Clemson paid athletes $17.6 million in year one of revenue sharing, records show

Clemson has a public number for the first year of revenue sharing. It came from a records request. The university says state law is why the reply is a single total, and why the next year is still blank.

On Oct. 21, 2026, Jermaine D. Johnson, Senior Associate General Counsel, answered a South Carolina public-records request from Brett Bryant of The Public Cap. The letter says: "The total amount of revenue share funds expended by Clemson University during the 2025-2026 fiscal year was $17,638,205. This amount does not include deductions taken for added scholarships and then-existing Alston commitments."

That is the same citation already on our Clemson NIL and player-pay page: Clemson University records response under the South Carolina FOIA (S.C. Code Ann. § 59-158-50(C)(1)), dated Oct 21, 2026. The letter is not posted on a public web page.

By the numbers

• $17,638,205: revenue-share funds expended in the 2025-2026 fiscal year (Clemson records response, Oct 21, 2026)
• $20.5 million: House cap for 2025-26, the same ceiling for every participating school (NCAA)
• $21,583,913: House cap for 2026-27 (Winston Taylor)
• $186,106,774: Clemson athletics revenue in FY2025, and the same figure for expenses (EADA)
• C: Clemson's financial health grade

The first-year total

$17,638,205 is what Clemson says it expended in revenue-share funds during the 2025-2026 fiscal year. That year is finished, so this is the full-year total. It covers the university as a whole. No athlete is named, and no sport is split out.

The sentence after the dollar is part of the figure. Clemson said the amount does not include deductions taken for added scholarships and then-existing Alston commitments. The school did not say how large those deductions were. The $17,638,205 is the revenue-share total with those items left out. It is not a full list of athlete benefits.

What South Carolina law makes public

Clemson pointed to S.C. Code Ann. § 59-158-50(C)(1). The university said that section requires it to produce only the total revenue funds expended in each fiscal year.

The public record is that one number for a finished year. A payment to a named player stays back. So does any split that would show what football received, or basketball, or any other sport. Clemson applied the statute that way in this reply.

The same limit is why 2026-27 is empty. Fiscal 2026-27 is not complete, so Clemson said there is nothing yet to release for it. The cap for that year is already set. Clemson's spending against it is not.

The cap this total sits against

Participating schools can share up to $20.5 million with athletes in 2025-26 (NCAA House settlement Q&A). In 2026-27 the cap is $21,583,913, set after the first audit of Power conference revenue (Winston Taylor). Our methods page explains how the two caps are built.

Clemson's disclosed total for 2025-26, $17,638,205, is under that $20.5 million cap. Scholarship and Alston deductions were left out of the letter, and the amounts were not disclosed, so the space between the two figures is not unused room.

The rest of the department

The revenue-share line is one check in a much larger department. In FY2025, the fiscal year before this total, Clemson athletics reported $186,106,774 in revenue and $186,106,774 in expenses (EADA). On that federal report, money in and money out matched to the dollar.

That same year the university put $20,180,572 into athletics as institutional and government support (Knight-Newhouse). Support from FY2025 is larger than the revenue-share total Clemson reported for the year that followed.

Dabo Swinney's 2026 pay on the Clemson Board of Trustees term sheet is $11,500,000 (term sheet). Retention bonuses are not included. The disclosed revenue-share total is larger than the head coach's listed pay.

On this site, Clemson's financial health grade is a C.

More on this site: the cited total on the Clemson NIL and player-pay page, the rest of the department on the Clemson school page, the cap explanation in methods, and compare to set Clemson next to another school.

Takeaway: A Clemson records reply dated Oct. 21, 2026 says the university expended $17,638,205 in revenue-share funds in the 2025-2026 fiscal year. That total does not include deductions for added scholarships and then-existing Alston commitments. It sits under the $20.5 million House cap for 2025-26. The 2026-27 cap is $21,583,913, and Clemson has not released a spending total for that year because the year is not over.

Sources

1. Clemson University records response under the South Carolina FOIA (S.C. Code Ann. § 59-158-50(C)(1)), dated Oct 21, 2026. Reply from Jermaine D. Johnson, Senior Associate General Counsel, to Brett Bryant / The Public Cap.
2. NCAA, House settlement Q&A (2025-26 benefits cap): https://on.ncaa.com/QA61325
3. Winston Taylor, 'Class counsel, NCAA and Power Five conferences announce $44M in additional compensation and benefits following first audit' (2026-27 cap): https://www.winstontaylor.com/insights/class-counsel-ncaa-and-power-five-conferences-announce-usd44m-in-additional-compensation-and-benefits-following-first-audit
4. U.S. Department of Education, Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act data, 2024-25 (FY2025): total athletics revenue and expenses for Clemson University: https://ope.ed.gov/athletics/api/dataFiles/file?fileName=EADA_All_Data_Combined_2024-2025_SAS_SPSS_EXCEL.zip
5. Knight-Newhouse College Athletics Database, Clemson University, FY2025 NCAA MFRS institutional/government support (lines 2+4+6+6A combined): https://knightnewhousedata.org/fbs/acc/clemson-university
6. Clemson Board of Trustees term sheet (September 2022), Dabo Swinney 2026 pay: https://sportstalksc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Swinney-Term-Sheet-Sept-2022.pdf