Name, image, and likeness (NIL) money has completely changed the landscape of college football and B.C. Lions general manager Ryan Rigmaiden expects it will soon have a big impact on the Canadian Football League.
“I think our league is gonna have some challenges in the very near future, especially with quarterbacks. You’re looking at what some of these quarterbacks are getting paid via NIL — and listen, I’m happy they are — but I don’t know how many quarterbacks are going to come up (to the CFL) for an $80,000 or $90,000 contract when they just made $4 million (in college),” he said from the CFL’s offseason winter meetings in Calgary.
“It’s not just a few quarterbacks anymore, and it’s not just a few players anymore. Some teams do it as a collective of, ‘Every one of our players is going to get $50,000 to $100,000, no matter who you are,’ and then some teams are doing it on a case-by-case basis.”
The Athletic recently reported that the baseline rate for quarterbacks at Power Four schools is $100,000 to $300,000 per year, though earnings can be much higher for five-star recruits. The highest-paid college player in 2025 was University of Texas quarterback Arch Manning, who reportedly made a whopping $6.8 million this season.
Quarterbacks from top collegiate programs have rarely come up to the CFL, often choosing to pursue careers in coaching or broadcasting once NFL opportunities evaporate. Canadian teams have instead relied primarily on recruiting quarterbacks from Group of Five or FCS programs, which produced passers like Dave Dickenson, Ricky Ray, Henry Burris, Michael Reilly, Kevin Glenn, Travis Lulay, Bo Levi Mitchell, and Davis Alexander.
With collegiate careers growing longer than ever and player transience at an all-time high, however, it’s rare for players to finish their eligibility at lower-level programs if they become standouts, instead garnering massive NIL offers to do late-career transfers.
Zach Calzada, whom the Ottawa Redblacks recently added to their negotiations list, is a perfect example. The six-foot-four, 230-pound passer started his collegiate career at Texas A&M and Auburn, though he didn’t see much playing time. In 2023, he transferred down to the FCS level, where he became a star at the University of the Incarnate Word.
Historically, this was a standard collegiate resumé for a future CFL quarterback — someone who may have attended a big-time school, but didn’t excel until they transferred down. In the modern landscape of collegiate football, however, quarterbacks are now able to cash-in on late-career moves to bigger programs.
Calzada earned over $1 million in 2025 to transfer to the University of Kentucky. He played poorly, throwing zero touchdowns and two interceptions over three games, but still earned more money than he could reasonably stand to earn over many, many years with Ottawa.
“I think that’s a challenge for us, but also the NFL. You’re seeing players in college stay longer than they ever have. It used to be players would jump to the NFL the quickest they possibly could. Now they’re staying and petitioning the NCAA for a possible sixth and seventh year, so that certainly is changing,” said Rigmaiden.
“When I first started, we had an alert if a player had transferred twice — usually, there were some things that went on. Now, it’s almost the opposite — players are nomads. It doesn’t mean that it’s right or wrong. I’m happy these guys are getting compensated, and I truly believe they deserve it, but with the no guardrails, it’s troubling.
“We’re going to have to get ahead of this problem, and frankly, we’ve talked about it before in the league meetings, and I’m sure that’s going to be more on the agenda in the next couple of years.”
It’s unclear how the CFL plans to deal with the rapidly-developing world of college football, but one thing is for certain: times, they are a-changin’.
