–9	$13–15	$21.5	35%
Iowa	B1G	$5–8	$13–15	$20.5	32%
Michigan State	B1G	$5–8	$13–15	$20.5	32%
Kentucky	SEC	$5–8	$13–15	$20.5	32%
Florida State	ACC	$7–10	$10–13	$20	42%
Clemson	ACC	$7–10	$10–13	$20	42%
Mississippi State	SEC	$3–5	$13–15	$18	22%
Purdue	B1G	$3–5	$13–15	$18	22%
Rutgers	B1G	$3–5	$13–15	$18	22%
Utah	B12	$6–9	$8–11	$17	44%
Vanderbilt	SEC	$2–4	$10–13	$14.5	21%
Kansas	B12	$3–5	$8–11	$13.5	30%
Boston College	ACC	$2–4	$8–11	$12.5	24%
Wake Forest	ACC	$2–4	$8–11	$12.5	24%

Revenue-share allocation to football typically runs 70–75% of the roughly $20.5M year-one cap at football-dominant P4 programs, but each institution’s board sets its own split across sports. The 37 programs not shown here are in Table 1 on total payroll only; the Institute does not publish a two-channel split where the reporting will not carry one.

What the payroll table actually tells you

The gap is a collective gap, not a revenue-sharing gap

Every Power 4 school may allocate up to the same revenue-share cap. In practice almost all of them allocate something close to the same amount to football, because the cap is the cap and football is the revenue sport. Table 2 shows that compression directly: the revenue-share column at the top of the league and the middle of the league is nearly the same number. What separates a $34M roster from a $13M roster is almost entirely the uncapped booster-collective channel, which is exactly the channel with no disclosure requirement attached to it.

This matters for how the gap is discussed on air. The House settlement is routinely described as the thing that professionalized college football payroll. It did the opposite of what a salary cap normally does. It capped the visible channel and left the invisible one alone, and the invisible one is where the spread lives.

Payroll is now a material line inside the athletic department

The final column of Table 1 is the one that should worry an athletic director. The football roster alone now consumes an average of 12.9% of total athletic-department revenue across the Power 4, and at the compressed end of the league — programs with small revenue bases carrying near-cap revenue-share obligations — the ratio runs materially higher. That is a cost line that did not exist in fiscal 2021 and it is being absorbed by departments that were already running operating losses.

The scale of those losses is not speculative. On NCAA reporting for fiscal 2025, ACC athletic departments averaged a net operating loss above $70 million per school and Big 12 departments averaged above $57 million, funded by booster contributions, student fees, and institutional support. Revenue sharing was not yet in those numbers. It lands in fiscal 2026.

The transfer portal is the amplifier

A payroll table understates the gap it measures. In the pre-NIL era a good player at a low-payroll program stayed four years. Under the transfer portal and NIL together, that player moves to a top-payroll program after his breakout season. Bottom-tier programs cannot retain the talent they develop, so the effective competitive gap compounds beyond what the roster-cost differential alone would predict.

What it predicts on Saturday

Since the House settlement took effect in July 2025, top-payroll programs have won the overwhelming majority of head-to-head matchups against bottom-tier Power 4 opponents. The base-rate expectation is that payroll wins. The useful on-air move is not to restate that; it is to treat the exceptions as the story, and to know which side of the payroll line the underdog is standing on before the game starts.

Cross-check

A second, independent estimate — and where it disagrees

The Institute is not the only party estimating roster cost. NIL-NCAA.com, compiled by Patrick O’Rourke, CPA, publishes 2026-27 roster-cost estimates for the ACC and Big 12 built from NCAA and EADA filings. Where two independent estimates disagree, the disagreement is more informative than either number alone, so it is worth stating plainly rather than quietly picking one.

The two sets agree closely at the top. They diverge at the bottom, and they diverge for a specific and identifiable reason: the NIL-NCAA model assumes every Power 4 school pays the full $15.6 million revenue-share allocation to football, which produces a hard floor around $19–20 million for even the smallest program. The Institute estimates the allocation program by program and does not assume the floor is universal, which produces lower bottom-tier figures.

Program	Institute midpoint, 2025-26	NIL-NCAA estimate, 2026-27	What explains the gap
Miami (FL)	$28.0M	$38.6M	Different season; NIL-NCAA models a materially larger collective at Miami
Clemson	$20.0M	$27.8M	Assumed full $15.6M revenue share plus a larger collective estimate
Texas Tech	$17.5M	$33.3M	The largest single divergence in either conference; NIL-NCAA models Texas Tech as a top-of-market collective
Boston College	$12.5M	$18.8M	Almost entirely the assumed universal revenue-share floor
Wake Forest	$12.5M	$20.0M	Same floor assumption
Kansas	$13.5M	$19.9M	Same floor assumption

The two estimate sets are also measured a season apart — the Institute table is 2025-26, the NIL-NCAA table is 2026-27 — so part of every gap above is simply one year of cost growth in a market that is growing fast. Read the comparison as a range check, not a scoring of who is right. Source: NIL-NCAA.com, ACC and Big 12.

Where the payroll money comes from

Roster cost does not appear from nowhere. It is downstream of conference media distribution, and the distribution gap and the payroll gap are the same story told from two directions. The SEC and Big Ten pay their member schools roughly twice what the ACC pays and roughly two and a half times what the Big 12 pays. A top-tier SEC or Big Ten program collects $70–95 million a year in media distribution before a single ticket is sold; an ACC peer collects $40–45 million; a Big 12 peer collects $30–35 million. That distribution funds both the department’s capacity to reach the revenue-share cap and the donor base that underwrites the collective.

Conference	Per-school distribution ($M, est.)	Key media partners	Term through
Big Ten	70–100+	Fox + CBS + NBC + Peacock (tiered)	2029-30
SEC	70–75	ESPN / ABC + SEC Network	2033-34
ACC	40–45	ESPN + ACC Network	2036 (grant of rights)
Big 12	30–35	ESPN + Fox	2030-31
Notre Dame	~22 + CFP share	NBC / Peacock	2029

Estimates as of publication. Big Ten distributions are tiered, and the four former Pac-12 members are not yet at a full share — Oregon and Washington entered on reduced distributions, and USC and UCLA are phasing in. Full conference-distribution detail, including the phase-in schedules and the grant-of-rights litigation exposure, is in the Broadcaster’s Field Guide.

The full reference: the Broadcaster’s Field Guide

This page is one table out of a thirty-page college football reference built for on-air use — conference distributions, the coaching-carousel buyout mechanic, the Buyout Firewall concept, a glossary of the money terms, sourced one-liners, and scripted analyst pivots. Open access, no signup.

Open the Field Guide →

Related Institute references

Continue with the Coach Compensation & Buyout Tracker for what the sideline costs, the NIL Payment Disclosure Reference for which collectives file 990s and which states shield the numbers, House v. NCAA for how the $20.5M cap actually works inside a department, the Stadium Capex Tracker for the construction side of the same balance sheet, and Coaching Changes for the live carousel. The parent hub is the College Sports Division, which sits inside the Business of Sports.