Texas Longhorns To Spend $40 Million On Name, Image, Likeness? Oregon Ducks' Budget

In the era of insane NIL spending, the Oregon Ducks must keep up with financially inclined programs like the Texas Longhorns, who are estimated to spend $40 million on their NIL efforts this year according to a new report.

Texas Longhorns Head Coach Steve Sarkisian during their first practice of the spring season on Tuesday, March 25, 2025. | Ricardo B. Brazziell/American-Statesman / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

With the Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) era of college football ballooning to payouts eclipsing some professional rookie salaries, it's quite difficult to pinpoint exactly what NIL groups are spending on their players. For the Oregon Ducks, NIL groups like "Division Street" and "Ducks of a Feather" do not release any number figures regarding their revenue and athlete payments.

However, a recent report from the Houston Chronicle's Kirk Bohls potentially sheds some light on how one of the biggest programs in the nation, the Texas Longhorns, spends their NIL money and how much is going in to athletes' pockets.

In a recent article, Bohls claims that the Longhorns plan to spend $35 and $40 million on their 2025 football roster. Bohls points back to a CBS Sports article from April 2025 to solidify his claims.

Texas Longhorns head football coach Steve Sarkisian takes the field for the first pitch ahead of the Lone Star Showdown against Texas A&M at UFCU Disch-Falk Field on Friday, April 25, 2025. | Aaron E. Martinez/American-Statesman / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

In that article, Indiana coach Curt Cignetti makes some bold claims about big programs' NIL budgets, which emboldened Bohls to make his assertion on the Longhorns' spending habits.

"This is an unprecedented couple days, weeks, where everybody's waiting on this rev share, and the five or six out there that have unlimited NIL resources, it's kind of scary for everybody else," Cignetti told CBS Sports regarding NIL spending around the nation. "I think our little pot of gold is pretty nice, but we're not at $40 million. Or $30 million. Or even $25 million."

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Oregon Ducks quarterback Dillon Gabriel (8) warms up prior to the College Football Playoff quarterfinal against the Ohio State Buckeyes at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif. on Jan. 1, 2025. | Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

So, does Texas really plan to spend upwards of $40 million on this years' team? Does Oregon spend a similar amount on their players as well? Which programs is Cignetti referring to?

It is all unclear at this point, and according to an anonymous insider source for the Longhorns' team, Bohls may have misjudged Texas' pocket book.

“Whacked,” that source told 247Sports' Chip Brown when asked about Bohls' article. "There may be a school or two at that level of spending, but we (Texas) are not the top of the market, I can promise you that.”

A Texas Longhorns fan reacts to a turnover on 4th and goal during the College Football Playoff semifinal game against Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl at AT&T Stadium on Friday, Jan. 10, 2024 in Arlington, Texas. | Aaron E. Martinez/Austin American-Statesman / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

So what does Oregon spend on their athletes? Washington coach Jedd Fisch alluded to the Ducks' NIL budget when chatting to the media about Oregon's 32-31 win against the Ohio State Buckeyes during the 2024 regular season.

"We all saw what the Ohio State-Oregon game looked like. That was a battle of two $20 million rosters," Fisch said.

Former Washington athletic director and current Nebraska athletic director Troy Dannen has claimed that Oregon's NIL budget for the 2024 season summed around $23 million.

Oregon coach Dan Lanning rallies his team during warmups before the Oregon Spring game at Autzen in Eugene April 26, 2025 | Chris Pietsch/The Register-Guard / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Ohio State athletic director Ross Bjork also shared with ESPN that the school propped up Ryan Day in the 2023 offseason with a roughly $20 million budget, confirming Fisch's statement for at least half of the budget of October 2024's match-up, but it still doesn't pin point Oregon's exact spending.

"The reality is, find a top-10 team in college football right now that doesn't have great support. Do we have a lot more than everybody else? I think that'd be an exaggeration or we'd never lose. Everyone else right now is focused on our ice cream cone, and if I'm busy looking at theirs, that means mine's melting," said Oregon coach Dan Lanning on NIL spending.