I mean, it's a hell of a lot of money, but it averages out to about $375k per school, per year (both football and M/W basketball), which doesn't sound like that much at all. About a football coordinators annual salary on average I would guess. And if you exclude probably the top 10 spenders, it's probably quite a bit less than that. It's all how it's presented I guess.
FBS schools spent over $533.6M in dead money
FBS schools paid football and men's and women's basketball coaches more than $533.6 million not to coach from 2010 to January 2021.
www.espn.com