Brand vs. Bankroll: The New NIL Divide in College Basketball

For much of its history, college basketball's recruiting scene has been dominated by its blue-blood programs. Schools like Kentucky, Duke, and UNC brought in top prospects on the basis of their on-court success and off-court development, often leaving smaller schools far behind in the basketball arms race. However, less prestigious universities with rich histories were able to rely on their past to bring in recruits, helping them keep up with the juggernauts of the sport. The Georgetown Hoyas are a prime example, consistently managing to bring in solid recruiting classes because of the basketball legacy ingrained on campus. What was once a major recruiting tool that helped programs like Georgetown keep things competitive was almost entirely erased with the introduction of school-funded NIL packages.

In the NIL era, teams that were once able to recruit using their legacy now find themselves in an uncomfortable middle ground. Without major financial backing, recruits who used to be honored to don a Hoyas jersey instead, understandably, take their talents to schools that can offer substantial monetary compensation. Now that money is at the forefront of the recruiting scene, historic programs without big-ticket funding become casualties, a trend that will inevitably lead to more polarization in the college basketball ranks.

The Recruiting Economy Explained

While NIL was initially conceived as a way for college athletes to make money off third-party brand deals, schools are now able to pay their athletes directly, thanks to a revenue-sharing arrangement passed into law before the start of the 2025-26 season. That measure should, at least in theory, help level the playing field of college sports. Each athletic program has a maximum budget of $20.5 million to split amongst all of its sports, not counting any deals made by third-party sponsors.

The presence of boosters completely destroys any notion of a level playing field that the $20.5 million budget might have introduced. Schools that have huge, powerful alumni populations benefit from donor-driven collectives, which are essentially funds that accept donations, pool them, and distribute them to the school's athletes in return for endorsement activity on behalf of companies and brands linked to the collective.

In practice, this amounts to athletes being paid enormous sums of money for endorsements of dubious legitimacy, ones that require almost no work on the part of the athlete. It is not quite a free agent deal, but it is as close as it gets to a pay-for-play setup.

Which programs stand to benefit the most from this setup? The answer, of course, is schools that have an identity almost entirely linked to their athletic program, and a huge alumni base to go along with it. In basketball, the University of North Carolina and the University of Kentucky fit the bill.

UNC spent more than $14 million on its 2025-26 roster, while the Wildcats nearly doubled that, fielding a team worth approximately $22 million last season. With boosters, elite college basketball programs continue to widen the gap between themselves and the competition, in spite of the revenue-sharing agreement.

The Middle-Class Misfits

As blue-blood programs continue to improve, courtesy of their alumni boosters, programs like Georgetown are left in an incredibly awkward, disadvantageous position. As a school more commonly recognized for its academics than its athletics, Georgetown lacks a dedicated booster base with a vested interest in on-court success. Combined with its relatively small alumni population, the Hoyas are left in the lurch. The school's biggest donor-driven collective, Hoyas Rising, ceased operations in May of 2025 as Georgetown moved all NIL actions in-house with the announcement of the new revenue-sharing rule.

Without powerful boosters, the Hoyas are forced to spend within the limits of the NCAA-imposed budget. Here, one small advantage arises, as Georgetown's football team is an FCS program, allowing the vast majority of the funding to be spent on men's basketball.

Even so, it would be a shock to see the university allocate more than $12 million to be split amongst the entire roster, a view expressed by rival St. John's head coach Rick Pitino.

Driving this fact home is Georgetown's incoming transfer class. The three biggest names coming to play for the Hoyas are guards Jaland Lowe and Josiah Parker, and center Chol Machot. Combined, the AVI valuation for those players is just above $1.2 million. Plenty of top teams are happy to pay that price for a single player. That is not a knock on any of the transfers, all of whom are excellent recruits, but on a system that puts Georgetown, and similar schools, at a significant disadvantage.

A Rock and a Hard Place: The Transfer Portal

When top-notch and even middling recruits head elsewhere, there is only one solution for the Hoyas: they must develop talent. In years past, it was likely that Georgetown would have had a couple of seasons to bring along some lower-tier recruits. Ideally, that development would culminate in an exceptionally strong group of upperclassmen that could lead the team to a meaningful appearance in the NCAA tournament.

With the newfound prominence of the transfer portal, that set of circumstances almost seems less likely than Georgetown landing a squad of five-star recruits. More than 2,700 players entered the transfer portal this offseason, looking for increased playing time, a bigger paycheck, or both. That mentality is antithetical to player development in almost every way. If the Hoyas manage to bring a lower-level recruit along into a prominent playing role, he will be liable to jump ship to any number of blue-blood programs, much like Yaxel Lendeborg did when he left UAB to join Michigan last season.

In years past, the legacies left behind by Georgetown's long list of NBA players were enough to entice recruits to Washington, D.C. Prospective college athletes saw the chance to emulate Patrick Ewing, Allen Iverson, and Dikembe Mutombo by wearing a navy blue jersey, benefitting from a rich basketball culture on campus. Now, money trumps everything, overtaking any sort of allure that programs like Georgetown used to use to their advantage.

Different Program, Same Position

Villanova is another university that is undergoing many of the same struggles. Two national titles in the late 2010s put the small Philadelphia-area school on the map. High-level prospects were a dime a dozen, with 'Nova's 2018 recruiting class pulling in a five-star recruit and three four-stars. Without money in the picture, the legacy of success was enough to keep a school with 10,000 students at the heart of the basketball world.

Like so many other schools, the introduction of NIL made life infinitely more difficult for the Wildcats. Villanova has not landed a five-star recruit since 2022, and the best recruit in its 2026 class is ranked only 58th in the nation. Unsurprisingly, the on-court results have suffered. After making March Madness 14 times between 2006 and 2022 (and winning the tournament twice), Villanova has only made it to March once in the last four years, losing in the first round at the end of the 2025-26 season.

NIL money is spurring some college basketball programs to new heights, but schools like Georgetown and Villanova are headed straight in the other direction. For the vast majority of recruits, money is at the top of the priority list, and often rightfully so. No one can blame an 18-year-old kid for accepting life-changing money to chase their dreams. The system that allows them to do so just happens to polarize the college basketball world to the detriment of previously proud programs like the two mentioned above.

Staying Competitive

So what does the future hold for teams like these? Despite the severe disadvantages they are faced with, there is a way forward. For Georgetown, it lies in a combination of efficient transfer portal usage and the revenue-sharing agreement. For all the difficulties the transfer portal presents, it does offer the opportunity to scoop up talented players who have seen their value drop, either because of a lack of playing time or simply a bad fit. The Hoyas must prioritize scouting and using the portal over normal recruitment to give themselves a fighting chance.

When it comes to normal recruitment, the $20.5 million might be a drop in the bucket compared to other schools, but it gives Georgetown a chance to add some premier talent each year. With efficient usage, the program could consistently pull in multiple four-star prospects every offseason, keeping the Hoyas competitive. The school will never be able to match the financial output of bigger schools, but through a scrappy, scouting-focused approach, Georgetown has a path to consistent basketball relevance.

Winners and Losers

For many teams and nearly every athlete, the introduction of NIL has been a truly fantastic addition to the NCAA scene. But as in every deal, there are winners and losers. While bigger schools with stronger funding enjoy better athletic departments across the board, and athletes finally benefit from the years of hard work they put into mastering their discipline, schools like Georgetown quietly struggle to remain relevant. With the draw of the university's prestigious past outshined by the dollar, the Hoyas are stuck in no man's land. What was once a proud program will have to find a new way forward to continue to build on its legacy in the NIL era.