College Sports Data Platform
The Sideline
Independent college sports intelligence and home of The Sideline NIL Market Index.
What We Build
College sports data,
free for everyone.
The Sideline is an independent college sports intelligence company. Our Data Desk publishes the Sideline NIL Market Index across all 357 Division I programs, alongside transfer, recruiting, and school-level research.
Our Story
Where it started.
The Sideline began in 2023 as a small group of fan-run Instagram pages covering individual college football programs. Game-day reactions, recruiting updates, and the kind of community-level chatter that didn't exist on the bigger sports sites.
As the network grew, a real gap became obvious: college sports has the most engaged fan base in American athletics, but the data fans actually want (NIL valuations, transfer portal movement, recruiting trajectories, conference spending) was either locked behind paywalls or buried in industry reports.
We built the data tools we couldn't find anywhere else, and we kept them free.
Today, The Sideline indexes aggregate NIL roster-market estimates for all 357 Division I programs, tracks the college football transfer portal, maintains the 2026 recruiting class, and runs team hubs for every Power 4 program. Editorial commentary still happens, but the trackers are the core of the site.
Who Runs This
Independent and accountable.
The Sideline is privately and independently owned. The site has no financial relationship with any school, athletic department, conference, collective, or NIL agency we cover.
Index Ownership
The Sideline owns and publishes the Sideline NIL Market Index. Our Data Desk controls the source hierarchy, normalization, best estimates, sport allocations, player rankings, quality checks, and corrections. Outside publishers provide evidence inputs; they do not author our final rankings.
Every dataset on this site is free for everyone. No paywalls, no premium tier, no "subscribe to see the full rankings." Where competitors gate NIL valuations and portal data behind login walls or paid subscriptions, we publish the same numbers (or better) and let anyone download them. On-site display advertising covers the cost of running the platform. That is the only reason ads exist here.
Built for fans, useful for journalists. The NIL rankings and transfer portal data are downloadable in bulk (CSV and JSON) directly from the trackers, with no rate-limiting and no attribution requirement beyond a standard backlink. Working press, researchers, and academics can embed widgets, license a clean export, or just scrape the public endpoints. See the press page for embed widgets and the methodology page for citation format.
We are not affiliated with the NCAA, ESPN, On3, 247Sports, Rivals, or any other commercial college sports outlet. ESPN supplies roster biography fields and public sports data. Published market benchmarks and public records are cited as evidence. The Sideline independently produces the resulting index and analysis.
For editorial questions, corrections, partnership inquiries, or data licensing requests, the right inbox is hello@thesideline.co.
How We Source
Every dataset, attributed.
Sideline NIL Market Index
A company-owned index built from source-linked player values, published team benchmarks, public compensation disclosures, active rosters, and a guarded long-tail estimate. Every school and sport receives one reconciled best current estimate.
Transfer portal
Refreshed nightly. Player names, schools, status, and positions are sourced and dated.
Recruiting
Class composition and star ratings compiled from published sources. National rankings reflect placement within the published class.
ESPN roster and game data
Height, weight, hometown, position, class, roster status, scores, and schedules come from ESPN's public data feeds. ESPN does not supply or endorse The Sideline's NIL values.
School profile pages
Compiled from public school athletics websites, official communications, and the same datasets above.
Read the full methodology page for citation format, calculation rules, and how to license the datasets for research or journalism.
357
D1 Programs Tracked
9K+
Portal Entries Indexed
4
Power Conferences Covered
Daily
Data Refresh Cadence
The Network
Community pages, by program.
Each Instagram account is operated by community admins from the school's fan base. Game-day commentary, recruiting and portal coverage, and program-specific updates. The original surface of the brand and the seed for the school hubs on this site.
The Sideline
@sidelinemediaco
Texas A&M
@maroon_mania
Notre Dame
@sideline_nd
Ohio State
@sideline_osu
Florida
@sideline_florida
Michigan
@sideline_michiagn
Georgia
@bulldogs_mania
Alabama
@bama_mania
Texas
@sideline_texas
Tennessee
@vols_mania
NFL
@nfl.mania_
LSU
@tiger_mania_
Oklahoma
@sooner_mania
Penn State
@pennstatemania
Oregon
@ducks_mania_
College Football
@cfb_mania_
Nebraska
@husker_mania
Indiana
@sideline_indiana
The Tools
We built what we wanted to use.
Real tools, not infinite-scroll content traps. Built in-house, sourced from public data, free to use, and actually useful.
How We Operate
Our editorial principles.
Sourced data, never invented numbers.
NIL figures are modeled from public disclosures, collective announcements, and on-record statements. Transfer portal and recruiting data come from published sources. Where we estimate, we label estimates and show our work on the methodology page.
Independence from advertisers.
Advertisers have no input into our rankings, coverage, or data. We do not accept payment for favorable mentions of any school, athlete, NIL collective, or brand. Sponsored content, if ever published, is explicitly labeled.
Analysis written on top of the data.
Our research team writes commentary and breakdowns grounded in the same datasets we publish. Where we draw on other reporting, we attribute and link. We never republish other outlets' copy.
Free access, no paywalls.
Every tracker, dataset, and tool on the site is free for fans, journalists, and researchers. The site is funded entirely by on-site advertising and the affiliated merchandise shop.
For the full sourcing, corrections, and ownership disclosure, see Standards & Methodology.
Start with the data.
Every tracker, every dataset, every team hub. Free, updated daily.