When people hear the name Sanders, they usually think of fame, brands, and huge NIL deals. Shedeur Sanders reportedly earned millions in such deals during his college career. Even Shilo landed major endorsement gigs and built a large social media following. But Deion Sanders Jr. had a vastly different experience, as he played in an era when the student-athletes didn’t get a share of the pie.

In his role at Colorado, Deion Jr. has had a chance to get a unique perspective on both pre- and post-NIL worlds. And despite major athletes earning huge sums of money in college, the reality remains rather grim for many of them.

“At SMU, our stipends were $1800 a month. When those checks stopped coming in after you graduated, you IMMEDIATELY felt the impact,” Deion Sanders Jr. wrote on X on June 11. “I say that to say, I can only imagine what these boys feel today in this NIL era when THOSE CHECKS stop coming in.”

Deion Jr. began his college life as a wide receiver at Southern Methodist University from 2013 through 2015. While he was part of a famous football family, that did not automatically translate into financial opportunities. College athletes were not allowed to profit from their name, image, and likeness at the time. Even his football journey was far from glamorous.

Coming out of high school, Deion Jr. was not viewed as a major national recruit like Shedeur would later become. Instead, he appeared in games just as a reserve receiver and occasional special teams contributor. In reality, Deion Jr. never experienced what it was like to be a star player like his brothers. In a way, though, this situation forced the 32-year-old to approach things differently.

Instead of chasing an NFL career, Deion Jr. started building his own business. He launched Well Off Media, a digital content company that would eventually become one of the most recognizable behind-the-scenes brands in college football. When Deion Sanders became head coach at Jackson State and later moved to Colorado, Well Off Media gave fans an inside look at the program. The channel documented recruiting visits, team meetings, practices, family interactions, and major football moments.

However, not every student-athlete is as lucky as him. The Sanders brand helped him get post-college opportunities, especially the access to programs his father coaches. For a majority of student-athletes, the empowerment that NIL has brought has also come with some downsides.

In the current era, top programs are spending between $35 and $45 million to assemble their rosters. The QBs sit at the top of the market, with the starters averaging an NIL valuation of around $1 million. The likes of Arch Manning and Brendan Sorsby earn upwards of $4 million. The wide receivers come next, with an average of $1.1 million, followed by edge rushers.

However, those earnings do not extend beyond two to three years. Only the top athletes who were five-star prospects coming out of high school get huge NIL deals during their college careers. For others like QB Brendan Sorsby, a breakout season at Cincinnati can earn them $5 million at their next stop after they enter the portal. The money eventually stops, except if they go to the NFL.

Of over 16,000 student-athletes who become draft-eligible in various divisions of college football (as per the 2023 data released by the NCAA), only 1.6% get selected in the pros. And even among these athletes, only a select few make it to the second (and more lucrative) contract with their respective NFL teams. For most college players who get NIL deals, the future also becomes bleak because they don’t have anything to rely on once the money dries up.

“The transfer portal and NIL at the same time are a disaster because that creates tampering, and if a guy transfers one time, he’s got a 63% chance to graduate because a lot of his courses don’t transfer. If he transfers four or five times, he’s not going to graduate,” former UNC head coach Mack Brown said on Urban Meyer’s Triple Option podcast last year.

“I’m really worried about kids making more money in NIL upfront than they make when they get through school. And then they don’t have a job, then they’re homeless, and then we got mental health issues. So, I think we’ve really got some problems here that we need to address,” Brown further said.

Nick Saban is also concerned about what money is doing to college game

Former Alabama head coach Nick Saban also highlighted this issue in his testimony to support the Cruz-Cantwell bill in the US Senate. Saban pointed out that thousands of student-athletes enter the transfer portal every year in pursuit of better deals and more playing time. However, 30% of these players never get picked from the portal.

And that’s a sad consequence of the growing influence of money on college athletics. If a player represents three to four programs during their college career, they do not get enough time to develop networks for a post-college life. On top of that, if the degree situation is mishandled as well, that leaves student-athletes staring at a bleak future.

That doesn’t mean that student-athletes should stop earning NIL money. They are getting what should have been given decades ago. However, the NCAA continued to use the ‘amateur’ tag to deny them their fair share while the programs paid millions to head coaches and earned even more in revenue. The balance needed to sort out the current mess would also require decision-makers (even at the federal level) to listen to the players’ voices.