After more than a decade, Tennessee announced it was returning to adidas as part of a 10-year contract. Through the agreement, though, the Vols will also be in position for NIL success.

In the announcement, Tennessee said the deal with adidas includes “unprecedented NIL opportunities” for athletes at the school. Yahoo! Sports’ Ross Dellenger reported players will get a slice of the pie, and adidas is even working quickly to secure deals with Vols athletes this school year. The new contract doesn’t officially start until next school year.

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The NIL component of Tennessee’s deal with adidas – which could be worth at least $10 million, according to Dellenger – is especially important in the post-House v. NCAA settlement landscape. Under the agreement, schools can share up to $20.5 million directly with athletes through revenue-sharing. However, there isn’t a cap on third-party NIL deals, meaning adidas can effectively help with “over-the-cap” opportunities.

“The arms race was originally about facilities,” said Chris McGuire, adidas Vice President of Sports Marketing for North America, while speaking with Yahoo! Sports. “Now it’s gone to rev-share and NIL. We want to make sure we provide opportunities to our partners that are competitive in the marketplace so they’ll have competitive teams on the field.”

If Tennessee athletes sign an NIL deal with adidas, they would be able to wear the company’s products in games once the new agreement gets in place. This year, though, those athletes would have to wear Nike apparel until that deal expires.

Adidas is active in the football NIL space

Adidas has been active in the NIL space, including signing multiple highly rated recruits as part of the adizero Class of 2025, headlined by five-star LSU commit and top wide receiver prospect Tristen Keys. No. 1-ranked linebacker Tyler Atkinson is also on board, giving adidas two of the 10 highest-rated 2026 recruits on its growing athlete roster.

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Ohio State wide receiver commits Chris Henry Jr. and Kayden Dixon-Wyatt are both part of the initiative, as is Texas A&M commit Madden Williams. Five-star receiver Calvin Russell, who ranks as the No. 4-ranked wide receiver in the country, rounds out the group.

Ohio State star wide receiver Jeremiah Smith also became the latest active college football player to sign an NIL deal with adidas, though the Buckeyes are a Nike school. Former Miami quarterback Cam Ward was also did so last year, and the company also struck quickly ahead of the NFL Draft by landing top picks Travis Hunter and Abdul Carter as part of its rookie class.

More on Tennessee’s new agreement with adidas

Tennessee left adidas in 2014 to sign with Nike, and the amended deal runs through 2026. Through the partnership, the university is due to receive $1.2 million in base compensation in 2025-26 and $4.5 million in annual product allotment.

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UT initially signed its deal with Nike in 2014, and the original contract paid the school $7.6 million through 2022-23. However, the amendment increased that figure to 11.6 million over 11 years and increased the scheduled payment to $1.2 million for the final three years of the agreement, starting in 2023-24.

“The role of a college athletics sideline partner has changed dramatically in the 11 years since we last partnered with Tennessee Athletics,” said adidas Vice President of Sports Marketing for North America Chris McGuire in a release. “adidas is establishing a new standard for investment in NIL with this partnership that will sustain UT’s powerful athletics program as the university continues competing for championships for years to come.”

South Carolina head women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley recently sat down with former First Lady Michelle Obama on her podcast to discuss the recent growth in attention on women’s sports, but may have made some news when the topic veered into the future of revenue-sharing in collegiate athletics.

The landmark House v. NCAA Settlement, which was approved June 6 but went into affect July 1, awarded colleges the opportunity to share as much as $20.5 million with its student-athletes as part of a $2.8 billion antitrust settlement that effectively ended the NCAA’s outdated “amateur” model.

During her Aug. 13 appearance on “IMO with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson,” Staley revealed her Gamecocks players must sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) in order to receive any revenue-share money from the university, to which the former First Lady agreed that college athletes don’t need to know each other’s rev-share take, according to the Greenville News.

“Now whether they can stick with that or not, some of them get disgruntled and maybe transfer and just say what ‘I was making (amount)’ and it can stir up the pot but I’m very honest,” Staley said June 10, when the episode was recorded, per the Greenville News. “I’ll tell them, there’s a reason why you get paid this and you get paid that. I’ll explain that to them.”

Michelle Obama was particularly interested in how college athletics’ new financial opportunties, including NIL, have already impacted locker rooms, especially among women’s athletics, which are only slotted to receive a fraction of each school’s $20.5 million cap figure. For her part, Staley said she hasn’t personally seen any detrimental impact yet.

While not a hardline dispursment figure, as schools can spend their allotted revenue-share as they see fit, football programs are expected to receive roughly 75-percent with men’s basketball garnering 15-percent. That leaves the remaining 10-percent of the $20.5 million to be split between women’s basketball (5%) and all other sports (5%), an issue that’s already resulted in multiple Title IX lawsuits against the settlement.

Staley made it clear to Obama that she’s been upfront in all financial conversations she’s had with her South Carolina athletes, including having direct conversations with their respective agents when necessary, though several of her players have the same agents, according to the Greenville News.

While South Carolina hasn’t specifically revealed how it will dispurse its revenue-share allotment, Staley confirmed to Obama that it’s “probably $20 million per school, but that’s football, that’s men’s basketball and maybe sprinking women’s basketball and other Olympic sports,” per the Greenville News.

Staley, who won her third NCAA Division I National Championship last season and remains one of the sport’s winningest coaches in major women’s college basketball, specifically cited the impact revenue-sharing and NIL have had to recruiting as “the difficult part,” according to the Greenville News.

“The market says that if you’re a non-contributor and you go into the portal, they can go ask a school like us for $100,000,” Staley said, per the Greenville News. “If I entertain that, they’re going to take it to another school, (and say) ‘Hey, South Carolina offered me a hundred grand, you got $150,000?”

Difficulties aside, Staley called for college athletics to find a way to balance that allows smaller sports to continue to embrace the amateur and scholastic side of collegiate sports while also allowing student-athletes to “benefit” financially from their own name, image and likeness.

“I’m supportive of it, I really am,” Staley said, per the Greenville News. “I think it’s long overdue. … (But) we got to find a way to balance. To keep it an amateur sport while allowing young people to go out there and benefit from their name, image and likeness.”

Univ. of South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley said that she “has players sign non-disclosure agreements” in an “attempt to prevent players from telling each other how much they’re making from NIL deals or revenue sharing,” according to Michael Sauls of the Columbia STATE. Staley, appearing on “IMO with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson,” said that the NDAs are “one way she keeps the money players receive from affecting South Carolina’s locker room” and “no revenue discussions have yet to affect the locker room.” Sauls notes Staley is “supportive of this new era of college athletics that finds the players benefiting more than ever from a monetary standpoint,” but she “feels additional control is needed.” Staley is “believed to be one of the few, perhaps the only, head coach at South Carolina who prefers to directly handle” the program’s NIL discussions. South Carolina has “not made its own distribution breakdown public, but Staley has long argued for a larger piece of the rev-share pie.” Staley said, “We’ve got a certain amount of money that we have to work with, and I don’t over-promise.” She added, “I do some innovative things as well to help our players out in this space. We play games for money, and that money goes directly to our players, things like that.” Sauls notes South Carolina will be playing in the Players Era Women’s Championship, which will provide players with at least $1M of “NIL opportunities in each year that it participates” (Columbia STATE, 8/13).

MEMPHIS, Tenn. –  Another athletic year is set to begin at the University of Memphis, and as usual, women’s soccer will be the ones to set the stage. 

The 15-time conference champions will open the regular season with two home games, beginning against Southern Miss at 6 p.m. on Thursday, August 14. They will battle with Ole Miss on Sunday, August 17, at 7 p.m. With limited bleacher seating at the under-construction Track and Soccer Stadium, fans are encouraged to bring their own chairs for home games in 2025. 

With 14 freshmen, 12 sophomores, two juniors and one senior, the 2025 team is the youngest in program history. They are not short of returning production, however, as they bring back their two best goal contributors in junior forward Ashley Henderson (nine goals, three assists) and sophomore midfielder Ai Kitagawa (six goals, six assists). 

Also returning to the regular season champions is junior defender Finley Lavin, who has been a mainstay in the Tiger lineup since her freshman season. The trio was named to the American Conference Preseason Watch List and will be expected to carry heavy workloads throughout the center of the pitch. 

“You want to make sure the spine of your team is shored up, and having real experience in those positions definitely helps,” said head coach Brooks Monaghan. 

Several players took advantage of their enlarged roles in the spring to carve themselves a spot, and even more have done so in recent weeks. Despite the team’s relative youth, Monaghan hasn’t lowered the championship standard heading into his 26th season. 

“The biggest thing is kids adapting to ‘Memphis Soccer.’ You don’t know how hard it is at this level until you’re here. Communication is key, and we really rely on the leadership from returning players just as much as the staff. If we can stay healthy, I’m really optimistic about where we’re at.” 

With five power five opponents in the non-conference slate, August could prove to be a crucial month in the trajectory of this team’s season. 

Game One: Southern Miss 

The Lady Eagles will roll into town on college soccer’s opening night for the 16th match overall between the teams and the first since 2012. After losing the first four battles with USM in the program’s early days, Memphis has rattled off 11 straight wins against their former Conference USA foes. The combined score of those 11 matchups, spanning from 2002 to 2012, is 33-6. 

Southern Miss is coached by Mohammed El-Zare, who has been at the helm of the program since 2013. Last season, they went 3-7-5, posting a six-game unbeaten streak near the end of the year in a push for the Sun Belt tournament, which they fell just short of. 

Forward Raquelle Mitchell returns to Hattiesburg for her sophomore season, coming off a freshman campaign where she posted four goals and three assists. 

Game Two: Ole Miss 

In what has become one of the region’s biggest college soccer rivalries, Memphis will look to pick up a third consecutive victory over the Rebels for the first time in program history. Ole Miss won the first three matchups in the history; since then, it is 11-10 in favor of Memphis with three draws, and neither team has won more than two in a row. Last season, Kitagawa announced her arrival with two goals in an eight-minute span in the second half as the No. 8 Tigers won in Oxford, 2-1. 

Ole Miss was slated to battle MVSU at home in their season-opener on Thursday; the match has been canceled due to “personnel traveling issues.” The Rebels will play an exhibition against William Carey in its place before officially opening the season in Memphis. 

Molly Rouse is in her third year as Ole Miss head coach; she has accumulated a record of 12-20-4 through her first two seasons, and is 0-2 against Memphis. Returners Tate Blincoe, Lauren Montgomery and Katie Ramsden were all named to the SEC Preseason Watchlist. 

Tiger Tidbits 

How to follow the Tigers: For complete information on Memphis Tigers Soccer, visit www.GoTigersGo.com and follow the team’s social media channels on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.