Arizona State Football Coach Bluntly States How Much NIL Money He Needs

When Kenny Dillngham became the head coach of the Arizona State Sun Devils, he knew it would be an uphill battle. After a 3-9 first season in in Tempe, he realizes he needs an influx of NIL help in order to compete.

In a recent interview with the Brandon Brown of the Phoenix Business Journal, he made his needs known to local business owners.

“We’re still not even close to where we need to be and that’s where I think the business owners have to come in, step up, and really pour into the guys,” said Dillingham. “If we want to compete in the top four of the Big 12, we need to be at about $7 million to $7.5 million a year.”

The coach also added that he’s not asking for huge deals, rather than a larger number of smaller deals.

“These are $1,000 to $3,000 a month deals where you get access to one of our players to do tasks for you,” Dillingham said. “To market or fundraiser or do autograph signings or do a little kids camp on behalf of your company.”

As the Pac-12 imploded with a large shift in conference realignment, Arizona State went to the Big 12 with Arizona and Utah is joining them. A new conference means new competition.

Luckily for the Sun Devils, though, the big dogs of the Big 12 also went to a new spot as Texas and Oklahoma joined the SEC. It’s usuallly a fairly wide open conference already, but even moreso this year.

While it likely won’t be Dillingham’s group that takes over as the face of the conference this season, it’s clear why he’s making such an effort to get the program in the right shape soon.

Arizona State finished with the fourth-best group of transfer portal players, per 247Sports, so the leg work that is being put in could be paying off.

They walked away with two four-star players, tied for second-most in the conference.

Along with success in the transfer portal, they’ve had early luck with the upcoming recruiting class. For 2025, they have the second-best group in the Big 12. That is up from a seventh-best finish in 2024 and ninth-place finish in the Pac-12 for 2023.

Dillingham was brought over for his offensive prowess, but he looks to be excelling in the other duties that make being a college head coach one of the most demanding jobs in the country.