Ohio State is officially bringing its NIL collectives in-house.

According to multiple reports, Ohio State’s athletic department is teaming up with Learfield’s Ohio State Sports Properties to form “Buckeye Sports Group,” an initiative designed to support and enhance NIL opportunities for Ohio State athletes.

This news comes on the heels of the House v. NCAA settlement being formally approved, in return, paving the way for schools to now begin paying their athletes millions of dollars as soon as next month. The terms of the House settlement include approval for each school to share up to $20.5 million with athletes over the next year and $2.7 billion that will be paid over the next decade to thousands of former players who were barred from that revenue for years.

With the creation of the “Buckeye Sports Group,” Ohio State will now consolidate the school’s two existing NIL collectives, the 1870 Society and The Foundation. The partnership with Learfield will allow Buckeye athletes to access the sports marketing companies’ NIL technology, which will in return assist athletes with brand deals, corporate partnerships and personal brand development in a more organized manner.

“Ohio State has always been a leader in college athletics, and this initiative is another step forward to build upon our strong NIL foundation,” Ohio State’s Deputy Director of Athletics Carey Hoyt said in a release, announcing the NIL partnership. “By combining the power of our athletic brand with Learfield’s expansive network, we are creating an innovative, full-service approach to NIL that directly benefits our student-athletes.”

Moving forward, financial agreements reached between athletes and third parties won’t count toward an athletic department’s annual cap, though any deal greater than $600 is now subject to approval by NIL Go, an online clearinghouse within the College Sports Commission, a freshly formed regulatory body created in response to the House v. NCAA lawsuit. 

Ohio State has already been at the forefront when it comes to success in the NIL space. Sophomore wide receiver Jeremiah Smith has a reported NIL valuation of $4.2 million according to On3, which ranks third-highest among all college athletes, and he’s inked notable deals with Nintendo, Red Bull and Lulelemon. Smith was recently unveiled as a co-cover star athlete for “College Football 26.”

Fellow Buckeye football standout Caleb Downs has already had remarkable NIL success as well, carrying an NIL valuation of $2.4 million, which also ranks among the top valuations in college athletics. Downs, who transferred to Ohio State from Alabama following Nick Saban’s retirement in 2024, has partnerships with Panini, Beats by Dre and American Eagle.

“As we enter a new era for college athletics, we’re excited to build on our past successes and create even more meaningful NIL opportunities for Ohio State student-athletes,” Vice President & General Manager of Learfield’s Ohio State Sports Properties Todd Knisley said in the release. “With the strength of Buckeye Nation behind us, we’re able to unlock incremental opportunities for partnerships on a local, regional, and national scale.”

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Featuring a full three-game final for the first time in four years, the NCAA Women’s College World Series hit multiple viewership highs on ESPN.

The three-game Texas-Texas Tech NCAA Women’s College World Series Final averaged 2.2 million viewers across ESPN and ESPNU, the highest average on record for the event and up 13% from the previous high set by last year’s two-game Oklahoma-Texas series.

Friday’s winner-take-all Game 3 averaged 2.41 million viewers, marking the largest college softball audience on record — surpassing the previous mark of 2.33 million for Tennessee-Arizona Game 3 in 2007. All three games of this year’s series rank among the top ten, with Game 2 ranking sixth (2.13M) and Game 1 seventh (2.11M). (Keep in mind out-of-home viewing was not tracked in Nielsen’s estimates prior to 2020.)

Compared to the previous Game 3 — Oklahoma-Florida State in 2021, which aired in a Thursday afternoon window due to rain — viewership jumped 54% from 1.57 million.

Overall, four games of this year’s WCWS rank among the top ten, with a UCLA-Tennessee game on ABC earlier in the tournament placing fifth (2.19M).

Most-Watched Women’s College World Series Games

The full, 15-game WCWS averaged 1.3 million — up 24% from last year and a new record for the event, surpassing the previous high set in 2021. The complete NCAA softball tournament averaged 591,000, up 3% from last year and the highest in four years.

Being the first is one thing. Being the only one is something else, something even more challenging.

Fisk University came to understand that difference in the three years since it launched its women’s gymnastics program, the first at an HBCU. During that time, the GymDogs, as the team was known, produced a bona fide star, gained a measure of pop culture notoriety and added to the school’s trophy case. Administrators, however, also wrestled with the financial realities of the sport and endeavored to find the proper level of competition for a program that was an outlier even within the school’s own athletics department.

Thus, the 2026 season will be the last for Fisk gymnastics.

In a release last Friday, the university noted that “(t)he decision to halt the program comes after a comprehensive review of the gymnastics program and its alignment with the HBCU Athletic Conference (HBUAC). … Currently, gymnastics is not an HBCUAC-sanctioned sport, resulting in considerable challenges for the university to schedule competitions and build a robust recruiting pipeline.”

This past season, Fisk was one of 85 women’s college gymnastics programs in the U.S. The other 84 were at schools where athletics are a part of NCAA Division I (62), Division II (four) or Division III (18). Fisk’s other varsity programs, on the other hand, compete in the NAIA, which has its own set of rules and financial limitations.

Fisk’s 2025 campaign ended at the Women’s Collegiate Gymnastics National Invitation Championship, an event for non-Division I programs, where seven team members earned the right to compete and one, Morgan Price, stole the show. Price won her second individual all-around national championship and then finished first in all four individual events – vault, balance beam, uneven parallel bars and floor exercise — an unprecedented sweep.

Along the way, the GymDogs beat NCAA Division I and Division II opponents, including two D-Is in a single meet. Price scored a perfect 10 on the uneven bars and was ranked among the top 35 in the country, regardless of classification, in the all-around. She and three of her teammates earned first-team All-American recognition.

Ultimately, though, no other HBCU wanted to, or thought it could do what Fisk had done. The first college gymnastics national championship was contested in 1982, and over more than four decades, no HBCU had — or has — its own gymnastics team.

Price was a highly recruited athlete from Texas who had originally committed to the University of Arkansas, where her family had close ties to the gymnastics program. Yet, she changed her mind and chose Fisk, where she immediately became the face of the program.

“Growing up in gymnastics, I rarely had teammates who looked like me,” she said when she enrolled at Fisk. “I wanted to be a part of history and inspire younger girls who want to attend a HBCU as well.”

In 2024, she was named the HBCU Sports Female Athlete of the Year. This year, College Gymnastics News named her its 2025 Women’s College Gymnast of the Year.

Now, however, she will have to inspire others in a different manner. Early last month, Price announced that she planned to transfer out of Fisk for her senior season, and the school wished her well. Eight days later, she officially signed with Arkansas, where she will compete alongside her older sister.

From a talent perspective, replacing Price seems impossible: She is an elite college gymnast who can compete with the best in the sport. To convince another like her to come to Fisk for just one year is improbable, to say the least.

Yet from a roster standpoint, it is imperative. Fisk’s 2025 lineup included five seniors and one grad student, and it’s likely that at least some remaining team members will decide to transfer out, as Price did.

If Fisk can’t field a whole team or something close to it — remember, school officials already have publicly acknowledged the challenges associated with recruiting for the program under normal circumstances — the 2025 season will stand as the last.

“While we are tremendously proud of the history our gymnastics team has made in just three years, we look forward to focusing on our conference-affiliated teams to strengthen our impact in the HBCU Athletic Conference,” Valencia Jordan, Director of Fisk Athletics, said in last week’s release. “Fisk is grateful for the hard work, dedication and tenacity of its gymnasts, staff members, and coaches who made this program possible.”

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HARRISBURG — President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful” budget bill could have a disastrous effect on the health of rural Pennsylvanians and the operations of the hospitals and other medical centers that care for them.

The federal budget proposal, which passed the U.S. House by a one-vote margin in May, calls for nearly $800 billion in Medicaid cuts over the next decade. It also includes a new 80-hour-per-month work or service requirement for Medicaid recipients between the ages of 19 and 64 who aren’t caregivers or who have disabilities. Among other changes, the bill would require verification of coverage eligibility every six months rather than annually.

While supporters of the budget bill argue that it will slow spending and safeguard government programs, critics say the cuts and new requirements will create more paperwork for states and make it harder to access essential care. Opponents also argue the changes would push struggling rural hospitals and other providers to the brink, and force them to scale back services or close entirely.

More than 3 million people in Pennsylvania — 23% — are covered by Medicaid, according to data from the state Department of Human Services, which administers the program. The agency estimates that more than 300,000 would lose Medicaid coverage under the proposal.

Val Arkoosh, secretary of the department, said the bill would not only hurt those losing coverage but “all of us who would face the real-life consequences of crowded emergency departments, increases in the cost of health insurance, and the catastrophic effects on economies and health systems in rural areas.”

More than 737,000 Medicaid recipients live in rural counties, where residents are typically older and more reliant on government-funded insurance programs. Such programs reimburse at lower rates compared to private insurance companies and haven’t kept up with inflation.

Cameron County Commissioner James Moate, a Republican, said the Medicaid reimbursement rate should have never been less than 100%.

“That’s why we have struggling hospitals,” he told Spotlight PA.

On average, Pennsylvania hospitals absorb a loss of 18 cents on the dollar for care provided to Medicaid patients, said Nicole Stallings, president and CEO of the Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania, which represents more than 230 hospitals statewide. In rural communities, the average loss is 26 cents on the dollar, she added in a May statement.

“Medicaid plays a vital role in the health of rural residents, and it is important to preserve this funding so that families can continue to access the care they need for healthier lives,” said Douglas Winner, chief financial officer for Penn Highlands Healthcare, a nonprofit system with nine hospitals in rural counties.

Penn Highlands President and CEO Steve Fontaine has told lawmakers that consolidating with other health systems and expanding into new areas has helped facilities survive. This strategy, which has helped Penn Highlands diversify its patient and insurance bases, is why the system expanded into Centre County, where resident numbers are expected to grow, he told lawmakers last year.

Still, the health system has shuttered services and reported operating losses over the past year.

Winner said Penn Highlands is “greatly concerned” about the proposed Medicaid cuts.

“Rural hospitals have experienced substantial cost increases for labor, drugs, and supplies,” he said in a statement. “Coupled with decreasing volumes, inadequate reimbursement rates, and ongoing staffing shortages — recruitment and retention — we are struggling financially.”

Advocates worry the cuts in the federal budget will force rural hospitals to slash services even more or close altogether. And once facilities end a service or shut down, they rarely reopen, Stallings told Spotlight PA.

Community health centers could also be strained. These facilities, also known as federally qualified health centers, provide services regardless of someone’s ability to pay and primarily see patients who use Medicaid and PENNIE, the state’s Affordable Care Act marketplace.

More uninsured people will likely lead to an increase in uncompensated care, said Eric Kiehl, director of policy and partnership for the Pennsylvania Association of Community Health Centers. And these facilities are already strapped for resources, he told Spotlight PA.

A surge in demand could cause these health centers to shutter core services — such as medical, dental, or behavioral health — reduce hours, or close, Kiehl said.

Pennsylvania’s U.S. House delegation voted along party lines on the federal budget bill, with Republicans supporting and Democrats opposing the proposal.

Medicaid spending totaled roughly $44 billion in fiscal year 2023. The federal government provided almost $28 billion of those dollars.

Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro has said the state won’t be able to make up those dollars to support the Medicaid program. In a statement, Shapiro said he hopes “common sense and a concern for the people of Pennsylvania” will prevail in the U.S. Senate, where Democratic U.S. Sen. John Fetterman and Republican U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick disagree on aspects of the bill.

McCormick did not respond to a request for comment for this story. He has expressed support for the budget bill, which he says will reduce and slow government spending. During a Fox News forum, McCormick said he isn’t advocating for taking benefits from “vulnerable people” but is trying to ensure “people for whom the program was designed” benefit.

Fetterman called the plan “a bad bill,” telling Spotlight PA in a statement: “Republicans want to put more money in the pockets of the ultra-rich at the expense of hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians who will lose access to Medicaid if this disastrous bill is passed.”

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