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Film Room: Innovative NIL and sponsorship structures | Eversheds Sutherland (US) LLP

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4 months ago

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In this week’s Film Room, we:

  • Explore dynamic NIL sponsorship opportunities in the context of a recent Sports Business Journal article
  • Break down a recent court decision on another eligibility rule challenge

Dynamic NIL deals create new opportunities for institutions and student-athletes

As college athletics continues its multifaceted evolution, sponsorship and revenue generation considerations become even more determinative of competitive outcomes.

With institutional payments to student-athletes capped and third-party NIL uncapped, it’s incumbent on institutions to think critically and creatively about sponsorship and related opportunities that recent rule changes create for their student-athletes. A recent article in the Sports Business Journal highlights innovative thinking at the University of Kansas in connection with mixed-use developments involving the football stadium.

While the article doesn’t describe related third-party NIL considerations, such projects offer institutions a built-in opportunity to facilitate game-changing third-party NIL deals for student-athletes. Now, for the first time ever, institutions can go to market with student-athletes—and the payments from third parties to student-athletes in connection with such deals are subject to no cap. See Article 3, Section 3(c) of the House Injunctive Relief Settlement:

“If the Member Institution elects to sub-license to a third party any rights it has secured through a direct contract with any individual student-athlete, the proceeds of third-party NIL licenses or sublicenses procured for the student-athlete by the Member Institution or its designee/subcontractor for the student-athlete will not be counted against the Pool, nor will any other third-party payments made directly to a student-athlete be counted against the Pool.”

Dynamic sponsorship deals that leverage combined opportunities for institutions and student-athletes will swing the competitive balance at the highest levels of college athletics, now and into the future. While not subject to a cap, such deals are subject to review by the College Sports Commission (CSC) for a valid business purpose and to determine whether they are within a reasonable range of compensation (if the third-party payor is an Associated Entity/Individual). Given the importance of these deals, it’s imperative that they’re structured in a manner that aligns with both CSC regulations and existing institutional agreements.

Recent eligibility challenge denied

Last week, a federal court in Louisiana upheld the application of the “five-year rule” to the plaintiff, Stanley Hamilton, a track and field student-athlete who enrolled in college in 2019 but did not begin competing until 2022.

The plaintiff argued that applying the start date for the five-year rule upon enrollment in 2019 when the student-athlete didn’t begin competing until 2022 amounted to a violation of the antitrust laws. The court denied the plaintiff student-athlete’s request for an injunction, noting, courts have “consistently held that the NCAA’s eligibility rules are reasonable” and the “Sixth Circuit found that the NCAA ‘eligibility rules … are all explicitly non-commercial.’” (at 11).

[View source.]



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Joel Klatt declares there’s a new top head coach in college football

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January 13, 2026

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A college football champion will be crowned on Jan. 19 after the No. 10-seed Miami Hurricanes and No. 1-seed Indiana Hoosiers face off at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami.

As many fans have noticed and have thoroughly enjoyed pointing out online, the SEC does not have a representative in the title game for the third consecutive year. Many in the sport have attributed this to NIL and the transfer portal, which allow non-traditional programs like Texas Tech or Indiana to contend, while programs like Georgia or Alabama no longer have significant talent advantages.

When it comes to the Bulldogs, Fox’s Joel Klatt revealed on a recent episode of “The Next Round” that Georgia can’t even say they have the best coach in college football anymore, going as far as to say that Indiana’s Curt Cignetti has surpassed him.

“It leads into this idea of Kirby (Smart) is the best coach in college football,” Klatt said in reference to the SEC being the best conference narrative. “Well no he’s not. He hasn’t even played in the final four in the last three years with good teams by the way. And in some cases based on the composite, the most talented team.

Fox Sports announcer Joel Klatt walks.

Fox Sports announcer Joel Klatt walks across the field prior to the NCAA football game between the Ohio State Buckeyes and the Indiana Hoosiers at Ohio Stadium in Columbus on Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024. | Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

“So Curt Cignetti is doing more with less than anybody,” Klatt said. “And he’s doing it on a stage and at a pace right now that is fairly unprecedented. He did it at Indiana. Guys Indiana is likely to win the national championship. That blows my mind. It just does.”

While it seemed extremely brash or arrogant at the time when Cignetti told college football fans to Google him at his introductory press conference, that appears to have been a legitimate warning that no one was really ready for.

In his four years as an FBS head coach, which include his final two seasons at James Madison, Cignetti has compiled a 45-6 record. At Indiana alone, he has put together a record of 26-2, leading the Hoosiers to the program’s first outright Big Ten title since 1945, the No. 1 seed in the College Football Playoff and also helped Fernando Mendoza have a breakout year that saw him win the Heisman trophy.

Arguably the most interesting part about Cignetti’s success outside of his one-liners and otherworldly confidence is the fact that he isn’t chasing someone else’s legacy at another program, he is working to build his own.

Despite being the hottest coach on the market this coaching cycle, Cignetti inked an 8-year extension worth around $93 million that will keep him in Bloomington.

So, for those college football traditionalists who are struggling to accept the new reality of what this sport has become, it appears that accepting Indiana as a powerhouse is another thing they’ll have to add to the list.



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Pat McAfee dealt blunt reality check from college football fans

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2 hours ago

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January 13, 2026

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Pat McAfee remains one of the more polarizing voices in the college football media landscape, and it appears the College GameDay personality is losing some of his base of support among fans, according to a new survey.

McAfee’s approval ratings among college football fans have fallen to an all-time low coming out of the 2025 season, according to a poll taken by The Athletic this week.

How do you feel about Pat McAfee?

Fans were asked a simple question: “How do you feel about Pat McAfee on College GameDay?” And the answers definitely tilted one way.

Nearly half of those who answered the question said they “Don’t like it,” with 49.5 percent of fans who took part saying they didn’t approve of McAfee’s contribution to the weekly College GameDay program.

That contribution has been noteworthy from the beginning, capped off by his bombastic (and often shirtless) game predictions that helped give the program a transition from Lee Corso’s famous headgear picks as a method of closing out each show on Saturday.

The field-goal kicking contest that McAfee hosts on GameDay, which includes him paying out serious money to the winners, is also highly-regarded among fans who watch.

Those who do like what McAfee brings to the table? That number is down to 31.6 percent of those who were surveyed by The Athletic.

Just under 20 percent of those asked, 18.9 percent, said they had no opinion of him.

Previous polls agree on McAfee

This marked the third year that The Athletic polled fans on McAfee, but this edition of the vote saw the highest mark among those who answered negatively about him.

Last year, 42.5 percent of respondents said they didn’t like McAfee, and in 2023, that number swelled to 48.9 percent.

Two seasons ago, the negative conversation around McAfee’s performance on College GameDay even resulted in viral speculation that he considered leaving the program.

Last offseason, it was revealed that McAfee did not have a contract to appear on College GameDay that fall and it was an open question for a time whether or not he would return.

Those rumors were put to bed about a month later, when McAfee revealed that he signed a new deal with ESPN to appear on the show that season.

College GameDay is still very popular

Whatever fans may think of McAfee, they are very clear on the College GameDay program overall: they love it.

The overwhelming majority of those fans polled, 83.6 percent of them, said they prefer College GameDay to the Fox pre-game program Big Noon Kickoff.

That confidence was expressed in the TV ratings this season, as College GameDay established viewership records in the 2025 season averaging 2.7 million viewers per show, up 22 percent from last year.

(Athletic)

Read more from College Football HQ



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Mailbag Call: So…Indiana? | Off Tackle Empire

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3 hours ago

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January 13, 2026

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Is this the new normal? The new Bloomington? The new Big Ten?

Good afternoon, and happy Monday. Three-quarters of the MNW household are struggling with some form or residuals of the flu, and the other one is me. That, of course, has led to no resentment of the fact that I am healthy other than a little cough, no sir.

Indiana feels inevitable at this point, do they not? The Hoosiers have, through Curt Cignetti’s shrewd use of the transfer portal and quality coaching, turned college football completely on its ear.

Well, a deep-pocketed donor by any other name is…a deep-pocketed donor, still. Add to that Mark Cuban’s money for 2026? We might be dealing with the Hoosiers until Curt Cignetti gets bored.

Of course, there have been flashes in the pan before: the wisconsin Rose Bowls, the Peak Weather Machine years of Michigan State, that one time Minnesota won ten games or whatever—but it’s undeniable that none of those programs ever made a national championship and that none of them did it in the style that Indiana is doing it right now.

Watching Indiana do it—or, indeed, the entire SEC going belly-up in the postseason—is certainly cathartic. It’s better than the usual suspects doing it over and over again, and it’s at least more above-board than the standard SEC model of used car dealers buying themselves a championship. I take little solace in knowing that there’s less program-building, less connection to a campus, less-anything that feels “authentically” college football, but it’s incredibly possible that my feelings of “authenticity” always relied on a lie—the lie that it was possible to square “belonging” or “identity” of a college campus with athletes being fairly treated.

Congratulations, of course, to Indiana on their seemingly inevitable championship. It is truly exciting for the Hoosiers and their fans, as well as those coming back to football to join the thousand or so of their long-suffering brethren. Glad you’ve finally left the tailgate lots and headed in. Enjoy Miami.

Of course, you might have questions or comments about completely different things—basketball, wrestling, the best episode of Magic School Bus, the worst way to cook cod. We in the OTE Hive were recently discussing our careers as Quiz Bowl contestants (MNW, AlmaOtter, LPW), speech wannabes (LPW, Kind of…, Dead Read), or speech titans (BRT, Jesse, et al). Ask us what you’d like, and we’ll answer how we’d like.

This is a Mailbag call, and I hope you’ll treat it as such.



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Hollywood Smothers’ flip to Texas underscores Alabama’s NIL struggles, dwindling mystique

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4 hours ago

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January 13, 2026

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Elite running back Hollywood Smothers flipped from Alabama to Texas in the 2026 college football transfer portal on Sunday, signaling deeper issues within the Crimson Tide program.

On the field, Alabama has fallen short of sustaining the elite standard set by Nick Saban, losing as many games in two seasons under Kalen DeBoer (eight) as it did across the previous five seasons under the seven-time national championship-winning coach.

Coaching deserves its fair share of blame for Alabama’s slight fall from grace, but deeper issues may lie within the Crimson Tide’s NIL operation, which has lagged behind many of its peers this cycle.

Alabama has lost six players ranked inside Cooper Petagna‘s top 100 of the college football transfer portal rankings this offseason, while adding just one: defensive lineman Devan Thompkins.

National college football and transfer portal analyst Chris Hummer went inside Alabama’s NIL struggles, offering insights into what’s gone wrong in Tuscaloosa and what the future may hold for one of college football’s most storied programs.

“A decade ago, Alabama could land everyone they wanted,” Hummer said on CBS Sports HQ. “They could be like a dragon sitting on a chest of gold. There’s nothing you could do about it.



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VCU’s Phil Martelli Jr. on the state of college sports amid NIL, transfer portal, conversations with dad

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January 13, 2026

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Scarlet Knights Legend Leonte Carroo Sues Rutgers Over NIL Claims

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5 hours ago

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January 13, 2026

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Rutgers football legend Leonte Carroo is suing Rutgers University over the use of his Name, Image, and Likeness from when he was playing in college, according to an article written by Brian Fonseca of Nj.com/NJAdvancedMedia. Carroo’s lawsuit claims that he is entitled to back payments for the money he generated for the university throughout his college career. The lawsuit values those figures between 2.8 and 3 million dollars.

Carroo and his team originally filed the lawsuit in October. In December, Rutgers countered and tried to have the lawsuit dismissed, arguing that the statute of limitations had long passed and that several courts from around the country had already unanimously denied the type of NIL claim that Carroo’s team is making. On January 9th, Carroo’s legal team filed a brief meant to argue that the university’s dismissal should be denied.

According to the article by Fonseca, Carroo’s team gave Rutgers a formal demand letter in June seeking compensation for the unauthorized use of his NIL. The university did not provide such compensation, which led to the lawsuit.

The House vs. NCAA settlement granted back payment to college athletes who were in school between June 2016 and 2024. Carroo’s playing at Rutgers career falls just outside that, as he played from 2012-2015. Carroo’s legal team is arguing that just because he falls outside the period given, it does not take away from the fact that Rutgers unjustly profited from his time as a player.

Carroo was one of the most well-known players at Rutgers while he was playing. He currently holds the receiving touchdowns record in school history by a wide margin, and he was one of the faces of the team when they first entered the Big Ten. Carroo and his legal team argue that some sort of compensation is in order for his level of stardom.

If the courts side with Carroo in this case, it has the potential to open up a whole can of worms across college athletics. It would lay the groundwork and encourage other former athletes from other schools to sue their own school for the same reason. Similar cases to this, including players from other college programs, have been dismissed or denied already across the board. It remains to be seen what will come of this lawsuit in particular.

A link to the original article by Fonseca can be found here.



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