CalMatters reached out to every public Division 1 university in California requesting data regarding how much money each of its student athletes have made since 2021. State law requires all student athletes to report to their schools any compensation they receive as a result of their name, image and likeness (NIL), and public universities are required to disclose certain kinds of data upon request.
All 16 universities responded to CalMatters’ inquiry, though they did not all provide the same degree of transparency. Some provided data at the payment level, including the date, amount and vendor who gave the money to a student athlete. Others provided the total amount per year of how much student athletes from each sports team received. Schools also differ in how they ask student athletes to report deals, and the amount of detail reported ranges widely. Schools often removed any information that could identify an individual student athlete, though a few recipient names were evident in payment descriptions. The exact date range of data reported varies by school. Most provided data by academic year. Cal State Northridge and San Jose State said they had no records of any deals.
CalMatters worked to standardize the name, image and likeness data we received for analysis, but ambiguities remain. Dozens of deals indicated compensation in product rather than or in addition to cash, the value of which was often not specified. Some vendors promised certain compensation per social media post or other activity, but it’s not clear how much the athlete actually received. Some indicated monthly compensation but not how many months the deal lasted. In the story based on this data, CalMatters is showing the minimum amount of compensation student athletes reported receiving.
CalMatters is providing the data as received from each school for download here with minor formatting changes and personal contact information removed.
| School | File name(s) | Time range provided | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cal Poly San Luis Obispo | calpolyslo.csv |
July 2024 | Cal Poly San Luis Obispo verbally told CalMatters about these 8 transactions. The school said it did not do a thorough job requiring students to report their name, image and likeness deals. |
| Cal State Bakersfield |
csubakersfield1.csv
csubakersfield2.csv
|
2023, 2024 | Cal State Bakersfield data includes all reported deals from 2023-24 and fall 2024, as reported in Influxer and Athlete's Thread. Influxer data is by athlete (csubakersfield1.csv) and was provided on Jan. 19, 2025. Athlete's Thread data shows the sum of all reported transactions per team, per month (csubakersfield2.csv). The school began using Athlete's Thread in March 2024 and provided its data to CalMatters on Jan. 17, 2025. |
| Cal State Fullerton | calstatefullerton.csv |
2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24, 2024-25 | Cal State Fullerton's data shows the sum of all reported deals for each team, per year, from 2021 through the 2024-25 academic year. The school provided its data on Sept. 18, 2024. |
| Cal State Northridge | Cal State Northridge said it has no records of name, image and likeness deals. | ||
| CSU Long Beach | csulongbeach.csv |
September 2021 to August 2024 | Cal State Long Beach provided transaction-level data on Sept. 13, 2024 for name, image and likeness deals reported to the university beginning in 2021. The school told CalMatters that students who received money from collectives did not report the deals. |
| Fresno State | fresnostate1.csv, fresnostate2.csv |
2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24 | Fresno State provided transaction-level data for all reported name, image and likeness deals from Sept 2021 through June 30, 2024. The university sent its records on Nov. 26, 2024. The school did not respond to multiple requests to clarify ambiguities in the data, such as the number of months some athletes were paid for deals that specified a certain dollar amount "per month." There are two files: fresnostate1.csv is the data and fresnostate2.csv is an acronym key provided by the school. |
| Sacramento State |
sacramentostate1.csv
sacramentostate2.csv
sacramentostate3.csv
sacramentostate4.csv
|
2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24, Fall 2024 | Sacramento State provided its records on Jan. 13, 2025, which included transaction-level name, image and likeness data from 2021 through Fall 2024. However, data from 2021-22 does not include information about the name, image and likeness recipient's sport. |
| San Diego State |
sandiegostate1.csv
sandiegostate2.csv
|
2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24, 2024 to January 2025 | San Diego State sent over its records in January 10, 2025, which included the sum of all reported deals for each sports team in the 2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24, and 2024-25 academic years. The data is sandiegostate1.csv and sandiegostate2.csv is an acronym key provided by the school. |
| San Jose State | San Jose State said it has no records of name, image and likeness deals. | ||
| UC Berkeley | ucberkeley.csv |
July 2021 to February 2025 | UC Berkeley shared its records on Dec. 10, 2024, which included all reported name, image and likenenss transactions from 2021 through spring 2024. CalMatters later submitted a second request for more recent data. The university complied with that second request and included data from March 1, 2024 through Feb. 27, 2025. CalMatters is making all data from both requests available. CalMatters removed vendor emails. |
| UC Davis | ucdavis.csv |
2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24, 2024-25 | UC Davis shared records on Nov. 20, 2024, which included transaction-level information of all reported deals from 2021 through the start of the 2024-25 academic year. |
| UC Irvine |
ucirvine1.csv
ucirvine2.csv
|
2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24 | UC Irvine shared records on Oct. 10, 2024, which included the sum of all reported name, image and likeness deals made each year for each sport since 2021. The data is ucirvine1.csv and ucirvine2.csv is the portion of that money which came from the Be True For Irvine collective. |
| UC Riverside | ucriverside.csv |
2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24, 2024-25 | UC Riverside provided transaction-level data on Oct. 2, 2024 for reported name, image and likeness deals beginning in 2021. |
| UC San Diego |
ucsandiego1.csv
ucsandiego2.csv
|
2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24, 2024-25 | UC San Diego shared data Jan. 9, 2024, which included the sum of all reported name, image and likeness deals made each year for each sport since 2021. 2024-25 is the first year that UC San Diego is in Division 1 athletics. The data is ucsandiego1.csv and ucsandiego2.csv is an acronym key provided by the school. |
| UC Santa Barbara | ucsantabarbara.csv |
July 2021 to September 2024 | UC Santa Barbara provided transaction-level data on Dec. 18, 2024, which included all reported deals since 2021. |
| UCLA | ucla.csv |
September 2021 to May 2024 | UCLA provided transaction-level data on Oct. 29, 2024, which included all reported deals since 2021. CalMatters removed vendor emails from the data. |
This dataset powers the story: “College athletes can now make millions off sponsorship deals. Here’s the first look at California’s numbers” by Adam Echelman and Erica Yee (published March 6, 2025).
If you use this dataset, please mention it was collected and cleaned by CalMatters. If you have any questions about this dataset, feel free to contact [email protected].
CalMatters is a nonpartisan, nonprofit journalism venture committed to explaining how California’s state Capitol works and why it matters.