The full cost stack of every athlete who walks. Built on the Cascio & Boudreau utility analysis framework, adapted for the post-House settlement era. Plug in what you know. Smart defaults handle the rest.
Programs typically measure recruiting cost and a slice of scholarship value, then call it a number. That undercounts the real price of a roster spot in the post-House settlement era. Revenue sharing, NIL commitments, coaching time, and compliance costs all walk out the door alongside the athlete.
This calculator captures the full stack. Ten inputs covering scholarship, NIL, revenue sharing, development, coaching time, recruiting, and compliance. Sport and Level presets adjust the suggested values shown in grey if you do not have your own numbers handy.
Type your own data in any field. Fields you leave blank use the grey suggestion. Either way, you get a defensible number in under a minute.
What this calculator captures that most do not:
Whatever number this calculator produces is the cost stack you have already committed. The question is not whether the spend is real. The question is what percentage of it is walking out the door.
Selecting both updates the suggested values shown in grey across the inputs below. The fields stay empty for you to enter your own numbers. Anything you leave blank uses the suggestion when you click Get Results.
Total scholarship plus walk-on athletes. P4 football roster cap: 105. P4 basketball: 15. G6 football: 85. FCS football: 63.
Graduation, transfer, medical, dismissal, all reasons combined. P4 football averages 20-30 per year. Coaching transitions push this much higher.
Departures the staff did not plan for. The expensive ones. P4 football averages 12-18. Programs with coaching changes often lose 30+.
Full annual cost of attendance. P4 out-of-state: ~$62K. G6: ~$38K. FCS / Mid-Major: ~$28K.
Third-party NIL plus collective deals, averaged across the roster. P4 football: ~$100K avg (skewed by stars). P4 MBB: ~$200K. Lower for non-revenue.
Institutional direct payment under House settlement. P4 football: ~$128K per spot ($20.5M cap × 65.6% allocation ÷ 105). G6 / FCS substantially lower.
Direct per-recruit cost: visits, evaluation travel, portal acquisition. P4 football: ~$15K direct (full loaded budget runs much higher).
S&C, sports medicine, nutrition, mental health, academic support. P4: $15K-$30K. NCAA core guarantees mandate most of this since 2024.
Prorated coaching salary allocated to per-athlete development. P4 football staff total $15-28M; ~30-40% of staff time is player-specific.
CSC paperwork, NIL deal termination and initiation, revenue sharing reallocation, eligibility verification. Created by the House settlement implementation.
Calculated from your program's inputs (or the suggested values where you left fields blank). This is the dollar value of unplanned departures every season.
Framework: Cascio & Boudreau utility analysis adapted for collegiate athletics. Sunk Investment = Scholarship + NIL + Revenue Share + Development + Coaching Time + (Recruiting × 0.5). Replacement Cost = Recruiting + NIL + (Development × 0.6) + Compliance + (Scholarship × 0.10). Revenue Sharing: House v. NCAA settlement (June 2025), $20.5M annual cap; football ~65.6% allocation per Opendorse data. NIL data: Opendorse NIL at Four (2025). Transfer portal: 10,500+ football players, January 2026 window (NCAA, ESPN). Re-transfer rate: 31% of FBS scholarship portal entrants previously transferred (ESPN, 2024-25 cycle). 31% rate applied to replacement cost for re-transfer risk. Embeddedness: Dannehl (2020); Li et al. meta-analysis, 250+ studies, N=111,000+. Calculator outputs are estimates based on user-provided inputs and researched defaults. For illustrative purposes only.
Calculator outputs are estimates based on user-provided inputs and published industry benchmarks. For illustrative purposes only. Not financial or consulting advice.
