SponsorUnited’s Top 10 College Football Players to Watch serves as a reference for brands looking to tap into this momentum. With detailed profiles on the sport’s most marketable stars, taking into consideration field performance, endorsement portfolios, and social media engagement, this report gives marketers a rundown of where the attention is, where it’s growing, and how to align their partnerships with the athletes who will define this season.
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Methodology:
This report provides a list of of selected college football players, their brand endorsements and social metrics ranging from September 2024 to September 2025. Social data was collected using SponsorUnited’s proprietary social media tracking metrics—specifically Total Engagement—and compiled from athlete-controlled accounts on Instagram, Facebook, X (Twitter), and TikTok.
Only branded content—defined as posts that include a brand mention, tag, logo, or clear promotional tie—is captured in this analysis. As a result, the number of brand deals reflected in this report is limited to what can be verified through publicly visible content and may not reflect the athlete’s full portfolio of endorsement activity.
The report was jointly authored by SponsorUnited’s Marketing and Business Intelligence teams. All data was sourced from the SponsorUnited SaaS platform, which tracks and analyzes sponsorship activity across the NIL landscape.
Photographs presented in this report we pulled from content appearing in the SponsorUnited platform pulled from social media platforms, as well as from Getty Images.
About SponsorUnited:
Launched in 2018, SponsorUnited is the leading global sports and entertainment intelligence platform, delivering actionable data and insights to build stronger marketing partnerships. We provide unrivaled knowledge across the sponsorship and media landscape so our clients can make impactful decisions that drive business.
With over 403,000 brands, 2.2 million deals, and 21.1 million data points across sports, entertainment, media, and talent, our SaaS platform enables brands, rights holders, and agencies to partner more effectively. By delivering real-time trends, on-demand research, and the most comprehensive data available, we connect the entire sponsorship ecosystem and are rewriting the partnership playbook.
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College football has never been bigger. With the expanded playoff format, a deeper pool of elite talent, and a wave of household names already breaking through, the sport is drawing unprecedented attention from fans and brands alike. Add in the evolution of Name, Image & Likeness (NIL) rules, and today's athletes are not only competing for championships, they're building multi-million-dollar personal brands in real time.
This fall, the athletes driving the conversation on and off the field will be central to shaping the business of college sports. From Arch Manning's generational legacy to Jeremiah Smith's rise as the best wide receiver in the country to Bryce Underwood's potential as the face of a new quarterback era, these players represent both the future of the NFL and the present-day marketing opportunity in NIL.
This report spotlights ten of the most marketable stars in college football, each paired with a distinctive monickers capturing their brand. By weighing media visibility, on-field performance and projections, endorsement portfolios, NIL momentum, and positional diversity, this report offers in-depth profiles of the sport's most marketable athletes—highlighting where attention currently lies, where it's building, and how brands can align partnerships with the players set to define the season.
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