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The winter holidays mark a time of joy and celebration for some, but are more defined by anxiety for others. Amid college football\u2019s annual holiday-season tradition of bowls games, the sport\u2019s shift from the long-held postseason customs to an expanded playoff heightens anxiety.<\/p>\n
Regardless if one falls in the category of joyful reveler or cantankerous Scrooge, consumerism plays a critical role in the season. College football is no different, with the recent advent of NIL becoming a foundational element of the game evident in the remaining Playoff field.<\/p>\n
As the bracket whittled down from 12 to eight with last weekend\u2019s opening-round games, the College Football Playoff demonstrated an exercise comparable to Eddie Murphy\u2019s monologue about Christmastime spending in the seasonal classic Trading Places: \u201cI ain\u2019t gonna have money to buy my son the G.I. Joe with the kung-fu grip, and my wife ain\u2019t going to make love to me \u2018cause I got no money.\u201d<\/p>\n
Well, reaching the Playoff and advancing are similar. The eight quarterfinalists stand as testament to spending power \u2014 though it\u2019s difficult to pinpoint exactly how much, which contributes to rising anxieties.<\/p>\n
A CBS Sports article ahead of the 1st Round broke down the tournament into NIL-spending tiers, with five of the 12 labeled \u201celite spenders.\u201d Four of those play on in the round of eight: reigning national champion Ohio State, Oregon, Texas Tech and Miami, which outlasted fellow elite spender Texas A&M in what was perhaps uncoincidentally the most competitive of the four opening-round games.<\/p>\n
James Madison and Tulane were both routed against deep-pocketed opponents in Oregon and Ole Miss, which isn\u2019t necessarily a data point worth applying to any NIL discussion. Athletic departments with more funds through television revenue, merchandising, etc. have long had advantages against their counterparts from conferences with fewer resources, and that disparity is a defining trait of the underdog stories fans love.<\/p>\n
In the case of this year\u2019s Playoff other historical underdogs, however, NIL spending is an undeniably crucial factor in Indiana and Texas Tech pursuing the national championship.<\/p>\n
The top-seeded, undefeated Hoosiers head into their first Rose Bowl Game in almost six decades behind the Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza. The Indiana quarterback has an NIL valuation of $2.6 million per On3.com estimates<\/a>, up from the $1.6 million estimate shortly after Mendoza\u2019s transfer from Cal.<\/p>\n And while less dramatic in a historical context than Indiana\u2019s rise to prominence, Texas Tech competing for the national championship is a significant jump for a program previously destined to also-ran status. The Red Raiders are underdogs in the sense that they were rarely competitive on a national level previously, but Texas Tech reportedly spends on NIL with a fervor comparable to top-tier soccer clubs.<\/p>\n The soccer parallel works in part because, like a once-middling Manchester City became an English Premier League powerhouse coinciding with an infusion of cash, Texas Tech owes much of its rise to oil money.<\/p>\n On3 reported Texas Tech spent a whopping $28 million on its 2025 roster, making it one of the highest-priced lineups in college football. The public face of Tech\u2019s NIL collective, former Red Raiders lineman Cody Campbell, sold his energy company Double Eagle for a reported $4.1 billion earlier this year.<\/p>\n So does this year\u2019s Playoff foreshadow all our football holiday seasons to come? Does a program need its own version of Landman to strike it rich in order to compete?<\/p>\n