Texas QB Arch Manning made over $3.5 million in NIL deals, data shows

Two Fortune 500-sized companies will collide Friday at Royal-Memorial Stadium, and while everyone’s excited for the annual Lone Star Showdown between Texas and Texas A&M, the money that will be on that field will be staggering.

Not the coaches, mind you. The quarterbacks.

The average starting quarterback in the SEC earned $900,000 in revenue sharing payments and money from name, image and likeness opportunities in 2025, according to Opendorse, the company tracking NIL deals across the college athletic landscape.

Texas’ Arch Manning made at least $3.5 million this season, a figure that has gone unknown until now. Is Manning worth it? He just became the first Texas player to run, pass and catch a touchdown in Saturday’s 52-37 win over Arkansas. 

Per privacy laws, Opendorse co-founder and president Blake Lawrence said he cannot confirm exactly how much Manning or anyone earned. The company, which started in 2012 and partners with UT, compiles aggregate data and shared some of its proprietary data with the Houston Chronicle.

Opendorse data reveals the highest-earning SEC quarterback this season made at least $3,537,808, while the average quarterback made $38,021 — a figure brought down by backups and third-string player totals.

Again, Lawrence wouldn’t confirm if that high-water figure is Manning or not. However, he told the Chronicle without any hesitation, “Being the starting quarterback at Texas is the most valuable position in college sports.”

“It is the largest market that is absent a professional sports team,” he said. “It is the largest athletic department budget and largest football budget combined. You are the face of the entire region of the country that is football focused. The university itself is a national and global brand.”

What about Texas A&M’s Marcel Reed? His last name alone isn’t as big as Manning’s, so it’s an unfair comparison, really. Reed won’t stand out in Opendorse’s bell-curve data like Manning does on the far right.

Almost all schools, including Texas A&M, keep athlete payment data confidential. Texas Tech may be a lone wolf in this regard. General manager James Blanchard told the Chronicle in October the Red Raiders spent $27 million on their 2025 roster. Billionaire Cody Campbell is pumping all of his oil money into winning the Big 12 and getting Tech into the College Football Playoffs.

Money can’t buy everything, though. Reed is the one now being mentioned for the Heisman Trophy, not Manning. The third-ranked Aggies (11-0, 7-0 SEC) are the ones aiming for a spot in the SEC championship game, not the 17th–ranked Longhorns (8-3, 5-2).

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Reed captivated the college football world by orchestrating a 27-point come-from-behind win against South Carolina. It was the biggest comeback in school history, which kept the Aggies atop the SEC standings. Want to drive up your NIL value and your NFL Draft stock? Keep winning.

“I told my dad this and even my agents, at the end of the day, I came to play football just because of the love of the game,” Reed said before the South Carolina game.

“I never expected to get NIL when I first came to college or do any of those things. I got here and play the game I’ve been playing since I was 5 years old just to have fun, you know, because that’s what the game is.”

When you look at the NIL deals both quarterbacks received this season, common sense should indicate who received a financial windfall.

Reed had an NIL deal with ENG Aviation, a Houston-based private jet company, and Sonic Drive-In and Rhoback clothing.

Manning had deals with Red Bull, Panini America, EA Sports, Uber and Waymo, Vuori clothing, Raising Cane’s and Warby Parker eyewear. Manning is represented by Alan Zucker of Excel Sports Management, the company that represents the entire Manning family.

To his credit, Manning honored his grandfather Archie’s request the last two years and had no NIL deals until he became a starter. “I wanted to earn my money, work hard, get to know the players. Kind of earn my way up,” Manning said in a preseason interview session with ESPN’s Marty Smith arranged by Red Bull.

During the build-up to the season, Manning deflected most NIL questions. “I don’t really know how it’s going to work,” he said. “I’m just here to play football.”

Breathless headlines appeared in August when On3, the national recruiting service, pegged Manning’s NIL valuation at $6.8 million. While On3’s valuations garner attention, nobody can tell you if they’re remotely correct.

On3 claims it uses a “proprietary algorithm” whereas Opendorse is collecting data from actual NIL contracts submitted by Power 4 institutions.

On3 quietly lowered Manning’s “valuation” as the Horns’ season progressed and it became clear Manning needed more seasoning. Now, it’s sitting at $3.6 million, just under Ohio State’s Jeremiah Smith’s nation-leading $4.2-million valuation.

Reed is ranked 14th nationally with a $2.2-million NIL valuation, according to On3. But again, is that even right? Before the South Carolina game, On3 had Reed valued at $1.9 million.

“I think that Texas A&M has one of the more advanced and well-developed NIL machines,” Lawrence said. “A&M in general has a ton of support. Marcel Reed is having an outstanding year. But what I can say is Marcel Reed has 144,000 followers on his social channels and Arch has four times that amount.”

NIL is here to stay, and schools must adjust. But it’s the Wild West. 

Before this season, third-party collectives were used to funnel NIL money to players. University administrators went along with it but didn’t like how they couldn’t control it.

The House vs. NCAA settlement paved the way for revenue sharing, and most schools are now using $20.5 million to pay athletes. Roughly 75% of that total is being spent on football at most universities. The collectives have been brought in house, and now the university can control the two major buckets — revenue share money and NIL money from donors.

The revenue sharing pool was supposed to create a quasi-salary cap model. But as long as donors can pour in theoretically unlimited resources, nothing’s really changed. The Haves will win while the Have Nots will struggle.

“I’m all for opportunity for young people,” Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte said. “But we went from a known system to now we have 39 different state laws. So we don’t know how to govern ourselves right now.”

Opendorse calculated that college athletes received $393 million in 2021, the first year NIL was allowed. It ballooned to $1 billion by last year and projects to hit $2.4 billion in 2026.

Want to field a good football team? An above-average Power 4 starting quarterback could cost anywhere from $2.5 to $3 million, a high-level running back starts around $620,000 and standout offensive and defensive linemen are in the $725,000 range.

If one team went all in and paid the right end of the bell curve at every position, it’s likely a $17-million investment just for 22 starters, according to Opendorse data.

Coaches are starting to use NFL salary cap models to spread their budget across all position groups. Texas A&M coach Mike Elko said “it’s very much a moving target” based on how much the Aggies are willing to spend at various positions.

“There’s not a lot of structure, there’s not a lot of rules, there’s not a lot of regulations and so it just makes it really difficult to come up with an actual strategy and standard,” Elko said. “You’ve just got to stick to your principles and make sure that you balance your roster with enough of the type of players that you believe can build a championship.”

Does Elko know when he’s overpaying for a recruit? Or how about when a recruit is under-bidding themselves?

“See, I don’t think you can do it like that in college,” Elko said. “I think what you have to do is you’ve got to identify difference makers, and you’ve got to figure out how to bring them into your program.”

On a large level, college football is still about recruiting, talent evaluation and coaching ’em up.

The Chronicle reported Texas spent $35-40 million for its 2025 roster, although school officials pushed back on that number saying it was too high.

Texas A&M was rumored to spend $30 million on its 2022 team under former coach Jimbo Fisher. Now, Fisher’s long gone and earns $7.2 million annually through 2031 as part of his buyout agreement.

Elko won’t admit how much A&M is spending on this year’s roster. Elko declined to say whether more NIL resources were part of his new six-year contract agreement.

Through open records obtained by the Chronicle, A&M revealed it paid out $50.5 million in NIL deals to all athletes from July 2024 to July 2025, a $31.1 million jump from the year prior. About $48.3 million of that went to male athletes.

The Aggies and Longhorns are neck and neck in the 2026 recruiting wars. A&M’s class is currently ranked seventh nationally while UT’s is eighth, according to Rivals.

Not everyone is getting paid big money at their chosen school. Opendorse calculated that 90% of the football players on Power Four teams are getting $100,000 or less this season.

Coaches pay based on where a player ranks on the depth chart. A starting tight end lured out of the transfer portal could make $900,000, a returning receiver might make $750,000, another receiver can get $500,000 and others are scrounging around at $100,000 or so.

Players who don’t like their paycheck can jump in the transfer portal.

“I don’t know that a lot of these kids nowadays, they want a check. They don’t want physicality,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said last Saturday after beating Texas. “And if you have the check and no physicality, you end up with nothing. So we’re not just getting checks at our place. We’re hitting people.”

Elko said during the evaluation process, “I think you’ve got to identify how they’re wired and what they’re driven by. And I think that impacts kind of where you’re willing to go for certain players and how much they’re actually really worth as you go through the process with them.”