Finances
Every program runs on two separate wallets, and they don't mix. Knowing which one pays for what — and what grows each one — is the foundation for every other decision in the game.
Two Wallets, Two Jobs
- Revenue Share is the university's money. It pays for facility upkeep/upgrades, your support staff's salaries and buyouts, and bye-week team activities.
- NIL Collective is booster/donor money. It pays for recruit NIL offers, player buyouts, mid-season renegotiations, development camps, and signing bonuses tied to the draft.
They're sized completely differently, too:
- Revenue Share grows with your conference's TV exposure — a stronger conference means a bigger annual check — plus a postseason bonus ladder: making a conference tournament, winning it, reaching the NCAA tournament, the Frozen Four, and the national title each add a further chunk on top. A mid-major with a lucrative conference deal can out-earn a blue-blood whose conference carries less weight.
- NIL Collective grows with your program's prestige, and more directly with your Legacy Score.
Legacy Score & Donor Tier
Legacy is a running score of your program's accomplishments — championships, tournament bids, conference titles, players getting drafted — recalculated every offseason from that season's results, not from your ranking alone. Legacy sets your Donor Tier, a five-tier ladder from the smallest donor base to the largest, and your tier directly multiplies the size of your NIL Collective.
Meeting your own board expectations protects you. A team that hits the win total the board asked for can't net a legacy loss that season, even without a deep tournament run — see Program Prestige & Your Job Security for the full picture of how the board grades you.
Donor apathy is real. A sustained skid — several straight seasons of your legacy score moving backward — triggers a one-time cut to your NIL Collective balance. It isn't an overnight cliff, but it isn't forgiving either: donors notice a trend, not one bad year.
Your Collective Can't Go Into Debt
The NIL Collective is spend-what-you-raise money, not a line of credit — it can never carry a negative balance. If your spending outpaces what the collective brought in, the shortfall doesn't show up as debt; it shows up as a hit to your legacy and reduced buying power the following season. Overspend today, and tomorrow's recruiting budget pays for it.
Moving Money Between Wallets
Revenue Share and the NIL Collective are normally sealed off from each other, but there's one sanctioned exception: if your Revenue Share is piling up unused, you can ask the board to move some of it into your Collective. It's not a yearly top-up — the board grants it only up to a cap tied to your own standing, there's a real cooldown between asks, and a big request costs job security. Treat it as an occasional lever, not an annual habit.
Collective Spending Perks
Once a season, before recruiting opens, you can spend NIL Collective money on two optional one-time perks (see The Offseason):
- A stamina boost for your entire returning roster heading into next season.
- A recruiting visit package that gives every prospect on your board a small interest bump for the rest of that cycle.
Neither is required to compete — skip them freely if your budget's tight.
Cutting a Player Isn't Always Free
Releasing a player on a guaranteed deal — a full-ride scholarship with a meaningful NIL value attached — triggers a real buyout, charged against your NIL Collective, plus a lingering cap hit carried into next season. Walk-ons, partial scholarships, and token NIL deals cost nothing to release. That's why a roster full of big, guaranteed contracts is harder to reshape on short notice than one built on modest deals — plan your guaranteed money with that in mind.
See Also
- Support Staff and Facilities & Arena — Revenue Share's two recurring bills
- Recruiting — where most of your NIL Collective goes
- Program Prestige & Your Job Security — how meeting your board's expectations protects both your legacy and your job