PayPal and Venmo recently released statements announcing multi-year deals with two of the biggest conferences in college sports. The two money-sharing platforms have agreed to partner with the Big Ten and Big 12 as a conduit for disbursing revenue-sharing dollars to their student-athletes.

A federal judge’s recent approval of the House settlement allows universities to directly pay student-athletes for the first time. In a sign of the times, the Big 12 and Big Ten conferences announced multi-year agreements with PayPal to facilitate payments to student-athletes.

The Big 12's agreement is worth nearly $100 million over five years and was born in 2024 after PayPal entered into discussions to buy naming rights for the conference, sources told CBS Sports. The Big 12 opted not to pursue selling its naming rights, but this partnership was the result.