Revenue sharing in college athletics hasn’t arrived just yet, but former Pitt linebacker Bangally Kamara is already cashing in.
Rivals reported that Kamara, who announced he was transferring from South Carolina to Kansas during the season, has signed one of the first revenue-sharing agreements with the Jayhawks that will pay him $200,000-300,000 from July 2025 through December 2025.
With the House v. NCAA case settled, revenue sharing (upwards of $20 million to student-athletes) will begin next season.
The NCAA, in conjunction with the four Power commissioners (plus the Pac-12), released a statement in May.
“The five autonomy conferences and the NCAA agreeing to settlement terms is an important step in the continuing reform of college sports that will provide benefits to student-athletes and provide clarity in college athletics across all divisions for years to come. This settlement is also a road map for college sports leaders and Congress to ensure this uniquely American institution can continue to provide unmatched opportunity for millions of students. All of Division I made today’s progress possible, and we all have work to do to implement the terms of the agreement as the legal process continues. We look forward to working with our various student-athlete leadership groups to write the next chapter of college sports.”
So, schools will share revenue with their athletic department, but as evidenced by Kamara, money will be primarily distributed to football and men’s basketball players.
Kamara — a 6-foot-2, 230-pound linebacker from Akron, Ohio — transferred to South Carolina last offseason but played just four games before deciding to end his season. He entered the portal and announced his intentions to transfer to Kansas last month.
It came after it was announced in October that Kamara decided to redshirt and enter the transfer portal for the second time after playing four games at South Carolina, but it was South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer who ultimately made the decision for Kamara.
“He came in my office yesterday and told me that he was redshirting,” Beamer said Tuesday at his weekly press conference. “I told him that’s not quite how this works, that we could have a discussion about his role and is redshirting best, and we went back and forth a little bit. I think his situation is a little bit different than somebody else, there’s guys on this team right now that we’ve had conversations with that, look, we’re doing what we have to do in ’24 to win football games, but if we can save your redshirt year and not play you in five games, we will …
“But he was a guy that played a season-high in snaps on Saturday at linebacker that was going to continue to play more for us moving forward. My job is to do what’s best for the team and what was best for the team in my mind is Gally continuing to play and help us go try to beat Alabama this weekend. And he didn’t quite feel the same way, so in the end, I made the decision for him that it was probably best to move on.”
Kamara played in four games for South Carolina this season, including a season-high 30 defensive snaps against Ole Miss over the weekend. He recorded nine tackles (seven solo) in his 70 total snaps this season.
Kamara recorded 1,144 defensive snaps over his last two seasons at Pitt and recorded 104 tackles (48 solo), 9.5 tackles for loss, three sacks, an interception, eight pass breakups and a fumble recovery.
Pitt did an excellent job replacing Kamara and Solomon DeShields, who transferred to Texas A&M during the offseason, and the Panthers — barring any major transfers this offseason — are set well in the present and the future.
Kyle Louis and Rasheem Biles are All-ACC candidates, with Braylan Lovelace and Jordan Bass also in the mix, and all four are able to return to Pittsburgh next season.
Pitt has recruited linebackers very well over the last couple of seasons (with Cam Lindsey, Jeremiah Marcelin and Davin Brewton waiting in the wings), but those young linebackers will have to wait their turns behind the young stars.
Stop covering this bum. He hasn’t been relevant to Pitt since he left.
That is incredible $$ for an average Power 4 linebacker.
That is lottery money for him hopefully he saves it. He is not an NFL caliber player.
Looks like it will take a boat load of money for Pitt to retain two All-ACC candidates plus Bass and Lovelace. Will be surprised if that happens.
Lovelace is entirely too small we’ll probably get stuck with him and lose the quality players. Biles will want a half million if a rotational lb in Karmara got 300k. Where screwed with the 412Alliance they run this team like a dollar store. Everything’s 1 dollar.
What a big mouth. Geez. OK, if you can do better, come up with several million dollars and start your own collective.
That is $$$$$$$ not well spent
It was vital that we hired a new A.D. to address nil challenges. Kamara is getting hundreds of thousands to be average.
Below average linebacker. Physically impressive, lousy player. Kansas is wasting money on this guy. I hope Pitt does not waste NIL money on losers like Kamara.
Pitt had a budget of 6 million last season we’re screwed. Yet they waste 7 million plus on an incompetent coach. We wonder why Pitt is on life support look at the administrations it’s failed us time after time.
Bangally, do the right thing.. quit school and get a real job!