The order follows a landmark settlement in June between the NCAA, the nation’s largest sports conferences, and lawyers representing all Division I athletes that, for the first time, permits schools to pay student-athletes directly. The ruling in Grant House and Sedona Prince v. National Collegiate Athletic Association is the next major break from the old system that began in 2021 with the allowance that college athletes could receive compensation for their name, image, and likeness, colloquially known as NIL deals.

As ESPN’s Dan Murphy explains, since 2021, “college athletes have been allowed to make money from third parties via name, image and likeness deals. Boosters quickly organized groups called collectives that used NIL money as de facto salaries for their teams, in some cases paying millions of dollars mostly to top-rated basketball and football players. Now, that money will come straight from the athletic departments.” The settlement ended three separate federal antitrust lawsuits, which argued, correctly, in my opinion, that the NCAA was illegally limiting the earning power of college athletes. Furthermore, “The NCAA will pay nearly $2.8 billion in back damages over the next 10 years to athletes who competed in college at any time from 2016 through present day. Moving forward, each school can pay its athletes up to a certain limit. The annual cap is expected to start at roughly $20.5 million per school in 2025-26 and increase every year during the decade-long deal. These new payments are in addition to scholarships and other benefits the athletes already receive.”

In addition, the settlement stipulated that beginning July 1, any endorsement deal between athletes and third-party vendors and boosters will be vetted by the recently formed College Sports Commission to determine if it is for a “valid business purpose.” It is into this morass that Trump’s “Saving College Sports” order waded less than a month later.

The order touches on several key areas that are worth going over, not to find clarity — there is none, nor shall there be for the foreseeable future, unfortunately — but to better comprehend the thorniest briars at play in the landscape of college sports and to determine what direction Congress and other executive agencies might go in the future.

In perhaps its most confusing section, the order prohibits “third-party, pay-for-play payments to collegiate athletes.” According to its fact sheet, “This does not apply to legitimate, fair-market-value compensation that a third party provides to an athlete, such as for a brand endorsement.” Crucially, pay-for-play payments are already barred under NCAA rules and have been since the NIL allowances were put in place. For example, a Texas oil billionaire can’t give his alma mater’s star wide receiver $1 million simply because he’s a very good wide receiver who plays for his team. Instead, what we have is what was explained above, endorsement deals by third-party vendors or boosters to pay players for their name, image, or likeness. This hypothetical Texas booster cannot pay for on-the-field performance, but Pete’s Tires And Also Oil could pay that same player for appearances at their store or in their commercials. This is, of course, the same thing with just more steps, and the order offers no clarity or differentiation from the status quo. Indeed, it does not aid in the definition of terms or delineation of what is a legitimate business purpose as required by the College Sports Commission and the House v. NCAA settlement. This is one of the major litigation and regulation hurdles for college sports, determining where these lines are.

As the great Andy Staples points out, this commission enforcement arm has already had to retract some of its rulings dictating which third-party payment businesses were considered legitimate. It originally barred businesses charging for the opportunity to meet players, but it was forced to revoke that stricture once players’ lawyers argued that it is, quite obviously, a legitimate business model in any other context, such as the service Cameo or any number of celebrity meet-and-greet models.

There remains a further lack of clarity, as well, whether these collectives are viewed as an arm of the schools or if they stand alone as third-party actors or somewhere in between. This is particularly important as it pertains to the $20.5 million revenue-share cap imposed by the House ruling: If collectives are beneath the school umbrella, what amount are they permitted to funnel to specific sports, and through what method? If they remain outside, then any direct-to-athlete or direct-to-recruit endorsement payments continue to elide that cap, as is the case now, with countless headline-grabbing million-dollar payouts to star transfers.

Speaking of million-dollar payouts to star players, the order also includes the frankly baffling concept of monitoring a “fair-market value” for these payments. Firstly, what is fair-market value? Excepting bumbling governmental intervention, fair-market value is simply what people will pay. As Jake Crain of the Crain & Company show put it, this idea is “frankly un-American.” Furthermore, the idea of the College Sports Commission being tasked with this adjudication is laughable. The notion that, whether by algorithm or convention, they must determine every single payment over $600 to a student athlete to ensure it is not only for “a valid business purpose” but that it also meets some nebulous concept of “fair-market value.” Are deals weighted by geography and regional capital? Are positions — quarterback, running back, shooting guard, libero, coxswain — all weighted differently in compensation allowances? What about brand name, conference pedigree, or team quality? Arch Manning, Texas’s star quarterback of Manning family fame, undoubtedly has a higher Q Score than Taylen Green, my quarterback at the University of Arkansas. Manning has also won fewer games than Green, but he plays on a better team. One is reportedly receiving more than $6 million in NIL deals, the other only around $2 million. Is this difference representative of the fair-market value range? Is it “fair” that one receives three times the other while both receive 10-15 times more than offensive linemen on their teams? Who knows? Definitely not the government, I can tell you that, and probably not the College Sports Commission either.

On one of the thorniest issues for college sports, the executive order punts. And wisely so, I might add. “The Order directs the Secretary of Labor and the National Labor Relations Board to clarify the status of student-athletes in order to preserve non-revenue sports and the irreplaceable educational and developmental opportunities that college sports provide.” This direction is regarding whether student athletes should be legally, financially, and contractually considered as employees, contractors, the vaguely defined “amateurs,” or some fourth thing somewhere in between.

Calling student athletes “amateurs” was the NCAA’s decadeslong dead horse it’d lovingly trot out to beat any time it would receive correct pushback about not paying players any portion of the billions of dollars its collective efforts garnered every year. It still holds sway among many fans and lawmakers, and it is fairly clear — if not from the order, then from Trump, Saban, and the brain trust around his college sports policy team — this part of the order wishes the NLRB to define athletes’ status closer to the amateur designation than employee one. Nevertheless, not attempting to unilaterally define what is one of the crux issues at play in how and how much athletes are compensated is a wise decision from Trump and his team, as whatever answer we arrive at eventually will be one undoubtedly won in a courtroom.

The order also notes, but does not address in any detail, several additional considerations that often are overlooked in conversations about college football and basketball NIL deals and television rights. These include “the preservation and, where possible, expansion of opportunities for scholarships and collegiate athletic competition in women’s and non-revenue sports” and a directive to the “Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy and the Director of the White House Office of Public Liaison to consult with the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Teams and other organizations to protect the role of college athletics in developing world-class American athletes.” There is a real fear, and potential, unfortunately, that the increased domination of the two major college sports and the coalescing of all major Division I schools into “super conferences” will crowd out the funding, considerations, and attention of other sports such as track, hockey, gymnastics, swimming, volleyball, and so on. This also relates to the development of U.S. Olympic athletes, the vast majority of whom participate in collegiate athletics.

While offering, quite bluntly, very little new to the conversation, the executive order at least makes clear the Trump administration’s priorities — largely aimed at preserving what remains of the old college sports status quo while providing regulated allowances to paying student athletes. As I have made clear, I have both functional and intellectual qualms with the design of some of these priorities.

But I want to acknowledge that I do agree with the purpose of them. Trump, Saban, and company are correct that the current system is untenable and could rupture into something unrecognizable from the college sports landscape that we all grew up with and fans such as myself have loved, pain and all, for as long as I can remember. Paying players is right and good, and much of this will, when the dust settles, shake out into something I expect to be far better than the worst-case scenario. But that reality does require some messy policy making and court battles: managerial due diligence that the NCAA and its feckless nanny-staters and hangers-on simply ran away from when they opened the doors to the wild west back in 2021 without a plan. Indeed, it’s quite clear their plan was Pontius Pilate’s: wash their hands of the whole enterprise and leave it to the government.

TRUMP SHOULD BREAK THE COLLEGE PIPELINE

As Trump’s order notes, there are 30 different state-level NIL laws and countless lawsuits working their way through various courts. Things are, in a word, messy, and will remain so for the time being until a more cohesive way forward is made. Congress is trying its hand with various salves, the most prominent college sports bill being the bipartisan SCORE Act. Sadly, it’s not a very good bill and is likely to face heavy resistance in the Senate — it is already being opposed by several states’ attorneys general, led by Tennessee’s Jonathan Skrmetti.

That’s not to say the sky is falling, though. The tumult of NIL and conference realignment will continue for some time before settling, but the sports themselves will stay at least as long as the television deals and generational rivalries do. Once we get some decent reins on this thing, it’ll run just fine.

The order follows a landmark settlement in June between the NCAA, the nation’s largest sports conferences, and lawyers representing all Division I athletes that, for the first time, permits schools to pay student-athletes directly. The ruling in Grant House and Sedona Prince v. National Collegiate Athletic Association is the next major break from the old system that began in 2021 with the allowance that college athletes could receive compensation for their name, image, and likeness, colloquially known as NIL deals.

As ESPN’s Dan Murphy explains, since 2021, “college athletes have been allowed to make money from third parties via name, image and likeness deals. Boosters quickly organized groups called collectives that used NIL money as de facto salaries for their teams, in some cases paying millions of dollars mostly to top-rated basketball and football players. Now, that money will come straight from the athletic departments.” The settlement ended three separate federal antitrust lawsuits, which argued, correctly, in my opinion, that the NCAA was illegally limiting the earning power of college athletes. Furthermore, “The NCAA will pay nearly $2.8 billion in back damages over the next 10 years to athletes who competed in college at any time from 2016 through present day. Moving forward, each school can pay its athletes up to a certain limit. The annual cap is expected to start at roughly $20.5 million per school in 2025-26 and increase every year during the decade-long deal. These new payments are in addition to scholarships and other benefits the athletes already receive.”

In addition, the settlement stipulated that beginning July 1, any endorsement deal between athletes and third-party vendors and boosters will be vetted by the recently formed College Sports Commission to determine if it is for a “valid business purpose.” It is into this morass that Trump’s “Saving College Sports” order waded less than a month later.

The order touches on several key areas that are worth going over, not to find clarity — there is none, nor shall there be for the foreseeable future, unfortunately — but to better comprehend the thorniest briars at play in the landscape of college sports and to determine what direction Congress and other executive agencies might go in the future.

In perhaps its most confusing section, the order prohibits “third-party, pay-for-play payments to collegiate athletes.” According to its fact sheet, “This does not apply to legitimate, fair-market-value compensation that a third party provides to an athlete, such as for a brand endorsement.” Crucially, pay-for-play payments are already barred under NCAA rules and have been since the NIL allowances were put in place. For example, a Texas oil billionaire can’t give his alma mater’s star wide receiver $1 million simply because he’s a very good wide receiver who plays for his team. Instead, what we have is what was explained above, endorsement deals by third-party vendors or boosters to pay players for their name, image, or likeness. This hypothetical Texas booster cannot pay for on-the-field performance, but Pete’s Tires And Also Oil could pay that same player for appearances at their store or in their commercials. This is, of course, the same thing with just more steps, and the order offers no clarity or differentiation from the status quo. Indeed, it does not aid in the definition of terms or delineation of what is a legitimate business purpose as required by the College Sports Commission and the House v. NCAA settlement. This is one of the major litigation and regulation hurdles for college sports, determining where these lines are.

As the great Andy Staples points out, this commission enforcement arm has already had to retract some of its rulings dictating which third-party payment businesses were considered legitimate. It originally barred businesses charging for the opportunity to meet players, but it was forced to revoke that stricture once players’ lawyers argued that it is, quite obviously, a legitimate business model in any other context, such as the service Cameo or any number of celebrity meet-and-greet models.

There remains a further lack of clarity, as well, whether these collectives are viewed as an arm of the schools or if they stand alone as third-party actors or somewhere in between. This is particularly important as it pertains to the $20.5 million revenue-share cap imposed by the House ruling: If collectives are beneath the school umbrella, what amount are they permitted to funnel to specific sports, and through what method? If they remain outside, then any direct-to-athlete or direct-to-recruit endorsement payments continue to elide that cap, as is the case now, with countless headline-grabbing million-dollar payouts to star transfers.

Speaking of million-dollar payouts to star players, the order also includes the frankly baffling concept of monitoring a “fair-market value” for these payments. Firstly, what is fair-market value? Excepting bumbling governmental intervention, fair-market value is simply what people will pay. As Jake Crain of the Crain & Company show put it, this idea is “frankly un-American.” Furthermore, the idea of the College Sports Commission being tasked with this adjudication is laughable. The notion that, whether by algorithm or convention, they must determine every single payment over $600 to a student athlete to ensure it is not only for “a valid business purpose” but that it also meets some nebulous concept of “fair-market value.” Are deals weighted by geography and regional capital? Are positions — quarterback, running back, shooting guard, libero, coxswain — all weighted differently in compensation allowances? What about brand name, conference pedigree, or team quality? Arch Manning, Texas’s star quarterback of Manning family fame, undoubtedly has a higher Q Score than Taylen Green, my quarterback at the University of Arkansas. Manning has also won fewer games than Green, but he plays on a better team. One is reportedly receiving more than $6 million in NIL deals, the other only around $2 million. Is this difference representative of the fair-market value range? Is it “fair” that one receives three times the other while both receive 10-15 times more than offensive linemen on their teams? Who knows? Definitely not the government, I can tell you that, and probably not the College Sports Commission either.

On one of the thorniest issues for college sports, the executive order punts. And wisely so, I might add. “The Order directs the Secretary of Labor and the National Labor Relations Board to clarify the status of student-athletes in order to preserve non-revenue sports and the irreplaceable educational and developmental opportunities that college sports provide.” This direction is regarding whether student athletes should be legally, financially, and contractually considered as employees, contractors, the vaguely defined “amateurs,” or some fourth thing somewhere in between.

Calling student athletes “amateurs” was the NCAA’s decadeslong dead horse it’d lovingly trot out to beat any time it would receive correct pushback about not paying players any portion of the billions of dollars its collective efforts garnered every year. It still holds sway among many fans and lawmakers, and it is fairly clear — if not from the order, then from Trump, Saban, and the brain trust around his college sports policy team — this part of the order wishes the NLRB to define athletes’ status closer to the amateur designation than employee one. Nevertheless, not attempting to unilaterally define what is one of the crux issues at play in how and how much athletes are compensated is a wise decision from Trump and his team, as whatever answer we arrive at eventually will be one undoubtedly won in a courtroom.

The order also notes, but does not address in any detail, several additional considerations that often are overlooked in conversations about college football and basketball NIL deals and television rights. These include “the preservation and, where possible, expansion of opportunities for scholarships and collegiate athletic competition in women’s and non-revenue sports” and a directive to the “Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy and the Director of the White House Office of Public Liaison to consult with the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Teams and other organizations to protect the role of college athletics in developing world-class American athletes.” There is a real fear, and potential, unfortunately, that the increased domination of the two major college sports and the coalescing of all major Division I schools into “super conferences” will crowd out the funding, considerations, and attention of other sports such as track, hockey, gymnastics, swimming, volleyball, and so on. This also relates to the development of U.S. Olympic athletes, the vast majority of whom participate in collegiate athletics.

While offering, quite bluntly, very little new to the conversation, the executive order at least makes clear the Trump administration’s priorities — largely aimed at preserving what remains of the old college sports status quo while providing regulated allowances to paying student athletes. As I have made clear, I have both functional and intellectual qualms with the design of some of these priorities.

But I want to acknowledge that I do agree with the purpose of them. Trump, Saban, and company are correct that the current system is untenable and could rupture into something unrecognizable from the college sports landscape that we all grew up with and fans such as myself have loved, pain and all, for as long as I can remember. Paying players is right and good, and much of this will, when the dust settles, shake out into something I expect to be far better than the worst-case scenario. But that reality does require some messy policy making and court battles: managerial due diligence that the NCAA and its feckless nanny-staters and hangers-on simply ran away from when they opened the doors to the wild west back in 2021 without a plan. Indeed, it’s quite clear their plan was Pontius Pilate’s: wash their hands of the whole enterprise and leave it to the government.

TRUMP SHOULD BREAK THE COLLEGE PIPELINE

As Trump’s order notes, there are 30 different state-level NIL laws and countless lawsuits working their way through various courts. Things are, in a word, messy, and will remain so for the time being until a more cohesive way forward is made. Congress is trying its hand with various salves, the most prominent college sports bill being the bipartisan SCORE Act. Sadly, it’s not a very good bill and is likely to face heavy resistance in the Senate — it is already being opposed by several states’ attorneys general, led by Tennessee’s Jonathan Skrmetti.

That’s not to say the sky is falling, though. The tumult of NIL and conference realignment will continue for some time before settling, but the sports themselves will stay at least as long as the television deals and generational rivalries do. Once we get some decent reins on this thing, it’ll run just fine.

Good morning, and thanks for spending part of your day with Extra Points.

A few quick housekeeping notes before we get started.

First, I’d like to welcome a new addition to the Extra Points team. We’ve added KC Smurthwaite to the Extra Points family. KC is a former athletic department staffer at Utah State and Southern Utah, and currently a consultant in the college sports space. KC will occasionally write newsletters for Extra Points and NIL Wire, but will focus most of his time in helping sell Extra Points Library and sports management curriculum support materials.

Speaking of NIL-Wire, I’m excited to announce that we’ve also made our hire to run that newsletter. I believe she’ll be introducing herself to everybody on Monday, so make sure you’re subscribed. We’ll have a lot more news about NIL Wire in the very near future.

In non-hiring news, if you have a second, I’d LOVE if you could fill out this very quick survey about Extra Points. We’re working on our budgets and plans for the rest of this year (and early Q1 of next year), and we want to make an Extra Points subscription as useful as possible for you. Knowing what you actually like and don’t like…helps an awful lot! I’ll close the survey on Monday.

Finally, I’d like to share a quick message from one of today’s sponsors, Swipe Less, Live More

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One of the frustrating things about writing four Extra Points newsletter a week is that I seldom get time to really go back to a topic and provide additional context. There’s just too much dang stuff happening all the time! But often, after I publish a newsletter, folks in and outside the industry will reach out, share additional context, ask thoughtful questions…and make me wish I could go back and take another swing.

I’d like to do that a bit today.

That Tennessee was going to flip from Nike to adidas was one of the worst kept secrets in the college sports industry. I wrote about this last month, as I think this deal will be part of a very active apparel market free agency period. There are a lot of big name programs whose contracts are set to expire around 2026.

A few of those schools are now off the board. Kentucky, for example, recently announced an extension with Nike. Industry sources have also told me that LSU is expected to remain a Nike program for the foreseeable future. But other big names, like USC, Penn State, Ohio State, South Carolina, Georgia Tech, Wisconsin, West Virginia and Iowa, have contracts that are scheduled to expire. My educated guess is from that list, at least South Carolina and Georgia Tech will change partners.

I’ve said this several times, including in my previously linked story, but it’s important to reiterate for our non-industry friends. The big number you see in the headline about an apparel contract is not cash. These contracts provide a bunch of stuff, like athletic apparel and equipment, which has a cash valuation. If schools are lucky (and if they’re a huge brand, like Tennessee), then they also get cash. But most programs don’t.

I think it’s quite clear that Tennessee is very important to adidas. The three stripes have a portfolio of many major college sports brands, like Kansas, Louisville, Washington and Nebraska, but I think it’s easy to argue that the Volunteers are now the most well-rounded and prominent across all sports. When the musical chairs stop, Tennessee may very well still be the biggest athletic department under the adidas banner. There will unquestionably be a healthy cash check coming to the UT athletic department every year.

I am a little more skeptical about the value of the cash going directly to athletes…or at least, in the competitive advantage of that cash. Adidas is going to allocate sports marketing dollars to directly compensate Tennessee athletes above the House Cap in multiple sports. But as Chris McGuire, the adidas vice president of sports marketing, North America, admits to Yahoo! Sports here, “This is the first one.”

If that works, there’s no reason adidas won’t do the same thing for Miami, Nebraska, Kansas or their other university partners. Nike, Under Armour, and hell, New Balance, will almost assuredly do the same. And shoot, if adidas thinks they need to offer a better deal to USC or Ohio State to get them to flip, they won’t hesitate to do so, no matter what they promised (or didn’t promise) to Tennessee.

I don’t have a strong opinion about what athletic apparel brands are “best”, and none of them are currently sponsoring Extra Points at the moment (you can change that, of course, by emailing [email protected]). My gut is that athletic apparel companies will try to compete on NIL deals, but will find that factors beyond pure cash will ultimately hold the most sway for most of their negotiations. I won’t be shocked to see a major program let athletes wear whatever shoes they want, brand deal be damned, in the near future.

As Learfield CEO Cole Gahagan told Yahoo, driving deals for athletes is a major area of focus for the company.

Dedicated resources on the ground was a major theme of my conversations with company executives. Learfield has personnel on campus to help get to know the actual athletes, help produce and shoot the content, and to pair it with the best possible brand partners. That process isn’t heavily automated or done programmatically….it takes lots of people.

Solly Fulp, Learfield’s Executive Vice President, NIL Growth & Development, mentioned a campaign to me earlier this week that has stuck with me. Learfield was working with the University of Texas and the St. David’s Medical Center, a hospital in Austin. Everybody wanted to find sponsorship activations that could include athletes, but it also needed to make business sense.

The solution was a video series full of testimonials from Longhorn athletes who were born at St. David’s. Not only would that video series be particularly impactful, but the school could run those videos as in-game programming on scoreboards over the course of the season, creating additional sponsorship assets.

I don’t think it is reasonable to expect any MMR company, be that Learfield, JMI, Playfly or anybody else, to simply cut checks directly to athletes without care or thought. Not only do athlete NIL deals still (for now, I guess) have to pass muster with the CSC clearinghouse, but MMR companies aren’t booster clubs. They work with brands who want a meaningful ROI on their marketing spend, and if they don’t get one, they won’t renew.

So the question becomes how do those companies bring new types of deals or brands to the table (perhaps beyond industries that already regularly advertise in college sports, like financial services, health care, insurance and automotive), how they incorporate athlete intellectual property with university IP, and how they make enough of a buck doing it to keep the operation going.

I legitimately believe there’s untapped potential in revenue generation, both for athletic departments and athletes, on the MMR side. Fulp told me he sees potential in MMR firms getting better about the type of sponsorship assets being sold (perhaps moving more away from static images and more towards storytelling or deeper campaigns), as well as getting better in partnering with the right athletes. I’m sure the folks at the other major companies (and schools) have good ideas too. It’s a space I want to continue to monitor.

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These are useful figures, I think, for showing trends, or relative spending among peers. But the data isn’t completely standardized, and can lack context. A few ADs and coaches reached out to me after the last story, not to critique what I had written, but to share some info about why some figures showed up the way they did.

If a sport spending number looks much higher, or lower, than you’d expect, a few things worth considering could be,

• Does the school own the arena or facility it uses for home games, or does it need to pay rent?

• Does this program need to pay guarantees to get home games, due to difficult geography or RPI rating?

• Does this school need to pay higher staff salaries due to the local cost of living?

• Did this school have to buy out a coach contract that fiscal year?

• How much of the sport’s reported revenue came from student fees or institutional support that year?

I wish I could go over all of that in depth for every school and every sport, but this is an email newsletter, and my CMS starts screaming AWOOGA AWOOGA once my emails hit 1,750 words. For those school and industry personnel who are really interested in the nitty-gritty of this data, I’d encourage you to grab an Extra Points Library account (or pay me to run reports for you). Otherwise, I’ll share the raw numbers with as much context as I can squeeze into an email.

Thanks for reading. I’ve got some big news to share next week, and some original reporting in the hopper. Tell your pals to read Extra Points, and I’ll see you on the internet.