Inside PayPal's $697M Deal With Big Ten And Big 12

Forbes

5 hours ago

INDIANAPOLIS, IN - JULY 26: General view of the Big Ten Conference logo seen on the field during the ... More 2022 Big Ten Conference Football Media Days at Lucas Oil Stadium on July 26, 2022 in Indianapolis, Indiana. (Photo by)
Starting July 1, 2025, phones across Big Ten and Big 12 campuses will ping with payment notifications from PayPal's Venmo app, now in partnership with schools able to distribute up to $20.5 million annually under the June 2025 House v. NCAA settlement. It's a significant for several reasons, as described to me today by PayPal CEO Alex Chriss and Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark at PayPal's New York City office.
"For many of them, this is gonna be their first paycheck," said Chriss. And when you factor in that every Big Ten and Big 12 institution—34 in all—can share up to $20.5 million a year, the simple math tells a powerful story: 34 schools. $20.5 million. Multiply those two and you have $697 million. What does that mean per athlete?
WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 24: CEO of PayPal Alex Chriss speaks during the Semafor 2025 World Economy ... More Summit at Conrad Washington on April 24, 2025 in Washington, DC. The Summit, held from April 23-25, gathers CEOs, government officials, financial leaders, and more for conversations on the state of the global economy. (Photo by)
The NCAA counts "more than 170,000 Division I student‑athletes across 350 schools," or roughly 486 athletes per campus. So, for a typical Big Ten or Big 12 roster, a $20.5 million cap works out to about $42,000 per athlete per year.
Although the average entry-level salary for a college graduate is $68,400 per year, according to a 2025 report from ZipRecruiter, that $42,000 per year doesn't include name, image, and likeness (NIL) deals.
"This has been a long time coming," said Yormark. "Student‑athletes are very much part of the value equation." That they are, and a long time it has been: nearly 70 years, starting with The University of Denver v. Nemeth in 1953.
ARLINGTON, TEXAS - DECEMBER 7: Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark speaks to the media during a press ... More conference prior to the game between the Arizona State Sun Devils and the Iowa State Cyclones at AT&T Stadium on December 7, 2024 in Arlington, Texas. (Photo by Aaron M. Sprecher/Getty Images)
Athletes have earned the convenience of a quick and easy payment, hence the partnership with PayPal's Venmo. But the partnership goes beyond that for Yormak.
Speaking on the partnership's origins, he said, "We needed to find a partner that was reliable, that was secure, and, candidly, that the student‑athletes were familiar with."
Yormak's son, who attends a school in Miami uses Venmo, as do many––likely millions––of college students. Chriss surmised it best when he said "Venmo is a verb" in modern parlance. That's impossible to dispute.
PayPal's co-branded Venmo debit cards.
"This money is going directly to students," Chriss said. "There's no intermediary." So although PayPal will monetize the partnership through instant transfer charges and other fees—the same revenue model that supports Venmo's 80-million-plus-user base, it will do so only should the athletes choose to use such features, but funds won't be touched in transit from the institution to the athlete.
When I inquired of Chriss and Yormark on the double-edged sword of instant payments, Yormark shared how both leagues will mandate financial literacy programs, with Yormark stressing this will be "at the core" of implementation.
Given that, athletes stand to gain a lot here, and if the system scales successfully across other conferences, PayPal could find itself processing well over $2 billion annually in athlete payments—transforming what began as a platform for splitting pizza bills into the infrastructure for an entirely new economy in college sports.