College sports changed forever when the NCAA finally allowed student athletes to be paid for their work on the field. Endorsements and sponsorships are now a big part of the college experience for players, and this focus on building a brand is present in College Football 26‘s Road to Glory mode.

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While your academics and practice take up a lot of your time, you can also wade into the wild world of campus celebrity, attending parties with friends and signing deals with local businesses. Just make sure it doesn’t become your sole focus, or you’ll find it hard to stay on the field. Here’s how to start making money moves in College Football 26.

Picking Your School

The first step to raking in endorsement deal cash is to select your school. After completing the high school experience, you’ll be asked to choose which university you would like to attend. Pay attention to what it says in the NIL Opportunities section. Bigger programs will generally provide greater chances for sponsorship, given that they are a larger national draw.

Managing Your Weekly Agenda

Once you get to school, you’ll have access to your Weekly Agenda menu. If you want to start landing NIL deals, you’ll need to invest in your Brand with energy points. This will cause your player to socialize, attracting more fans.

You’ll only have one endorsement slot open to begin with, but increasing your following will unlock the ability to sign multiple deals (other slots open up when you’ve acquired 10,000, 250,000, and one million fans).

The bigger your Brand becomes, the better the endorsement deals you’ll receive, allowing you greater autonomy to decide which companies you’d like to partner with.

Accepting Endorsement Deals

As your Brand grows, businesses will approach you in between weeks of the season with potential offers. These will require you to part with some energy upfront, but they will shower you with various perks. These can include skill points, boosts to Weekly Agenda meters, stat boosts, and even more fans.

When starting out, it’s best to take whatever deals you can get, but as your popularity grows, you can afford to be more selective. It may even be to your benefit to turn certain opportunities down, especially if you need to pour a lot of energy into Academics and Leadership on a certain week.

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ATLANTA, Georgia (KBTX) – SEC Media Days returns to Atlanta for the first time since 2022 at the College Football Hall of Fame and Omni Hotel Monday-Thursday.

Texas A&M will be the last of 16 teams to take the podium, Thursday afternoon. Taurean York, Ar’maj Reed Adams, and Will Lee III will accompany head coach Mike Elko to preview the 2025 season.

Every head football coach in the SEC along with select athletes will address hundreds of media members over the next four days. While focusing on previewing their seasons, topics such as the future of the college football playoff format, revenue sharing, and NIL Go will likely be the focus of conversations this week.

For complete coverage of 2025 SEC Media Days from Texas A&M sportswriter Travis L. Brown and KBTX sports director Tyler Shaw, you can go to kbtx.com/sports and watch KBTX News.

Copyright 2025 KBTX. All rights reserved.

The purge of mostly fake NIL agreements has already begun

Things are changing quickly in the name, image and likeness world, thanks to the new College Sports Commission.

This week, that new agency sent out a lengthy letter to schools informing them that the commission had rejected a number of agreements between recruits or players and the NIL collectives that have proliferated throughout college football in recent years. Those NIL collectives had previously operated with little oversight or interference, allowing them to funnel money to key players on behalf of their associated schools.

Part of the new House-approved settlement, though, created this commission to evaluate NIL deals moving forward. And they’re already making their presence felt.

RELATED: House Settlement Approved, College Athletics Undergo Massive Change

Inglewood, CA – January 09:  Georgia Bulldogs fan cheer in the stands before the CFP National Championship Football game against the TCU Horned Frogs at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood on Monday, January 9, 2023. (Photo by Keith Birmingham/MediaNews Group/Pasadena Star-News via Getty Images)

College Sports Commission Shuts Down Invalid NIL Deals

Some of these arrangements, per the commission, have no “valid business purpose” and, according to a new Associated Press report, “don’t adhere to rules that call for outside NIL deals to be between players and companies that provide goods or services to the general public for profit.”

The new ruling is expected to lead to several collectives permanently shutting down, as schools will now pay players directly, and the “fake” NIL agreements will be under stricter scrutiny. 

A number of them have already closed, with those supporting programs like Georgia, Colorado, Alabama and Notre Dame announcing plans to shut down. Some of those schools have made deals with Learfield to make legitimate NIL arrangements.

Roughly 1,500 deals have been cleared in the month or so since the NIL Go system started, with financial figures ranging from “three figures to seven figures.”  Many others though, were denied because they did not fit with the new “valid business purpose” required standard. 

“In other words, NIL collectives may act as marketing agencies that match student-athletes with businesses that have a valid business purpose and seek to use the student’s NIL to promote their businesses,” the memo explained.

How this impacts schools that have maximized NIL collective-based recruiting, like say, Texas A&M, remains to be seen. But things are rapidly changing in college football. As they always do.

Texas A&M football has been one of the hottest teams on the recruiting trail this summer, and while Elko will still have to prove himself on the gridiron for the 2025 season, the culture of Texas A&M has obviously shifted compared to the years under Jimbo Fisher.

Before we get to what could be an electrifying 2025 season, we’ve seen tons of predictions on how the A&M season will go. We’ve seen anywhere from a 10-2 season to a 5-7 season, but we can all agree that Aggie fans are expecting huge things this season, and anything remotely less will be considered a failure.

The good news: You don’t necessarily have to get to Atlanta to be considered for a CFP spot anymore. SEC Mike, also known as one of the SEC’s most infamous sports personalities, has Texas A&M ranked where we can argue is enough for a spot in the College Football Playoff.

SEC Mike has Texas A&M football finishing 4th in SEC

This is about as high of a ranking as we’ve seen from anybody in the media this offseason. With the Aggie offense featuring multiple weapons at the skill positions, along with a veteran offensive line, this has the makings for an unstoppable offense.

With a maximum of three teams making the CFP in the Big Ten and SEC conferences, respectively, it’s still going to be an uphill battle for Texas A&M to have a spot, if this prediction actually does hold up. Especially considering that there’s a potential loss in the non-conference when they head to Notre Dame, there could be an issue there too.

Honestly, Texas putting Arch Manning on a high pedestal means they are going to succeed expectations or completely flop. I believe Alabama and Georgia will be in the mix, but of course, we already know what fans say about the Aggies. Texas A&M has to perform to their potential, and if they don’t, we’ll just hear the same old Aggie hokes about flopping on expectations.