When the WNBA community comes through, it really comes through. Take this wholesome scenario: Los Angeles Sparks guard Kelsey Plum noticed her rookie teammate, Sarah Ashlee Barker, practicing in an old pair of Nike Sabrina 1 sneakers and decided to do something about it.

“I’m like, ‘Yo, we gotta get you some new shoes! Like, what’s going on here?'” Plum recalled in an Instagram Story on Wednesday. Barker said she was a fan of New York Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu‘s signature shoe, and Plum and Ionescu played together on the 2024 U.S. Olympic team. So Plum reached out to see if her pal could hook a first-year up with some new colorways.

The next thing they knew, six brand new pairs of Nike Sabrina 2s showed up at Plum’s door in pink, yellow, orange, and beyond. “This is why the W is the best,” Plum beamed.

Amidst this sweet moment, fans had a lingering question for Plum, an Under Armour athlete who typically plays in their Breakthru 5 shoe: Why wouldn’t she gift Barker the brand she reps? There’s actually a WNBA rule in place that prevents it, Plum clarified on Stories—”or I’d have her laced a loooong time ago ” she joked.

So what is this sneaky sneaker rule, you may ask?

Let’s take a look at Article 26, Section 6 of the WNBA’s current collective bargaining agreement, which is the part of the contract that also details licensing, player marketing, and commercial appearances:

“A player may wear manufacturer logo identified shoes during WNBA Competitions, practices and press conferences as long as such manufacturer has been designated by WNBA Enterprises as an authorized WNBA footwear supplier and the player has a Qualifying Shoe Deal with such manufacturer. … If the player does not have a Qualifying Shoe Deal, then the player shall wear during WNBA Competitions, practices and press conferences the shoes supplied by a supplier designated by the WNBA.”

In short: Players are only able to play in apparel from a brand designated by the league, unless they have a brand deal with an authorized footwear supplier. Since Nike is currently the WNBA and NBA’s exclusive on-court uniform and apparel provider through 2037, that means if you don’t have your own shoe deal, you’re playing in the Nikes of your choice.

Of course, many WNBA stars have lucrative sneaker deals. Three-time WNBA champion Breanna Stewart plays in her signature Stewie shoe by Puma, and Chicago Sky forward Angel Reese is slated to get her own style with Reebok next year, just to name a few. (You can browse more players’ go-to kicks in the gallery below.)

Tina Charles and A’ja Wilson pose with Charles’ signed pair of Nike A’Ones.

And since Ionescu and Las Vegas Aces center A’ja Wilson both have signature shoes out with Nike, many players wearing Nike have chosen to keep it in the family. In a sweet moment from the beginning of this season, 13-year WNBA veteran Tina Charles (who now plays for the Connecticut Sun) even asked Wilson to sign her A’Ones after their teams played each other.

The WNBA’s CBA is up for renegotiation this year, so it remains to be seen whether this rule will stay in effect for 2026. But for now, that explains why you see so much Nike on the court—and why Plum could only do so much to help out her teammate.

The more you know!

Amanda Lucci is the director of special projects at Women’s Health, where she works on multi-platform brand initiatives and social media strategy. She also leads the sports and athletes vertical, traveling to cover the Paris Olympics, Women’s World Cup, WNBA Finals, and NCAA Final Four for WH. She has nearly 15 years of experience writing, editing, and managing social media for national and international publications and is also a NASM-certified personal trainer. A proud native of Pittsburgh, PA, she is a graduate of Ohio University’s E.W. Scripps School of Journalism. Follow her on Instagram @alucci.  

Head Men’s Basketball Coach John Jakus sits down with “Inside The Owls Burrow” host Frank Forte to discuss Florida Atlantic’s offseason and how the 2025-26 season will look in his second year at the helm in Paradise.

 
FOLLOW THE OWLS
To stay up to date on all things FAU men’s basketball, follow the Owls on social media @FAUMBB.
 

Mark Conrad, director of the sports business program at the Gabelli School of Business, tells Forbes that getting creative could be the key to retaining college athletes in the era of NIL and more lax transfer rules.

Across NCAA Division I men’s basketball, more than 2,500 players entered the transfer portal in 2025, according to college basketball recruitment website VerbalCommits.com, nearly triple the 957 that did so in 2019, a year after the new transfer system was introduced.

“Because players can leave and go to other schools, how do you keep them happy?” says Mark Conrad, director of the sports business program at Fordham University. “You can’t sign them to long-term contracts, yet you want them to stay.”

One strategy might be to keep around a professional athlete like [Trae] Young, a four-time NBA All-Star who was the league’s fifth overall draft pick in 2018. He could help Oklahoma identify talent, mentor young players and balance the egos that come with uneven compensation in a locker room, Conrad contends. Young could also assist with creating a culture of retaining athletes—even if that might be a bit ironic for a player who spent a single season in college, in 2017-18, before turning pro.

Desmond Claude, a dynamic All-Big Ten guard, has become one of the most coveted names in the transfer portal after a breakout season at USC. With his market value peaking, top programs and their NIL collectives are vying for his signature ahead of the 2025-26 season.

NIL Era Heats Up as Top Programs Pursue Claude

Claude’s transfer saga has quickly become one of the most closely watched stories of the offseason. After averaging 15.8 points, 4.2 assists, and 3.5 rebounds at USC—earning All-Big Ten honorable mention—Claude entered the portal just before the deadline, immediately drawing interest from college basketball’s elite.

According to Jeff Goodman, “Tennessee and Oregon both reached out to USC transfer Desmond Claude today… Claude also looking at Alabama and Gonzaga. SMU has also been in the mix”.

Tennessee and Oregon both reached out to USC transfer Desmond Claude today, source told @thefieldof68.

Claude also looking at Alabama and Gonzaga. SMU has also been in the mix.

— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) May 28, 2025

Gonzaga, Alabama, and Washington have emerged as frontrunners, each offering unique advantages. Under Mark Few, Gonzaga touts a consistent NCAA Tournament pedigree and a system that develops NBA talent, making it an attractive destination for Claude to raise his draft stock.

Alabama, meanwhile, is leveraging its strong NIL resources and immediate backcourt needs, especially after losing key guards in the offseason. “A return to the NCAA is the expectation… I think that’s a good pressure. I’d rather that pressure to the other way. I like a little pressure on me,” said Alabama coach Nate Oats, underscoring the program’s high standards and the opportunity for Claude to play a starring role.

The NIL landscape has fundamentally shifted the calculus for top transfers like Claude. Washington, for example, is aggressively rebuilding its roster and, with robust NIL backing, can offer both a featured role and financial incentives that rival any program in the country. The competition is fierce, and as one analyst noted, “Money talks, baby. And where the money is, people are going to follow that. That is the next level for some people now”.

Decision Looms: Fit, Role, and NIL Offers in the Balance

As the recruitment nears its conclusion, Claude is weighing more than just basketball fit. Alabama and Texas A&M are reportedly confidently positioned in the driver’s seat, providing a clear, immediate role along with a strong NIL package, while Gonzaga remains a compelling option for player development and national exposure.

The delay in Claude’s Alabama visit has only intensified speculation, with both sides expected to revisit discussions after the NCAA dead period in June.

Other programs, including Tennessee, Oregon, and SMU, have made late pushes, but the consensus is that the combination of NIL power, on-court opportunity, and national profile will determine Claude’s next stop.

KEEP READING: Bruce Pearl’s Lineup for New Season Predicted After 6’9” Star’s Transfer Portal Acquisition

As one insider put it, “Claude is looking for a proven backcourt mate to share playmaking & a team built for a deep run,” indicating that both competitive ambitions and financial security are at the heart of his decision.

In the new era of college basketball, Claude’s recruitment exemplifies how NIL collectives and transfer portal dynamics are reshaping the sport. As the deadline approaches, all eyes remain on where this All-Big Ten guard—and his soaring portal value—will land next.

College Sports Network has you covered with the latest news, analysis, insights, and trending stories in football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, and baseball!

Link

Miramar Beach, Fla. — On the one hand, what this new version of cash-infused college sports needs are rules that everybody follows.

On the other, they need to be able to enforce those rules without getting sued into oblivion.

Enter the College Sports Commission, a newly created operation that will be in charge of counting the money, deciding what a “fair market” deal for players looks like and, if things go well, helping everyone in the system avoid trips to court whenever a decision comes down that someone doesn’t like.

With name, image, likeness payments taking over in college, this group will essentially become what the NCAA committee on infractions used to be – the college sports police, only with the promise of being faster, maybe fairer and maybe more transparent.In a signal of what the CSC’s most serious mission might be, the schools from the four biggest conferences are being asked to sign a document pledging not to rely on state laws – some of which are more permissive of payments to players – to work around the rules the commission is making.”We need to get out of this situation where something happens, and we run to our attorney general and file suit,” said Trev Alberts of Texas A&M, one of 10 athletic directors who are part of another group, the Settlement Implementation Committee, that is helping oversee the transition. “That chaos isn’t sustainable. You’re looking for a durable system that actually has some stability and ultimate fairness.”In this new landsacpe, two different companies will be in charge of two kinds of number crunching.The first, and presumably more straightforward, is data being compiled by LBi Software, which will track how much schools are spending on every athlete, up to the $20.5 million cap each is allowed to distribute in the first year of the new arrangement expected to begin July 1.This sounds easy but comes with the assumption that universities – which, for decades, have sought to eke out every edge they can, rulebook or no – will provide accurate data.”Over history, boosters have looked for ways to give their schools an advantage,” said Gabe Feldman, a sports law professor at Tulane. “I think that will continue even with the settlement. It’s anyone’s guess as to how that manifests, and what the new competitive landscape looks like.”More: NCAA Tournament expansion could happen in next few months

Adding some level of transparency to the process, along with the CSC’s ability to deliver sanctions if it identifies cheaters, will be key to the new venture’s success.

“There’s legal risk that prohibits you from doing that,” Alberts said. “But we want to start as transparent as we can be, because we think it engenders trust.”

Good intentions aside, Alberts concedes, “I don’t think it’s illogical to think that, at first, it’s probably going to be a little wonky.”

Some of the wonkiest bookkeeping figures to come from the second category of number crunching, and that involves third-party NIL deals. The CSC hired Deloitte to run a so-called clearinghouse called “NIL Go,” which will be in charge of evaluating third-party deals worth $600 or more.

Because these deals aren’t allowed to pay players simply for playing – that’s still technically forbidden in college sports – but instead for some service they provide (an endorsement, a social media shoutout and so forth), every deal needs to be evaluated to show it is worth a fair price for what the player is doing.

In a sobering revelation, Deloitte shared with sports leaders earlier this month that around 70% of third-party deals given to players since NIL became allowable in 2021 would have been denied by the new clearinghouse.

All these valuations, of course, are subject to interpretation. It’s much easier to set the price of a stock, or a bicycle, than the value of an athlete’s endorsement deal. This is where things figure to get dicey. Though the committee has an appeals process, then an arbitration process, ultimately, some of these cases are destined to be challenged in court.

“You’re just waiting to see, what is a ‘valid business purpose’ (for an NIL deal), and what are the guidelines around that?” said Rob Lang, a business litigation partner at Thompson Coburn who deals with sports cases. “You can see all the lawyer fights coming out of that.”

In fact, elements of all this are ripe to be challenged in court, which might explain why the power conferences drafted the document pledging fealty to the new rules in the first place.

For instance, Feldman called a law recently enacted in Tennessee viewed by many as the most athlete-friendly statute in the country “the next step in the evolution” of state efforts to bar the NCAA from limiting NIL compensation for athletes with an eye on winning battles for recruits and retaining roster talent.

“What we’ve seen over the last few years is states trying to one-up each other to make their institutions more attractive places for people to go,” he said. “This is the next iteration of that. It may set up a showdown between the schools, the NCAA and the states.”

Greg Sankey, the commissioner of the Southeastern Conference, said a league spanning 12 states cannot operate well if all those states have different rules about how and when it is legal to pay players.

The SEC has been drafting legislation for states to pass to unify the rules across the conference. Ultimately, Sankey and a lot of other people would love to see a national law passed by Congress that does that for all states and all conferences.

That will take months, if not years, which is why the new committee drafted the document for the schools to sign.

“We are all defendant schools and conferences and you inherently agree to this,” Alberts said of the document. “I sat in the room with all of our football coaches, ‘Do you want to be governed?’ The answer is ‘yes.'”

AI-assisted summaryDawkins acknowledges the challenges posed by the transfer portal, having lost key players like Keyshawn Hall to Auburn and Moustapha Thiam to Cincinnati.UCF has recruited new players, including Riley Kugel, B.J. Freeman, Themus Fulks, and Jamichael Stillwell, to rebuild the roster.Dawkins believes that while money is a factor in recruiting, UCF offers other attractive qualities to potential student-athletes.ORLANDO — Passion still burns for UCF men’s basketball coach Johnny Dawkins, much like it did during his playing days at Duke. That, he says, will never change.

“As a player, they had to tear the jersey off my back. As a coach, they’re going to (have to) tear my suit jacket off,” Dawkins said Wednesday at the Waldorf Astoria, the first day of the Big 12 Conference’s spring meetings. “I love mentoring young people. I love working with them. I think our mission is sometimes getting lost right now with everything that’s going on, and our sport is changing so fast.”

College basketball’s sweeping changes include, in no particular order, the pending House settlement and revenue sharing, possible NCAA Tournament expansion on the horizon and the growing divide between power conferences. Additionally, year-to-year rosters are unrecognizable in the age of the transfer portal.

UCF basketball roster turned over in NCAA transfer portal

Dawkins will field nearly an entirely new squad come November, following a 20-17 campaign in which the Knights advanced to the inaugural College Basketball Crown‘s championship game and pocketed $100,000 in Name, Image and Likeness prize money. Top scorer Keyshawn Hall departed for Auburn after initially entering the NBA draft, and — more controversially — starting center Moustapha Thiam joined rival Cincinnati in a package deal with assistant coach Mamadou N’diaye.

Thiam, a 7-foot-2 native of Senegal, was the program’s highest-rated recruiting signee ever. In his lone season, he averaged 10.4 points and 6.4 rebounds while ranking fourth in the nation with 88 blocked shots.

“I wish them well,” Dawkins said. “That’s in the past for me and my team. We want to be successful, and we want to continue to try and build a successful roster here at UCF. I wish them well in their future endeavors at their next stop.”

Former Mississippi State guard Riley Kugel, former Arizona State guard B.J. Freeman and the Milwaukee duo of point guard Themus Fulks and double-double machine Jamichael Stillwell headline the Knights’ additions from the portal.

UCF is far from the only team across college basketball needing to replace most — or virtually all, in the Knights’ case — of its statistical productivity. Fellow Big 12 program Baylor had an entirely bare cupboard by the time the portal closed April 22, when also factoring in graduation and NBA draft declarations.

Johnny Dawkins: ‘UCF has great things to build off’

Roster retention is still a hope for Dawkins in the future, even with UCF lagging behind its power conference counterparts financially. CBS Sports’ Matt Norlander reported in April that at least 10 Division I teams will operate with basketball roster budgets of at least $10 million for the 2025-26 season, including a pair from the Big 12 (BYU and Texas Tech).

Money is, undoubtedly, a major factor in modern recruiting, but Dawkins contends it’s still not the only thing — and that UCF can still attract quality players with more modest resources.

“You have to make the most with what you have,” Dawkins said. “Some people may have more monetarily, but some people may have more in climate, or better facilities, or a better community. So, it depends on where you are, but there are assets everywhere.

“We have great things to build off here. And sometimes I think it gets overlooked because a lot of the conversation revolves around just straight money that’s been allotted, one way or another. That’s a part of our game, no question about it — and we have money here at UCF, too. We’re not a place that doesn’t have money; we have more than that. We have so many more things to offer student-athletes, and I think that’s why we have been so attractive to a lot of young people that want to be here.”