As of January 19, TikTok is officially banned in the US. This is a huge blow to college football athletes who rely on social media to stay in relevance and get NIL deals. But there are some few who faced a bigger impact when this highly popular social platform ceased to operate. Among the list is Colorado’s two-way star Travis Hunter who boasted the most TikTok following among all CFB players before the ban.

Top 5 college football players leading social media after TikTok ban

NIL has become the primary means for college athletes to earn. With TikTok being one of the major platforms to influence the public, the ban affected different players with different situations in different ways. 

Travis Hunter

No other college football player received a harder hit than Travis Hunter with the TikTok ban.

Boasting an NIL valuation of $5.7M, the 2024 Heisman winner usually posts diverse content on the social platform to his 1.9M followers. So the shutdown is a blow to his social popularity which would also impact his earnings. But he still reigns Instagram with over 2M followers. He also has 280 people following his X account.

Shedeur Sanders

Next on the list, we have Shedeur Sanders, who ranks on top of the NIL rankings with a valuation of $6.5M. The Buffs QB also has a huge following on Instagram with more than 2M followers. While he also suffered significantly from the ban losing 732.4K followers, his case is lighter than Hunter’s. The 22-year-old also has an impressive X following with 111.5K followers. 

Jalen Milroe 

Alabama QB Jalen Milroe had a polarizing season failing to lead the Crimson Tide to the 12-team playoff. Still, his social following is only growing and so is his NIL valuation ($2.6M). He now has 341K followers on Instagram while boasting another 25K on X. The TikTok ban may have affected his progress on the platform which has 1752 followers, but at least he got off with even a lighter load. 

Nico Iamaleava 

Nico Iamaleava’s social popularity kept growing over the past season as he led Tennessee to the first round of the playoffs. With an NIL valuation of $3.1M, the Vols signal caller has 227K followers on Instagram and 30.6K followers on X. He’s the most unaffected by the TikTok ban where he has just 437 followers on the platform. 

Carson Beck

It’s been quite a season for Carson Beck who failed to advance Georgia from the CFP quarterfinals. Still, he managed to pull up a decent NIL valuation of $4.4M despite having just 128K IG followers and 131 X followers. He was steadily rising on TikTok by getting 26K followers. What an ill-timing for the ban! 

But all isn’t left to be in despair. President-elect Donald Trump stated that he will “most likely” give a “90-day extension” on the ban after taking office on Monday. Hopefully, this setback will resolve soon and won’t affect any college athletes regarding their NIL situation in the long run.