What will Sellers, Stewart make at USC in 2026? It’s not $5 million, Beamer suggests
How much South Carolina star quarterback LaNorris Sellers and edge rusher Dylan Stewart will earn this year is unclear. On Friday, Shane Beamer certainly suggested that it’s less than a reported figure of $5 million.
The dialogue around Sellers’ and Stewart’s 2026 earnings sprung up when SportsTalk Media Network’s Phil Kornblut reported that the two Gamecock stars “will cost in the neighborhood of $5 million from the school’s rev share total.”
Kornblut was referring to the $20.5 million revenue-sharing salary cap implemented last year, which allows schools to pay its student-athletes up to that amount annually. It’s believed most football programs are operating with around a $13.5 million cap.
Players can still bring in above-the-cap NIL money. So it’s at least possible that rev-share earnings for Sellers and Stewart plus additional NIL deals could take them over $5 million.
In any case, Beamer took offense to the report and posted on X/Twitter on Christmas Eve: “This isn’t even remotely close to being true.”
On Friday, while introducing defensive assistant coach Deion Barnes, Beamer was asked if the $5 million number was too high or too low when compared with the actual number.
“I think y’all can read between the lines,” he said. “I don’t think I’d be getting on social media to brag about two players making $8 million because of what it would do to the locker room.”
Unlike the NFL, which has a players association that ensures that teams and players know the contract details of every player, college football programs — and players — are not required to disclose salary figures.
In other words: No one knows what anyone is making, and that’s a double-edged sword.
On one hand, it causes all sorts of headaches for college football programs. Imagine a player enters a transfer portal and his agent is telling prospective programs he made $500,000 at his previous school and wants more at his new school. Well, there’s no real way to check if that’s accurate.
“I wish there was transparency,” Beamer said Friday. “I’d love to be able to pop on the internet right now and see what every player on Georgia’s team, Clemson’s team and Texas’s team is making because, unfortunately, there’s a lot of crap out there that agents tell you and that kids are promised.”
On the other hand, if every salary is under lock and key, there’s a lesser chance a locker room strife would be created on the basis of money. Which explains why Beamer was so quick to shut down any talk that his two star players were making a combined $5 million.
“It gets misconstrued when somebody thinks that’s the number,” Beamer said. “And then you got guys in your own locker room that ... see that (and) they don’t know what’s true. I don’t walk in the team meeting next week when they come back and say, ‘All right, guys, here’s the roster for 2026. Here’s where he’s making from top to bottom. (Everyone) good?’ We don’t do that.”
This story was originally published January 2, 2026 at 12:29 PM.
