Notre Dame Rakes in Mega Bucks for Reaching College Football Playoff National Championship

Notre Dame is cashing in for making it all the way to the national championship game
(EDITORS NOTE: caption correction) Jan 9, 2025; Miami, FL, USA; Notre Dame Fighting Irish head coach Marcus Freeman and quarterback Riley Leonard (13) celebrates defeating the Penn State Nittany Lions  in the Orange Bowl at Hard Rock Stadium.
(EDITORS NOTE: caption correction) Jan 9, 2025; Miami, FL, USA; Notre Dame Fighting Irish head coach Marcus Freeman and quarterback Riley Leonard (13) celebrates defeating the Penn State Nittany Lions in the Orange Bowl at Hard Rock Stadium. / Sam Navarro-Imagn Images

"SHOW ME THE MONEY!"

Jerry Maguire might as well have been talking about the Notre Dame athletic department when he screamed that in the 1996 movie featuring Tom Cruise.

That's because Notre Dame is printing money compared to everyone else in the College Football Playoff this postseason. And the money keeps coming after the Irish beat Penn State and moved on to the national championship game.

Notre Dame's Independence Pays Off Big Time

Riley Leonard runs the ball for Notre Dame against Penn State in the Orange Bow
Jan 9, 2025; Miami, FL, USA; Notre Dame Fighting Irish quarterback Riley Leonard (13) runs the ball in the second half against the Penn State Nittany Lions in the Orange Bowl at Hard Rock Stadium. / Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images

Despite calls for decades to join a conference, Notre Dame has remained independent in football all of these years. This year especially, that is paying off in a massive way for the university.

Notre Dame has already earned a total of $20 million for making its way to the national championship game. Being independent means that Notre Dame is keeping every penny of that while the other teams share their revenues with their fellow conference members.

Just making the College Football Playoff earns a program $4 million and they get an additional $4 million if they advance to the second round. A quarterfinal and semifinal win then nets each program another $6 million for each.

While Ohio State, Penn State, and Texas are splitting those revenues evenly with the massive amounts of teams in their conferences, Notre Dame is laughing all the way to the bank.

Think of it this way: Ohio State is taking home as much money from its College Football Playoff run as Purdue is this year, even after the Boilermakers had a historically bad season and were among the very worst teams in all of FBS.

Earlier this week James Franklin of Penn State made his frustrations about Notre Dame being independent known during an Orange Bowl press conference.

The reality isn't that Franklin and many others aren't a fan of a team being independent, they're instead just upset that their team isn't, and Notre Dame just gave everyone 20 million small reminders as to why.

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Nick Shepkowski
NICK SHEPKOWSKI

Managing Editor for Notre Dame On SI. Started covering Chicago sports teams for WSCR the Score, and over the years worked with CBS Radio, Audacy, NBC Sports, and FOX Sports as a contributor before running the Notre Dame wire site for USA TODAY.