NIL
NIL is changing college sports; for better or worse?
HUNT VALLEY, Md. (TNND) — It’s been nearly four years since the NCAA enacted a new policy allowing college athletes to profit from their name, image and likeness, and just a few weeks since a federal judge opened the door for college athletic departments to pay athletes directly. Much of the details are still being […]

HUNT VALLEY, Md. (TNND) — It’s been nearly four years since the NCAA enacted a new policy allowing college athletes to profit from their name, image and likeness, and just a few weeks since a federal judge opened the door for college athletic departments to pay athletes directly.
Much of the details are still being worked out in the courts. Key components like roster limits, scholarship limits and payment pools are still up in the air.
As is a governing body to oversee all of these new rules, since most current regulation is a patchwork of state laws, legal settlements and NCAA rules.
But, we are starting to see the impacts of college athletes getting paid – and what it means for the enterprise as a whole.
Depending on who you ask, the historical shift is: long overdue for athletes who’ve spent thousands of hours grinding for their craft; late to the party in terms of global sports; the official death certificate for amateurism and the “student” side of “student-athlete”; or, an inevitable reality that has to run wild before it gets reined in and regulated.
To the league itself, it’s a positive step.
When a judge granted preliminary approval for a framework for schools to pay athletes, NCAA President Charlie Baker said it would “help bring stability and sustainability to college athletics while delivering increased benefits to student athletes for years to come.”
The push for college athletes to get paid spans decades, with legal challenges and legislative efforts dating back to at least the early 2000s. Which is surprising, considering the NCAA has been a multi-million dollar industry for several decades, and a multi-billion dollar industry for about a decade.
That disparity is due to the idea of “amateurism,” a word many experts and analysts use when they cite concerns about completely commercializing college sports. That idea goes back more than a century, to 1800s England, where sports were only for the wealthy, and the working class didn’t want them to be able to pay their way to victory.
“I don’t want to say [amateurism] is going to die, but it will certainly be the commercial aspects that are going to permeate,” said David Hedlund, the chairman of the Division of Sport Management at St. John’s University. “I think we’re going to see and hear less and less about amateurism, and college sports are going to look more like professional sports, or a training ground for professional sports.”
The idea that sports are for enjoyment and the love of the game rather than money is a noble one. And players can love the game and make money off their talents at the same time.
But many experts say amateurism has long been dead; the NCAA was just, for whatever reason, the last organization behind the International Olympic Committee to let it die. It’s part of an effort to keep pace with the rest of the world. Overseas soccer and basketball players are spotted when they’re 12 to 14 years old, and go pro when they turn 18.
“We’re in a global marketplace,” said Matt Winkler, a professor and program director of sports analytics and management at American University. “We sort of have to keep up with the other nations if we want to strive and have those great moments in sports for our Olympic teams and our World Cup teams and so forth.”
Coaches have long been compensated, and universities have long profited off their sports teams.
“The money has always been there. It’s just a lot more front-facing now, I think, than it’s been in the past,” Hedlund said.
Some sports analysts say it was quite front-facing in this year’s NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.
March Madness was devoid of any significant upsets or Cinderella teams. For the first time in five decades, every team that made it to the Sweet 16 came from a power conference, including all four No. 1 seeds and all but one No. 2 seed.
And, every team that made it to the Final Four was a No. 1 seed.
ESPN analyst Stephen Smith said NIL deals and the now no-limits transfer portal are to blame for why mid-major programs didn’t see much success, and top-tier schools prevailed.
“If there was no NIL, if there was no portal and you have the mid-majors go 0-6 in the second round, please, we ain’t sweating that,” Smith said. “But when you’re able to point to rules that have been implemented that ultimately shows itself to have inflicted upon the game itself, that’s dangerous.
“College basketball as we knew it – which, to me, is all about March Madness – will cease to exist. Because there’s no madness.”
Experts say there is a serious question mark about the current state of how much colleges can pay to entice players, and how many times players can be enticed enough to transfer.
But not all believe it has to be the death of March Madness or competition in college sports. After all, there’s still Division 2 and 3 universities.
Richard Paulsen, a sports economist and professor at the University of Michigan, said it’s hard to gauge the impact of NIL deals and the transfer portal on competition. Because while the top ten or so power schools may be able to offer the most money to the elite players, there’s still a lot of talent out there.
“The top schools have an advantage in getting the A-level talent, but some of the players that might have sat on the bench at a top school previously could be enticed away with NIL money coming from a second tier school,” Paulsen said. “So I think the impact on competitive balance is maybe a little bit less clear.”
Paulsen says, as a professor, he is worried about the impact NIL deals – particularly million-dollar ones – can have on the students themselves, some 18, 19, 20 years old. It raises the question, does a teenager or young adult need this much money?
Shedeur Sanders is 23 years old, and his NIL valuation at the University of Colorado was roughly $6.5 million. Granted, he’s the son of NFL Hall of Famer and head coach for Colorado Deion Sanders.
But, his 2024 stats were top five in completion percentage, passing touchdowns and yards. Several analysts had him as the top prospect in the 2025 NFL draft, but he slid down to the fifth round, shocking much of the sports world.
Various reports place blame on other reasons – maybe he took more sacks than he should have, maybe NFL executives see traits we can’t see, maybe he bombed interviews with the managers, maybe it had to do with his Hall of Famer dad. And he certainly wouldn’t be the first prospect to get picked later than expected and prove all the teams that passed over him wrong.
But, he’s also losing money by going pro. The iced out, custom “Legendary” chain he wore on Draft Day reportedly cost $1 million.
“It is at least worth noting that five years ago, he wouldn’t have had the online presence that he had, and that could have turned off some NFL teams,” Paulsen said. “Without being in the rooms, I don’t know if it did, but that is possible, and it’s not something that would have been possible even five years ago.”
It begs the question, is it even worth going pro for these top-tier college athletes with insane NIL deals?
In the NBA, new data shows it may not be. The league announced last week just 106 players declared early for the 2025 draft. It’s the fewest since 2015. The number typically hovers around 300.
The drop in early entrants could be lingering effects of the extra COVID year.
But, next year, ten schools will pay their rosters somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 million, including several million dollars per top player. That’s far more than the players would make if they were a second-round draft pick in the NBA.
Winkler said the combination of competitive rosters and the scope of these NIL deals has more to do with this drop in early declarations.
“These deals are getting so big that unless you’re going to be a first round draft choice, maybe if you’re going to be kind of a lottery pick or a top 10, 15 pick, it would be better for you to exhaust your eligibility on a major team, because you’re going to make more,” he said.
So, it might be financially advantageous for athletes to wait on the pros. Some announcers were even suggesting Sanders should go back to college if the NFL didn’t deem him ready for the show. (NCAA rules prohibit him from doing so anyway; he declared for the draft and signed with an agent).
But what about the fact that these players, who become millionaires, are still students?
Schools are working to provide resources for these athletes so they can get advice on what to do with their wealth, so that they don’t spend it irresponsibly. Which is not to assume all of them would; it goes without saying this money could greatly benefit an athlete who grew up in poverty and change the trajectory for his/her family.
But Paulsen says he worries about the “student” side of “student-athlete” when we start talking about millions upon millions of dollars and students transferring to whichever school offers them the most. Sometimes credits don’t transfer; sometimes players could feel pressure to fulfill their NIL commitments over their studies, when the stakes are that high.
At a young age, these players are under an unprecedented amount of pressure, from their coach, from their family, from their financial adviser, from social media, from broadcast exposure, from stakeholders, from the tens of millions of people who can now legally bet on them.
“Players should be able to leave bad situations, absolutely, and I certainly support players’ autonomy and chasing financial benefit from their athletic talents,” Paulsen said. “But if we’re going to call them student athletes, we should have some emphasis on the student part of that too. Some of these rules that are helping the athlete are hurting the student.”
One of those rules, he says, is the transfer portal. But in addition to harming the students’ academic careers, experts say this also takes a toll on teams and fans of those teams.
Take Nico Iamaleava for example. The star quarterback abruptly parted ways with Tennessee over an alleged compensation dispute with the school’s collective. He demanded an NIL readjustment to $4 million to keep playing for the Vols, and when they said no, he transferred to UCLA, though it’s unclear if they met his demands.
The exit shocked his teammates in Knoxville, with one of his receivers and defensive backs, Boo Carter, telling reporters, “He left his brothers behind.”
But the new pay-to-play system does also beg the question of school loyalty, not just for the players, but the fans too.
Paulsen says roster continuity, players spending all four years playing for one team, has been an endearing feature of sports like women’s college basketball, when you look at the legacies, for example, Caitlin Clark built at the University of Iowa, or Paige Bueckers at the University of Connecticut.
“I do think there’s definitely some extent to which all this player movement can have negative consequences,” he said.
But, some experts doubt fans of teams need to see the same or similar team year to year.
After all, this past NCAA Men’s March Madness Championship between Florida and Houston – the one ESPN’s Smith said featured no madness at all – scored 18.1 million viewers on CBS. That’s up 22% from last year’s championship, and the biggest audience since 2019.
The Final Four games, featuring all No. 1 seeds, ranked as the most-watched games in eight years.
In other words, so far, so good when it comes to college sports fandom.
One thing broadly agreed upon among experts is that competition must remain intact. The Florida-Houston matchup was a nailbiter.
“The biggest thing that would kill sports is if there is no competitive balance,” Hedlund said. “It is known when you have a really great team being a not-so-great team, if the great team probably will win, people don’t want to watch.”
People still appear to be watching. If they stop, one could assume the NCAA would change its course, or it’d be out of all its money too.
Plus, these experts expect regulation soon – possible measures like transfer restrictions, collectively bargained salary caps, conference realignment to avoid concentration, turning athletic departments into LLCs, putting degree completion into bylaws and evening out the number of roster spots, among other rules.
Experts say: be patient, wait for the legal fights to run their course, and wait for the brightest minds in sports – and Congress – to come up with a solution that pleases the players, teams, coaches, schools and fans.
“This is fundamental to the success of sports, so we just need to figure out what rules, what regulations, what governing bodies, how do we facilitate this?” Hedlund said. “We don’t want to ruin sports. That’s what’s at stake here.”
Winkler says it all comes down to the most “hardcore” stakeholders: fans and alumni. If the SEC and Big 10 just ganged up and created their own Premier League and college sports turned into checkbook sports, it could threaten that school pride.
“This year, we definitely saw cracks in the system,” Winkler said. “If the best athletes just go to the top, are [fans] rooting for an inferior product? Are they still going to have that affinity for their school, their team, their degrees, and people that are doing it? This is really going to test that.
“[Schools] have two key pressure points: keep getting a lot of money from TV so you can fund your athletic department, and keep alumni, fans and donors still feeling as engagedThere’s a lot to be worked out in the next several months and probably the next year to really get a boiler plate idea of what the rules and regulations need to be.”
NIL
Mack Brown calls for College Football to make massive changes toward the NFL model
The past few years have brought massive changes to the world of College Football as the landscape continues to shift. NIL and the Transfer Portal were the first dominos to fall as it allowed players to get paid which then brought a form of free agency as players would enter the transfer portal seeking the […]

The past few years have brought massive changes to the world of College Football as the landscape continues to shift. NIL and the Transfer Portal were the first dominos to fall as it allowed players to get paid which then brought a form of free agency as players would enter the transfer portal seeking the next big deal.
On Friday, Judge Claudia Wilken finally approved the NCAA House Settlement which brings even more changes to College sports. Colleges can now pay their players directly through revenue sharing, a clearinghouse now has to approve NIL deals over $600, and roster limits will soon be enforced.
All of the chaos and changes in College Football have been difficult to keep up with and the latest set of changes won’t be the last changes we see in the years to come as College Football seeks a set format.
As the sport continues to change, legendary Head Coach Mack Brown appeared on “See Ball Get Ball with David Pollack” where he pitched several massive changes to College Football.
Mack Brown calls for the NCAA to adopt the NFL Model
On the show, Mack Brown gave his suggestions for where College Football should head next suggesting that a model similar to the NFL’s may be the best route. The idea that Mack Brown likes the most from the NFL is the salary cap which he feels should come into effect in College Football.
“I think we should have a salary cap period, and we should definitely have a rookie salary cap. Coaches are calling around anyway and saying, ‘What’s the going rate for a quarterback, a great quarterback,’ so we’re kind of doing that anyway. But if the NFL can do it, then why can’t college do it? And it would be better for the players, it’d be better for the families”
Mack Brown
Mack Brown later went on to talk about how a decision that once was made to benefit the rest of your life was being made to instead benefit the most in the short term which will likely hurt the players down the line.
“We always said it’s a 40 year decision. It’s not four. Well, the last few years, it’s been a one year decision. It’s been a six month decision.”
Mack Brown
The idea of a salary cap in College Football would be the best approach to ensuring that every program is on a level playing field. As things currently stand, programs can take an approach like Texas Tech has taken spending more than most programs could ever imagine in a single year to build a roster.
Where a salary cap may not work in College Football is with some of the issues we’ve seen before the NIL era even began. It’s always been discussed that players have gotten paid under the table and if a salary cap came into place, it could once again bring back that dark area of the sport that is impossible to police.
The current model of College Football is certainly broken in some ways but, there also needs to be some time to get better insights into what the effects have been. Revenue sharing could prove to be a great solution to the issues and it comes with a salary cap in a way as programs have a limit on how much can be distributed to the athletes.
We’re far from the end when it comes to changes to the sport but, with the House Settlement approved, College Football could finally be reaching a moment where the entire landscape isn’t being changed.
More College Football News:
NIL
Logan Storley believes NIL money could affect how many collegiate wrestlers go to MMA: ‘It has changed a lot’
One of the early shifts in mixed martial arts came when dominant American wrestlers entered the game, nullifying strikers and often being able to smother jiu jitsu specialists with their size, strength and dominant top games. Former interim Bellator welterweight champion and current PFL contender Logan Storley believes MMA’s future will see far fewer wrestlers […]

One of the early shifts in mixed martial arts came when dominant American wrestlers entered the game, nullifying strikers and often being able to smother jiu jitsu specialists with their size, strength and dominant top games. Former interim Bellator welterweight champion and current PFL contender Logan Storley believes MMA’s future will see far fewer wrestlers make the transition to the sport thanks to name, image and likeness (NIL) deals at the collegiate level.
The ability of college athletes to make significant money through NIL deals has caused a massive shift in how sports operate at the university level. While splashy deals around “revenue sports” such as basketball and football, oft-overlooked sports have seen an influx of cash for athletes.
Take, for example, NiJaree Canady, the softball player who transferred to Texas Tech and signed a $1 million NIL deal (she just signed a second such deal for next season). Texas Tech made the investment into their program and it paid off with a run to the finals of the Women’s College World Series.
With programs expanding their push for championships to “non-revenue sports” through NILs for elite athletes, Storley — himself a four-time NCAA Division I All-American for the Minnesota Golden Gophers — thinks college careers could be enough for wrestlers to avoid moving to a high-risk career in MMA.
“Right now we’re in a weird time with MMA with NIL money coming in and we’re not seeing as many wrestlers come over,” Storley told MMA Fighting. “NIL has changed a lot. Guys are getting paid a lot of money. So we haven’t seen a ton of wrestlers come over. … Some of these guys are making a million, $1.5 million-with your top recruits, do you come fight after that?”
UFC Pound-for-Pound Fighter Rankings: Merab Dvalishvili closing in on top spot; Kayla Harrison moves up
Brian Campbell

MMA has never been a guaranteed path to financial security, even if you prove to be a very good fighter, and that has not changed in the current landscape.
Building yourself up on the regional scene to get experience means small purses while also paying to train, and the better the training, the higher the cost.
With the UFC as the end goal for most fighters, with the most prestige and the highest potential pay, most fighters now come into the UFC through competing on Dana White’s Contender Series (DWCS). Impress enough on DWCS and you’ll be offered a UFC contract which pays $10,000 to fight, with a $10,000 win bonus. Assuming three fights per year, all victories, that’s $60,000 annually. And that’s before taxes, fees paid to managers and coaches, specialized diets, basic training costs and gear. Oh and then whatever is left you get to live off of.
Two-time former GLORY light heavyweight kickboxing champion Artem Vakhitov split a pair of kickboxing fights with former UFC middleweight and light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira and earned a contract on DWCS with the hopes of meeting Pereira in a big-money UFC clash in the near future.
Vakhitov then walked away from the UFC contract when UFC officials were not willing to budge on their entry-level contracts, even for a fighter with a built in rivalry with one of their biggest fighters that could be used to sell tickets and pay-per-views.
Secondary promotions have also continued to fall under the UFC’s dominance. Pride, EliteXC, Strikeforce, Bellator, and so on, have all folded over the years, with just PFL and ONE standing as potentially valid places for a top athlete to ply their trade outside of the UFC’s Octagon. And PFL purchased Bellator before not using many of the top athletes that came with the deal, releasing many of them with one, or even zero, PFL fights.
“I think the landscape of MMA has changed,” Storley, who fights in the 2025 PFL welterweight tournament semifinals on Thursday, said. “With Contender Series and less guys on the roster with PFL, Bellator’s gone, it’s changed a little bit. Wrestling has some money, and there’s no security in your early career in MMA. That’s just the truth of it. The first few years are very, very tough, and I think with guys making money over there and going into coaching and coaching roles, you have a little more security.”
NIL
Can women’s basketball teams catch up to UConn or South Carolina in a changing era?
For decades, women’s basketball was dominated almost exclusively by UConn and Tennessee, and then, for many years, only UConn’s dynasty thrived. In recent years, other contenders have emerged periodically, but none have challenged the crown quite as well as South Carolina. Until this past season, the Gamecocks and Dawn Staley had arguably taken the mantle […]

For decades, women’s basketball was dominated almost exclusively by UConn and Tennessee, and then, for many years, only UConn’s dynasty thrived.
In recent years, other contenders have emerged periodically, but none have challenged the crown quite as well as South Carolina.
Until this past season, the Gamecocks and Dawn Staley had arguably taken the mantle from the Huskies and Geno Auriemma. Then, UConn returned to the top of the ladder and cut down the nets for the 12th time in program history, keeping this rivalry and battle for the top of the sport in flux.
Slice it anyway, though, and it’s obvious: No. 1 might be up for grabs, but it’s these two heavyweights that everyone is chasing. NIL, the transfer portal and the recent House v. NCAA settlement, which established revenue sharing in college sports, have upended the landscape. However, due to their rich traditions and coaching acumen, UConn and South Carolina have remained mostly unscathed by the upheaval — and even benefited from it.
The Gamecocks and Huskies signed two of the most highly pursued portal players, as Ta’Niya Latson, the nation’s leading scorer, left Florida State for South Carolina, and Serah Williams, arguably the best big in the portal, left Wisconsin to choose UConn.
This leaves every other coach in the nation strategizing and wondering what it will take to truly and consistently usurp perennial powerhouses UConn and South Carolina on the recruiting trail, the hardwood, or in March. Like much of the rest of big-money NCAA sports, women’s basketball coaches are no longer prioritizing only building four-year players but winning with transfers who can be lured with lucrative NIL promises.
As complicated as the modern era of college athletics has become — a record 1,450 Division I players entered the transfer portal after last season — coaches understand they must work within the confines of this new system, which involves the portal acting as a faster on-ramp for roster building. NIL and revenue share are becoming additional incentives for players to consider other programs if they want to succeed.
Fourteen power conference coaches interviewed by The Athletic said they’ve completely altered how they build rosters, recruit and develop talent.
“Coaches are questioning, obviously: Is it even worth it to be in this business? What are we doing? What are we doing if we can’t build a program and you’re starting from scratch every year to build a team without any rules around it?” one power conference coach said. “What are we doing? And why are we doing it?”
(Coaches were granted anonymity to speak freely about their recruiting habits, NIL and the overall climate of the sport.)
“I have to change. I have to pivot and plan for 50 percent attrition,” another power conference coach added. “Time will tell if you can build a program (in this era). If I can’t build a program, I’m not going to be doing it very long.”
Playing time, star roles and scholarships are no longer enough for coaches to retain players. Notable star players like Latson, Olivia Miles (Notre Dame to TCU) and Cotie McMahon (Ohio State to Ole Miss) switched programs.
They were among roughly 300 power conference players who transferred this offseason — an average of about four players per power conference team. More than 20 percent of the transfer pool had already changed schools at least once. Among the 40 returning starters off Sweet 16 rosters, 10 transferred.
Many coaches said this season’s top portal players signed deals of upward of $700,000, and some unheralded underclassmen, due to their longer eligibility, were seeking deals of $ 300,000 or more. By comparison, the WNBA supermax this season is less than $250,000, with only four players receiving it.
Meanwhile, less than a quarter of the league makes $200,000 or more. Yet, at the college level with limited post players in the portal, many coaches said programs needed to offer a premium of that kind to sign even a marginal big.
“If you were a post player in the portal a month ago and you averaged three points a game at the Power 4, most of them were asking for $200,000 plus,” one power conference coach said. “And you’re like, ‘You averaged 2.5 points per game.’ ”
Even highly successful programs are learning they might need to reset expectations after every season, given the uncertainty of attrition and what those defections mean for their own needs from the portal.
Look no further than UCLA. The Bruins appeared in their first Final Four of the modern era and, in a previous era of the sport, would have been considered a prime contender in the 2025-26 season due to the experience returning players gained. Yet, after the Bruins’ successful run, the entire freshman class, as well as Londynn Jones, a 31-game starter, and Janiah Barker, the Big Ten’s Sixth Player of the Year, decided to transfer.
It means UCLA coach Cori Close will be starting essentially from scratch after this core’s graduation, rather than steadily building a program, with backups becoming role players and then starters, that is capable of taking down UConn or South Carolina in the Final Four.
Notre Dame was ranked No. 1 during the season, and despite a late collapse, seemed poised for a strong upcoming season. But after the Irish lost Miles to TCU, freshman key contributor Kate Koval to LSU and two other players, they dropped out of The Athletic’s post-transfer top 25. USC seemingly has prime minutes up for grabs after losing star JuJu Watkins to an ACL tear. Still, Kayleigh Heckle and Avery Howell, two freshmen who figured to be centerpieces next season, entered the transfer portal.
“You had to think about sitting out a year, you had to think about the perception,” one power conference coach said about previous transfer implications. “Now it’s just normalized. If you lost two or three kids in a year, it used to be like, ‘Oh my gosh, what’s wrong at that school?’ And that’s just not the notion anymore.”
Some coaches likened the roster turnover to coaching at the junior college level.
“If I can keep the kid for two years,” one said, “I feel like I’ve won the lottery.”
Although most coaches are frustrated with the lack of oversight and guardrails in place from the NCAA over the past few seasons, they understand that it’s also a shifting reality for them. In this era of limited regulation and hazy guidance, coaches and universities that are quick to adapt have had the upper hand, whether that means getting their collectives more involved (generally seen as acceptable among all coaches) or tampering with athletes (seen as illegal, but not currently regulated as such).
Now, with the settlement finalized over the weekend, actual regulation is taking effect.
As of last Saturday, college athletes were required to report NIL deals worth more than $600 to the newly established College Sports Commission for approval. On July 1, universities can begin making revenue share payments to athletes. The impact of these regulations on athletes’ deals is currently unknown. Still, the NCAA has been clear that the NIL-specific regulation is intended to protect athletes from false deals, not to hinder their earning power.
However, because the settlement had been pushed back — a decision was expected two months ago — universities and collectives were able to front-load deals, which created an arms race across conferences, which drove up the total “cost” of rosters.
The Athletic asked 12 coaches what they expect it would cost, between revenue share and NIL, to build a roster that could contend for their respective conference title. Multiple Big Ten and SEC coaches estimated the cost between $2.5 million and $3.5 million. Multiple ACC and Big 12 coaches said that building a championship roster costs between $1.5 million and $2.5 million. Most of those numbers exceed even the WNBA’s team salary cap of just under $1.51 million.
However, this number is a moving target. With impending legislation, coaches are uncertain about how it may change in the coming seasons, particularly with the establishment of revenue sharing and the creation of the College Sports Commission.
Coaches said that while the leverage has shifted almost entirely to players, there are no safeguards in place for the programs or the collectives that act on their behalf. This movement leaves many coaches working on a year-to-year basis, unsure of what their rosters will look like or how much money they will have to fill potential holes.
“In true professional sports, I know I have this player under contract for four years and I can prepare for that player to go into free agency, or I know I have $200,000 coming off the books ahead of next year. Here, it’s free agency every single year, and the tampering is out of control,” one coach said. “So, please tell me how I do this. Tell me how to manage a roster when we don’t know the rules.”
Regulation around NIL, collectives and revenue share could provide some stability, but even so, coaches expect both tampering and transfer numbers to remain high every season.
From the 2020 high school recruiting class, 17 of the top 25 (and seven of the top 10) players transferred before the end of their college careers, including Angel Reese, Kamilla Cardoso and Hailey Van Lith. In the 2021 class, 13 of the top 25 players transferred, and 18 of the top 25 players in the 2022 class, now rising seniors, transferred.
This attrition has had a ripple effect on how college coaches prioritize high school recruiting. Many staff chose not to send multiple (or any) coaches on the road this offseason for the first high school recruiting evaluation period, valuing hosting immediate impact players over seeing talent who wouldn’t be on campus for a few years.
That signals a significant shift in the overall recruiting philosophy. Five years ago, the lifeblood of almost every program was high school recruiting. Now, the portal offers another option. Multiple coaches said that their focus on high school recruits has decreased from 95-100 percent of their recruiting efforts to somewhere between 50-70 percent. Nearly 80 power conference freshmen transferred this offseason, so coaches also realize that bringing in a freshman doesn’t necessarily mean stability.
As coaches prepare for summer workouts before the 2025-26 season and make plans to attend high school recruiting events, they recognize that their priorities might look different a year from now. Regulations from the House settlement could remove some of the challenges of the past few seasons. Still, coaches will have to navigate a landscape that once seemed unimaginable in college sports.
However, one challenge remains the same: UConn and South Carolina are the hunted.
“The job is just different now,” one coach said. “You just have to make up your mind if you want to deal with the other stuff.”
(Illustration: Demetrius Robinson / The Athletic; top photos: Joe Buglewicz, Eakin Howard, Jonathan Daniel / Getty Images)
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Martin Named First Team All-Region by ABCA/Rawlings
MANHATTAN, Kan. – Kansas State junior Maximus Martin received First Team All-Central Region recognition Tuesday, as the American Baseball Coaches Association revealed the 2025 ABCA/Rawlings All-Region teams. Martin is one of seven players from the Big 12 Conference named to the All-Central Region First Team, a region compiled of 37 schools. First Team All-Region […]

Martin is one of seven players from the Big 12 Conference named to the All-Central Region First Team, a region compiled of 37 schools. First Team All-Region selections are eligible for ABCA/Rawlings All-America honors, which will be announced Friday, June 13 prior to the start of the 2025 NCAA Division I College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska.
A native of Edgewater Park, New Jersey, Martin is the fifth player in the Pete Hughes era to garner All-Region honors, joining MLB Draft picks Zach Kokoska (2021) and Tyson Neighbors (2023), and first-rounders Jordan Wicks (2021) and Kaelen Culpepper (2024).
In his first season at K-State, the Second Team All-Big 12 selection produced a slash line of .320/.420/.612, compiling 18 doubles and 14 home runs – tied fourth in the single-season records. Martin was one of the league’s top offensive performers, finishing the regular-season in the top-10 in three categories.
Martin, who garnered both Big 12 Player and Newcomer of the Week honors, turned in a team-leading 18 games with two or more hits, while he was second with 15 multi-RBI games.
On March 10, he became the first Wildcat in school history to be named the Golden Spikes Player of the Week after he registered incredible 2.714 OPS with five home runs and 12 RBI in the Wildcats series sweep of William & Mary.
K-State ended its 2025 campaign with a 32-26 overall record, including a record-breaking 17 conference wins to earn its second straight trip to the NCAA Tournament.
NIL
Logan Storley believes NIL money could affect how many collegiate wrestlers go to MMA
One of the early shifts in mixed martial arts came when dominant American wrestlers entered the game, nullifying strikers and often being able to smother jiu jitsu specialists with their size, strength and dominant top games. Former interim Bellator welterweight champion and current PFL contender Logan Storley believes MMA’s future will see far fewer wrestlers […]

One of the early shifts in mixed martial arts came when dominant American wrestlers entered the game, nullifying strikers and often being able to smother jiu jitsu specialists with their size, strength and dominant top games. Former interim Bellator welterweight champion and current PFL contender Logan Storley believes MMA’s future will see far fewer wrestlers make the transition to the sport thanks to name, image and likeness (NIL) deals at the collegiate level.
The ability of college athletes to make significant money through NIL deals has caused a massive shift in how sports operate at the university level. While splashy deals around “revenue sports” such as basketball and football, oft-overlooked sports have seen an influx of cash for athletes.
Take, for example, NiJaree Canady, the softball player who transferred to Texas Tech and signed a $1 million NIL deal (she just signed a second such deal for next season). Texas Tech made the investment into their program and it paid off with a run to the finals of the Women’s College World Series.
With programs expanding their push for championships to “non-revenue sports” through NILs for elite athletes, Storley — himself a four-time NCAA Division I All-American for the Minnesota Golden Gophers — thinks college careers could be enough for wrestlers to avoid moving to a high-risk career in MMA.
“Right now we’re in a weird time with MMA with NIL money coming in and we’re not seeing as many wrestlers come over,” Storley told MMA Fighting. “NIL has changed a lot. Guys are getting paid a lot of money. So we haven’t seen a ton of wrestlers come over. … Some of these guys are making a million, $1.5 million-with your top recruits, do you come fight after that?”
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Brian Campbell
MMA has never been a guaranteed path to financial security, even if you prove to be a very good fighter, and that has not changed in the current landscape.
Building yourself up on the regional scene to get experience means small purses while also paying to train, and the better the training, the higher the cost.
With the UFC as the end goal for most fighters, with the most prestige and the highest potential pay, most fighters now come into the UFC through competing on Dana White’s Contender Series (DWCS). Impress enough on DWCS and you’ll be offered a UFC contract which pays $10,000 to fight, with a $10,000 win bonus. Assuming three fights per year, all victories, that’s $60,000 annually. And that’s before taxes, fees paid to managers and coaches, specialized diets, basic training costs and gear. Oh and then whatever is left you get to live off of.
Two-time former GLORY light heavyweight kickboxing champion Artem Vakhitov split a pair of kickboxing fights with former UFC middleweight and light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira and earned a contract on DWCS with the hopes of meeting Pereira in a big-money UFC clash in the near future.
Vakhitov then walked away from the UFC contract when UFC officials were not willing to budge on their entry-level contracts, even for a fighter with a built in rivalry with one of their biggest fighters that could be used to sell tickets and pay-per-views.
Secondary promotions have also continued to fall under the UFC’s dominance. Pride, EliteXC, Strikeforce, Bellator, and so on, have all folded over the years, with just PFL and ONE standing as potentially valid places for a top athlete to ply their trade outside of the UFC’s Octagon. And PFL purchased Bellator before not using many of the top athletes that came with the deal, releasing many of them with one, or even zero, PFL fights.
“I think the landscape of MMA has changed,” Storley, who fights in the 2025 PFL welterweight tournament semifinals on Thursday, said. “With Contender Series and less guys on the roster with PFL, Bellator’s gone, it’s changed a little bit. Wrestling has some money, and there’s no security in your early career in MMA. That’s just the truth of it. The first few years are very, very tough, and I think with guys making money over there and going into coaching and coaching roles, you have a little more security.”
NIL
UW Athletics shifts NIL responsibilities to in-house Dawgs Unleashed
Montlake Futures, UW’s official third-party NIL collective, will begin relinquishing its responsibilities to Dawgs Unleashed, UW’s internal NIL division, following the House settlement. (From @anyamashita) https://t.co/XYH1e9ZITV — Seattle Times Sports (@SeaTimesSports) June 9, 2025 The ironic twist to the House v. NCAA settlement agreement is now, starting on July 1, everything Name, Image, and Likeness related […]

The ironic twist to the House v. NCAA settlement agreement is now, starting on July 1, everything Name, Image, and Likeness related when it comes to athletics, will be in-house for the University of Washington.
Through Dawgs Unleashed — founded in October 2024 to serve as UW’s internal NIL operations — will now be the go-to for fans and the university alike when it comes to contributing to the ever-evolving arms race in the world of intercollegiate athletics — most of which is centered around the cash cow that is college football.
According to the Seattle Times, who spoke with Montlake Futures’ executive director Andrew Minear — the previous official third-party collective used by UW student-athletes since NIL came into existence legitimately in July 2021 — on Monday, there is a changing of the guard for the better.
“We feel pretty good about what we did. We’re just going to continue to encourage our donors and fans to love Husky athletics and support them the best they can so we can continue to be dominant in all of our sports,” Minear told Andy Yamashita.
With the school moving its NIL operations in-house it will allow athletes to use UW branded merchandise and smoothen out other red-tape factors that Montlake Futures and other NIL entities didn’t have the ability or capacity to facilitate, especially with a reported $20.5 million figure floated for each athletic department to allocate throughout football, men’s and women’s basketball and other sports programs.
Joe Kelly, who previously served as the head of major gifts for UW, is leading the charge for Dawgs Unleashed, which should also help assist major companies create NIL partnerships with athletes who dawn purple and gold, with Amazon, Alaska Airlines, Boeing, Costco and dozens of other major businesses within the city that could separate the Huskies from most other college football programs that don’t have a major metropolitan city near campus.
As part of the House v. NCAA $2.8 billion settlement reached last week, previously agreed to deals through entities like Montlake Futures, won’t be subject to the same scrutiny as new deals signed after July 1, which was a significant factor for many spring and winter portal transfers to frontload deals with agents knowing the settlement was expected to come before the start of the 2025 season
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