James Franklin, Penn State Conflict on NIL Spending for 2024 Football Season

How much NIL funding did Penn State devote to its football program during the 2024-25 playoff season? According to James Franklin, it was $7 million. According to Penn State's most recent financial report, the NIL budget was nearly twice that.

Franklin recently told USA Today that his NIL budget for the 2024-25 season was $7 million, which he implied was far lower than teams it competed against, notably in the Big Ten. Penn State won a school-record 13 games that season, lost to Oregon in the Big Ten title game and reached the semifinals of the College Football Playoff.

“We were still competing against schools that had been all-in every year of the NIL market,” Franklin said in the USA Today interview. “Schools that did whatever it took.”

However, Penn State's most recent athletics financial report told a different story. In Fiscal Year 2024-25, which included the Nittany Lions' CFP run, Penn State reported spending $13,338,959 on football NIL.

Accordng to the financial report, released in January 2026, Penn State dedicated nearly $18.4 million in institutional payments to athletes for "use of their Name, Image and Likeness." Football represented nearly 72 percent of Penn State's NIL funding for the fiscal year.

The NIL allocations represented "direct institutional payments or additional benefits to student-athletes and/or student-athletes’ families not currently permitted or permitted prior to the House settlement approval," according to the financial report.

Direct revenue-sharing payments took effect July 1, 2025 following the House settlement. Penn State was one of the few schools nationally to report NIL funding on its 2024-25 financial statement.

Franklin told USA Today's Matt Hayes in the interview that Penn State increased its funding for the 2025 season, which the Nittany Lions began as the second-ranked team in the country. Franklin did not provide specifics on how much Penn State spent for 2025, though the program invested heavily in a retention plan to bring back multiple key players, including quarterback Drew Allar and running backs Kaytron Allen and Nicholas Singleton.

“I’ll give Penn State credit, they went all-in last year,” Franklin told USA Today. “But they went all in for one year.”

Virginia Tech Hokies football coach James Franklin speaks to fans on the sideline before a game at Lane Stadium. | Brian Bishop-Imagn Images

Franklin had been critical of Penn State's NIL program before the 2024 season. In 2023, Franklin tied Penn State's lagging NIL initiatives to former basketball coach Micah Shrewsberry's departure to Notre Dame.

"I think we obviously just saw some decisions that weren’t completely made [because of NIL and other issues] in the basketball program, but that was a big part of it," Franklin said. "We know that."

Franklin also said that Penn State began its NIL model in 2021 with a strategy to teach athletes how to be entrepreneurs rather than as way to attract talent. That left Penn State two years behind its competitors, Franklin said.

"I think over the last year we've made significant progress," Franklin said in 2023. "But if you give somebody a two-year head start in a basically three-year model, I think it's [the result] pretty obvious."

"We've still got a ton of work to do," Franklin added. "We started out that first couple years where we said we were going to teach student-athletes how to be entrepreneurs. That was our NIL model. So we were two years behind everybody else."

Before the 2025 season, Franklin spoke openly about what he called the "alignment" between athletics and the university. He praised Athletic Director Patrick Kraft and Penn State President Neeli Bendapudi for their support of the program.

"I'm grateful for the alignment we have at Penn State with our president Neeli Bendapudi has been phenomenal, and our athletic director Pat Kraft," Franklin said at the Big Ten Football Media Days in Las Vegas. "We're entering year 4 together. Year 4 together with Pat and Neeli, and that leadership has been incredible. This is, I think, the third president and third AD I've had, so that relationship has been critical, and their leadership has been phenomenal."

Franklin has been conducting a spring media tour to promote the Virginia Tech football program, but with that comes the inevitable look in the rear-view. Specifically, what happened at Penn State in 2025 that led to his firing?

Franklin recently opened up about his final season at Penn State with Andy Staples of On3, saying that he regretted allowing the program to talk openly about its championship goals for the 2025 season.

"I'm a big 1-0 guy, ... almost to the frustration of a lot of people," Franklin said on the show. "And last year, trying something different, trying to be a little more aggressive, [we] allowed our team and our coaches to talk more big-picture than we ever have. So there are things like that that we learned from that experience and grew from that experience and a number of others. There's some risk that you're going to have to take in any business model, but there's also some risk that I would not take again."

Penn State Nittany Lions head coach James Franklin stands on the field following the game against the Northwestern. — Penn State Nittany Lions head coach James Franklin stands on the field following the game against the Northwestern Wildcats at Beaver Stadium. | Matthew O'Haren-Imagn Images

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