Tennessee State is delaying the inaugural season of its men’s hockey program by a year as the school addresses financial issues associated with launching the program.

The Tigers will now start playing in the 2026-27 season rather than in 2025-26.

Tennessee State announced in June 2023 that it was planning to become the first historically Black college and university to sponsor Division I men’s hockey. Duanté Abercrombie was hired as the program’s first head coach in April 2024.

School officials said Thursday the decision to delay the start of competition was made in collaboration with the NHL, Nashville Predators and College Hockey Inc., and that it reflected their “shared commitment to building a sustainable and competitive program from day one.”

“Working closely with the NHL and the Predators, we agree that an additional year will provide the program with the time and resources it needs to launch at full strength and with long-term financial success in mind,” Tennessee State Interim President Dwayne Tucker said in a statement. “The extra preparation period will focus on recruiting, facility planning, staff development, and fundraising efforts. It also aligns with a broader vision to grow the sport of hockey in diverse communities.”

The release announcing the move noted that the school had received a $250,000 grant from the NHL/National Hockey League Players Association and continued support from the Predators.

“Deferring the inaugural season of TSU Tigers hockey to 2026-27 is the right step to build a foundation worthy of the university,” said Kevin Westgarth, the NHL’s vice president of hockey development and strategic collaboration. “TSU has faced challenges before and always met them and come back stronger, and we expect hockey to be the latest chapter of that story.”

• The delay allows more time to secure resources and ensure long-term financial stability for the program.
• The NHL, NHLPA, and Nashville Predators continue to support TSU’s effort to become the first HBCU with an NCAA Division I men’s hockey team.

Tennessee State confirmed its inaugural men’s hockey season will not be played as planned in 2025-26.

INDIANAPOLIS – The University of Jamestown has been approved to continue into year two of the NCAA Division II expedited membership process. This means that the University of Jamestown has one remaining year of provisional membership status, and the Jimmies will be a full NCAA Division II member in the 2026-27 school year if all remaining criteria are met. This will be the University of Jamestown’s first year as a member of the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference (NSIC).

“The NSIC is excited to officially welcome the University of Jamestown as its newest member. UJ shares our core values of academic integrity, athletic excellence, and student-athlete well-being. Their addition strengthens the NSIC and enhances our continued commitment to providing a first-class experience for all student-athletes. We look forward to what the future will bring with the Jimmies a part of the NSIC.”

“Today’s announcement is a vote of confidence for UJ and our entire community as we begin our first year of competition as a member of the NCAA in the incredibly well- respected NSIC conference. We are grateful to Erin Lind and her team for their generous support throughout the past two years.  Today is an exciting day to be a Jimmie!” 

“We were very excited to get the news from the NCAA on Thursday that we were being moved forward in the expedited membership process. This gets us one step closer to full membership status in 2026-27. We’re also thrilled to be coming up on our first school year as a member of the NSIC. The NSIC is an incredibly reputable league and while there will be some challenges, we are excited to compete in such a top tier league with institutions that are in our backyard. We will continue to do the work that will make us a strong member of the league and an institution that the NSIC is proud to have as a member. It’s another great day to be a Jimmie!”

About the NSIC

The NSIC is a 16-team, 18-sport, NCAA Division II conference with institutions located in Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota. The NSIC is a model Division II conference that uses high-level athletics competition to develop  champions in the classroom and community while empowering student-athletes to be impactful and positive leaders. Formed in 1992 by the merger of the Northern Intercollegiate Conference (men’s league) and the Northern Sun Conference (women’s league), the NSIC has flourished over the past quarter century, maturing into a union of 16 Upper  Midwest colleges and universities. The NSIC has won 27 team national championships and crowned 121 individual national champions. For additional information, visit NorthernSun.org.

About NCAA Division II

The NCAA, the national governing body for college athletics, is a volunteer association of more than 1,000 colleges and universities that classify their athletics programs in one of three membership divisions. The 300+ institutions in NCAA Division II support a balanced approach in which student-athletes can earn scholarships based on their athletic ability, pursue their desired academic degree, and participate in all the campus and surrounding community have to offer. Division II student-athletes annually graduate at rates higher than their student body peers, and they have access to the best  championships-participant ratio among the NCAA’s three divisions. Division II gives student-athletes the unique opportunity to compete in the classroom, on the field, in their career, for their causes, and on their terms. For additional information, visit NCAA.org. 

USA TODAY Sports spoke with more than 10 boosters at high profile power conference schools about NIL, and only two talked on the record. One of them was University of Florida booster Gary Condron, the largest single financial donor in the history of Gator Boosters, Inc.

USA TODAY Sports also interviewed and profiled Texas Tech billionaire booster Cody Campbell, who is working to reform the NIL space and “save college sports”, writes Matt Hayes. Hayes spoke to Condron about the current state of name, image and likeness.

“NIL space for boosters is like throwing money into a deep, dark hole with little to no return on the investment,” Condron said. “Nobody likes this. Not athletic directors, not coaches, not boosters. The only ones who like it are the players, and the attorneys and agents.”

Condron, 67, was a walk-on baseball player at Florida in the mid-1970s and graduated from UF in 1977 with a degree in building construction. He’s the CEO and founder of The Conlan Company, one of the leading builders for Amazon’s distribution centers around the country. 

In addition to his support for Gator Boosters, Inc., Condron has helped fund the rosters for football, men’s basketball, baseball and other UF sports. He recently donated $1 million to Todd Golden’s program after his team won the 2025 national championship and the SEC Tournament.

“Gary’s been incredibly impactful on our success. I’m pretty sure, for football, baseball. He’s done a lot for all these different programs. Gary deserves a ton of credit for the success, because players are incredibly important,” Golden said of Condron after the title celebration at halftime of the spring football game.

“Gary gave us a great gift – and the reality of it is we need a lot more. We need a lot more to retain our players.”

Golden, who also thanked several other donors for their contributions, was able to retain his top frontcourt players and also signed one of the nation’s best transfer classes with three top-100 signees, adding a total of five players to the backcourt with a pair of top-50 recruits.

Condron’s efforts also helped Florida football coach Billy Napier close strong in the 2025 recruiting cycle and UF baseball coach Kevin O’Sullivan reload with his 2025 class, which currently consists of nine transfers and 12 recruits, including Jaden Bastian, Aaron Watson and Jordan Yost.

During his interview with USA TODAY Sports, Condron recalled working multiple jobs to pay his way through college. That process, Condron told Hayes, gets lost in today’s landscape with players getting paid and walk-on spots being eliminated. He would like to see some NIL reform happen.    

“I came from a family that didn’t have two nickels to rub together,” Condron said. “If I had an opportunity to eat at the training table (at Florida) it was a blessing for me. If you saw what kids get today, the hair on your neck would stand up. I don’t know how much longer I can (fund NIL) unless we get some guardrails.”

Reading, Pa. – The Reading Royals, ECHL affiliate of the National Hockey League’s Philadelphia Flyers and American Hockey League’s Lehigh Valley Phantoms, announced that forward Connor McMenamin has re-signed for the 2025-26 season.

McMenamin, 26, is entering his second-full professional season after a 17 point (7g-10a) showing in a 29-game shortened rookie campaign due to a season-ending injury. McMenamin played 10 games for Reading during the 2023-24 season after he inked a contract with the Royals to begin his professional career on March 22.

Prior to going pro, he played five seasons of college hockey with four seasons at Penn State University and a fifth-year graduate season at the University of Minnesota-Duluth. With the Bulldogs during the 2023-24 season, McMenamin recorded 21 points (6g-15a) in 35 games. From 2019-23 at Penn State, he he recorded 66 points (24g-42a) in 129 games played with the Nittany Lions. Across his five-year NCAA career, McMenamin totaled 87 points (30g-57a), 57 penalty minutes and a +10 rating in 164 NCAA career games.

Additionally, McMenamin was an alternate captain for Penn State in the 2021-22 and 2022-23 campaigns. He previously played in the United States Hockey League, primarily with the Tr-City Storm where he was captain in the 2018-19 season.
 

A new college sports enforcement arm charged with regulating name, image and likeness payments to athletes issued guidance Thursday that could make it extremely difficult for school-affiliated collectives to get their deals with athletes approved.

The recently approved House settlement, which took effect on July 1, established a clearinghouse, called NIL Go, that must approve all third-party deals for more than $600. The two main requirements for those deals are that they’re for a “valid business purpose” and within a fair-market “range of compensation.”

The goal is to prevent schools from utilizing booster-driven entities to funnel payments to recruits and transfers as a workaround to the $20.5 million revenue-sharing cap.

Guidance issued Thursday by the College Sports Commission said that “an entity with a business purpose of providing payments or benefits to student-athletes or institutions, rather than providing goods or services to the general public for profit, does not satisfy the valid business purpose requirement set forth in NCAA Rule 22.1.3.”

It then cited as an example a collective that “reach(es) a deal with a student-athlete to make an appearance on behalf of the collective at an event, even if that event is open to the general public, and the collective charges an admission fee (e.g., a golf tournament).” And, “The same collective’s deal with a student-athlete to promote the collective’s sale of merchandise to the public would not satisfy the valid business purpose requirement for the same reason.”

A message Thursday seeking comment from The Collective Association was not immediately returned.

In the four years since NIL took effect in 2021, collectives affiliated with specific schools have made hundreds of millions in deals with athletes just like those described in the examples. They pool funds from donors and boosters and use them to license the NIL rights of specific athletes in exchange for appearances and social media posts.

College sports leaders have long lamented that those deals are de facto pay-for-play inducements, not legitimate endorsement deals.

“For somebody to just slide you a few dollars because they want you to come or stay at a certain school and call it NIL, that’s make-believe, that’s not a real thing,” Purdue athletic director Mike Bobinski recently told NBC Sports.

Critics, though, believe any attempt to restrict how much athletes can make and by whom will eventually be declared another antitrust violation, much like several recent decisions that went against the NCAA. One distinction is that CSC and NIL Go were created by the Power 5 conferences, not the NCAA.

Ohio State made headlines last year when it disclosed that its football roster was earning a combined $20 million, most of it coming from one of two Buckeye collectives. Roster payrolls at the top programs have since escalated well beyond $20 million. Knowing the House settlement was coming, many collectives “frontloaded” payments for this coming school year so they would not be subject to clearinghouse approval.

In a series of posts on X on Thursday, Dalton K. Forsythe, director of Utah State’s Blue A Collective, criticized NIL Go for technical issues, then said, “We’re hearing from peers across the country: nearly 100 percent of collective-backed NIL deals are being denied, regardless of size or structure.”

He continued, “The College Sports Commission has taken the position that collectives cannot serve a ‘valid business purpose’ — a standard that was never clearly communicated before implementation.”

(Photo: Kirby Lee / USA Today Sports)