The Michigan Football Players Best Positioned To Profit From NIL

College sports are about to change in a big way.

Beginning today (July 1), student-athletes in all states are able to receive compensation for their name, image and likeness (NIL). Athletes will be able to earn money in many different ways under the interim policy that passed Wednesday and took effect at midnight, including through social media, autograph sales, training lessons, merchandise, brand endorsement deals and more.

That begs the question: How much will each player make, and how will they go about it? Nobody knows exactly what NIL will look like, or what the value of each athlete will be, but the NCAA, players, schools and marketing agents are all preparing for the craziness that will surely ensure.

Several Michigan football players — including freshman wide receiver Andrel Anthony and freshman linebacker Nikhai Hill-Green — have made social media posts urging potential business partners to send them direct messages.

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That, right there, displays the importance of social media in all of this. It's a big component, and an easy way for athletes to market themselves, get out their message and grow their audience. Below, we have provided the social media followings for all of Michigan's scholarship football players on major platforms Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.

Social media is just one aspect of NIL, though. A star player may not have a huge social following or be active on the different platforms, but they can still turn a significant profit on their name, image and likeness. Television commercials, autograph sales and brand deals are just a few ways in which money can be made.

Factoring all of that in, we've gone ahead and made a list of the 10 Michigan players who we believe are set to profit the most off of this new legislation.

This is an imperfect science, clearly. The factors we've used to determine these 10 players consist of (but are not limited to) on-field impact thus far, expected future impact, social media following, social media activity, position they play, hometown/background and media savviness. This list is subject to change — and will be updated in the future — based on a player increasing his contributions on the field, growing his individual popularity, etc.

Here are the 10 Wolverines who made the cut:

Quarterbacks are often the 'face of the franchise,' and while McCarthy may not win the starting job during his first fall on campus, he might just be the most brand-able player on the team.

Despite not yet taking a college snap, McCarthy was one of the nation's top 2021 recruits and, in turn, has a huge social media following that consists of over 85,000 people — including 64,300 on Instagram. In addition, he's expected to make a huge impact on the field — whether that's right away or in a year or two — which will make him a household name throughout Michigan, the Big Ten and the sport of college football.

Businesses are likely already lining up to get in early on McCarthy, and there will be more of that attention to come if he blows up as much as many expect him to.

While McCarthy is the quarterback of the future, McNamara is widely considered to be the signal-caller of the present. He may not have made this list a year ago, but here McNamara is, after winning over the starting quarterback job and inching toward 'fan favorite' territory by leading the Wolverines to a 17-point comeback win at Rutgers.

McNamara has 11,400 followers on Twitter and 13,500 on Instagram, which checks in eighth on the team in total social media followers. He will be able to profit off that, plus reap the rewards of being the — likely — starting quarterback at a big-time school like Michigan.

Like McCarthy, Anthony hasn't suited up for a college game just yet but has already amassed a large social media following. Anthony has the second-most total followers on the team, with 29,100 on Instagram and a whopping 52,600 on TikTok, a popular video-sharing platform.

As noted above, Anthony has already posted about his willingness to partner with businesses and profit off NIL. His followers, which are guaranteed to increase over the next few years, and his outgoing personality will be big benefits.