What is the Ohio State Buckeyes NIL strategy for football in 2027?
Direct Answer
Ohio State's 2027 football NIL strategy runs on a three-layer stack: a $20.5M House settlement revenue-share allocation (with roughly $18M earmarked for football, men's basketball, women's basketball, and women's volleyball), an in-house brand-deal engine called Buckeye Sports Group (BSG) built on Learfield Impact infrastructure, and a retention-first cap-table anchored by superstar receiver Jeremiah Smith's ~$5M package and Heisman finalist QB Julian Sayin's ~$2.4M valuation.
Athletic Director Ross Bjork has publicly framed roster cost at "around $20 million" while reporters peg the full Buckeye football roster value near $43.5M once BSG marketing dollars, jersey patches, and external endorsements are stacked on top of rev-share. The Buckeyes are the cleanest test case for the post-collective era — they shut down the standalone collective model and consolidated everything into the athletic department.
1. The 2027 Cap Table: Where $43.5M Actually Sits
1.1 Rev-share allocation under the House settlement
The House v. NCAA settlement set a $20.5M school-wide revenue-share cap for the 2025-26 cycle, rising 4% annually to roughly $21.32M in 2026-27 and $22.17M in 2027-28. Ohio State publicly committed to deploying $18M of that pool to four sports: football, men's basketball, women's basketball, and women's volleyball.
Football pulls the dominant share — sources around the program put the football-only rev-share line at $13M-$15M, the largest single-sport rev-share allocation in the Big Ten alongside Michigan, Penn State, and USC.
1.2 Buckeye Sports Group brand deals (the second layer)
BSG stacks true NIL endorsement dollars on top of rev-share. Buckeye athletes participated in 650+ NIL activations with 100+ brand partners in the prior cycle, including Beats by Dre, Chipotle, DoorDash, Spectrum, Rite Rug, and defense-tech firm Anduril.
National anchors like Nike, EA Sports College Football, and Bose layer on personal deals for marquee names.
1.3 The retention premium
Reporting from Yahoo Sports and CBS Sports pegs the total Buckeye football roster value near $43.5M — meaning roughly $25M-$28M of non-rev-share money is flowing through BSG, third-party agencies, and personal endorsement deals. Jeremiah Smith's package alone is reported at $5M, with multiple analysts arguing his open-market value would clear $10M if he ever hit the portal.
Julian Sayin holds a $2.4M NIL valuation per On3 NIL Database after his 12-0 regular season and Heisman finalist run.
2. The Buckeye Sports Group Engine
2.1 In-house, not collective
In February 2026, Ohio State formally shut down standalone collective operations (the old Foundation and THE Foundation entities) and rolled all NIL activity inside the athletic department under BSG. The play is regulatory: post-House, collectives sit in legal grey area while institutional NIL is explicitly sanctioned.
BSG is run jointly by Ohio State athletics and Learfield Impact.
2.2 Learfield Impact and Compass NIL
Learfield Impact provides deal facilitation, compliance technology via Compass NIL, and creative campaign production. Compass NIL handles the Deloitte-administered NIL Go clearinghouse filings required for any third-party deal above $600 under the new College Sports Commission framework.
This in-house pipe is the biggest competitive moat Ohio State has — it can promise a recruit a turnkey marketing apparatus that Alabama, Texas, and Georgia are still bolting together.
2.3 The 15-year Learfield extension
In January 2026, Ohio State extended its Learfield multimedia rights deal in what Athletic Business and 247Sports reported as "the largest of its kind in college athletics" — locking in a long-horizon revenue partner for sponsorship inventory, jersey patches, and digital signage that subsidizes the football NIL spend.
3. The Position-Group Spend Map
3.1 Quarterback room — $4M+
Julian Sayin ($2.4M valuation) anchors a top-tier QB room. Backup Tavien St. Clair and 2027 commit Brady Edmunds sit in the $400K-$800K range as developmental insurance.
3.2 Skill positions — Jeremiah Smith era
WR Jeremiah Smith ($5M reported) is the single largest line item on the roster. WR Carnell Tate sits in the $1.5M-$2M band, TE Max Klare (transfer from Purdue) landed a reported $1.2M package. Running back James Peoples rounds out the skill spend.
3.3 Offensive line — the new arms race
Ohio State paid $1M+ packages for multiple linemen in the 2026 cycle, recognizing Big Ten trench wars require five starters making OL-coordinator money. Carson Hinzman and incoming five-star tackle target Mark Matthews (a contested battle with Texas A&M and Miami) are central.
3.4 Defense — Caleb Downs gravity
Safety Caleb Downs carries an estimated $2M+ annual package and is the recruiting magnet for the secondary. Defensive line spend is concentrated on edge rushers — the 2027 class is anchored by edge DJ Jacobs.
4. The 2027 Recruiting Playbook
4.1 Class composition
247Sports ranks the 2027 Ohio State class as the 11th-best as of June 2026, with 13 commits, one five-star, and three top-five positional prospects. Key names: edge DJ Jacobs (Blessed Trinity Catholic), ATH Jamier Brown (Big Walnut), and OT Kellen Wymer (Liberty Center).
Four-star tackle Jimmy Kalis is the most recent flip.
4.2 The NIL pitch in the living room
Recruiters present three numbers: a floor rev-share figure guaranteed by contract, a BSG brand-deal forecast based on positional comps, and a post-eligibility transition program that uses Ohio State's NFL Draft pipeline (14 players drafted in 2026, per Eleven Warriors) as the long-tail ROI story.
4.3 Head-to-head battles
For five-star OT Mark Matthews, Ohio State is in a three-way against Texas A&M and Miami — both NIL powerhouses. For five-star Monshun Sales, the battle is against Indiana, Alabama, and Miami. The Buckeyes' counter is BSG turnkey marketing vs. The more fragmented collective-plus-rev-share offers from competitors.
5. Risk Factors and What Could Break the Model
5.1 NIL Go clearinghouse rejections
The Deloitte-run NIL Go clearinghouse has flagged deals lacking "valid business purpose" — i.e., booster-funded payments dressed as endorsements. Ohio State's in-house BSG model insulates the program from those rejections better than collective-driven rivals.
5.2 Title IX exposure
The settlement does not resolve Title IX questions on how rev-share is allocated across men's and women's sports. Ohio State's $18M split across four sports including women's basketball and women's volleyball is a deliberate hedge against future Title IX litigation.
5.3 Roster cap and portal turbulence
The settlement also imposes new roster limits (football capped at 105 scholarship + walk-on athletes). Combined with the transfer portal twice-yearly window, Ohio State must defend against poaching every cycle. Smith's $5M deal is fundamentally a portal defense premium.
5.4 State legislation
Ohio lawmakers introduced a bill in 2026 to ban NIL for middle and high school athletes, complicating Ohio State's in-state pipeline. The bill is in response to OHSAA's ruling on the Jamier Brown lawsuit and is being watched closely by AD Ross Bjork.
FAQ
Q: How much does Jeremiah Smith actually make at Ohio State? A: Reported at roughly $5M for the 2026 season per Yahoo Sports and CBS Sports. Open-market valuation if he ever hit the portal is estimated at $10M+ per CBS Sports' Brandon Marcello, making his current deal a sub-market retention price for the program.
Q: Did Ohio State really shut down its NIL collective? A: Yes. The standalone collectives (THE Foundation and the older Foundation entity) wound down operations in late 2025 / early 2026 as Buckeye Sports Group absorbed their function under the athletic department.
The move was first reported by Front Office Sports and The Lantern.
Q: How does Ohio State's NIL budget compare to Texas, Georgia, and Michigan? A: Comparable. Texas runs the Texas One Fund alongside in-house deals at roughly $22M-$25M in total roster value. Georgia is in the $20M-$23M range.
Michigan is closer to $18M-$20M. Ohio State's $43.5M figure is the highest publicly reported but includes layered brand deals that other programs may not be disclosing.
Q: Can a 2027 recruit negotiate his own deal or does BSG do it? A: Both. BSG handles institutional rev-share contracts and program-wide brand integrations, while athletes retain individual representation (agencies like Klutch Sports, CAA, or WME) for personal endorsements with Nike, Beats, EA Sports College Football, etc.
Q: What happens if the rev-share cap rises to $32M as some reports suggest? A: The Athletic has reported the cap could climb past $30M by 2030. Ohio State's plan is to proportionally scale football's allocation while protecting the women's sports commitment to manage Title IX exposure.
AD Ross Bjork has signaled the program will "stay aggressive" regardless of cap level.
Bottom Line
Ohio State's 2027 football NIL strategy is the clearest playbook in college football for the post-House era: full rev-share spend up to the cap, in-house brand-deal infrastructure via Buckeye Sports Group and Learfield Impact, retention pricing on the Jeremiah Smith / Julian Sayin / Caleb Downs core, and a long-tail Learfield contract that funds the back end.
The $43.5M total roster value is real but layered — not a single check — and the BSG model is the closest thing to an NFL front office in the sport. Competing programs that still rely on independent collectives are racing to copy this structure.
Sources
- Front Office Sports — How Ohio State Rebuilt Its NIL Strategy in the Rev-Share Era
- CBS Sports — Ohio State players received 'around $20 million' in NIL, believed to be largest in college football
- Yahoo Sports — Ohio State Splashes $5M on Jeremiah Smith; Forces Program to Extend Roster Value to $43.5M
- The Lantern — Ohio State to Allocate $18M in NIL Funds to Four Sports
- On3 — Ohio State, Learfield announce Buckeye Sports Group to maximize new NIL landscape
- Learfield — Ohio State Athletics and Learfield Long-Term Partnership Extension
- 247Sports — Ohio State 2027 Football Commits
- Eleven Warriors — First Look at Ohio State's 2027 NFL Draft Class
- ESPN — Judge OK's $2.8B settlement, paving way for colleges to pay athletes
- Fox Sports — Ohio State AD projects football roster cost 'around $20 million' in NIL money