Where Gonzaga ranks among college basketball’s biggest NIL spenders

The Gonzaga Bulldogs have consistently been among the best programs in college basketball for over a decade, a testament to the hard work of Mark Few and the Zag coaching staff.

For so long, the narrative around Gonzaga was the plucky underdog, a school without a football program, that doesn’t compete in a high major conference and rarely gets 5-star recruits, that still managed to make the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament on an annual basis, while twice appearing in the national championship game.

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While the Pac-12 isn’t quite on the level of the ACC, SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, or even Big East, Gonzaga is no longer fighting just to level the playing field against the biggest brands in the sport – they are squarely in that conversation.

Playing with the big spenders

Gonzaga Bulldogs forward Braden Huff. | Photo by Myk Crawford

Matt Norlander of CBS Sports conducted months-long research to determine who the biggest NIL spenders are in college basketball, getting estimates on every high major program – plus Gonzaga – and dividing them into seven tiers.

The Zags land in Tier 3, with an estimated NIL budget between $15.1 and $17.5 million dollars for the 2026-27 season.

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The other teams in this tier include Arizona, Houston, Michigan State, Miami, LSU, Auburn, Oklahoma, Texas A&M, Missouri, Vanderbilt, Ole Miss, Cincinnati, Oklahoma State, South Carolina, and USC.

Norlander goes on to say that Gonzaga – along with Ole Miss and Oklahoma – has a lot of its money tied up in the five-for-five market, which is hardly a surprise considering three of the team’s 15 players, Xaivian Lee, Javon Bennett, and Chauncey Wiggins, are all fighting the NCAA for eligibility this season, and certainly all commanded a hefty payday for 2026-27.

The Pac-12 advantage

Gonzaga assistant coach Brian Michaelson and guard Nathan De Sousa (7). | Photo by Myk Crawford

Gonzaga certainly has a smaller enrollment and much smaller alumni base than basically every power conference school, but…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/where-gonzaga-ranks-among-college-185941426.html

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Publish date : 2026-10-21 18:59:00

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