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For Northwestern lacrosse, NIL leaders won't quit on equity

Crucially, any school that opts to participate in revenue-sharing cannot do so on a team-by-team basis, according to the website. In other words, schools that participate must abide by the terms of the settlement for all sports. “I don’t think we’ll ever say that NIL is not a priority,” he said. “It’s always going to […]

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For Northwestern lacrosse, NIL leaders won't quit on equity

Crucially, any school that opts to participate in revenue-sharing cannot do so on a team-by-team basis, according to the website. In other words, schools that participate must abide by the terms of the settlement for all sports.
“I don’t think we’ll ever say that NIL is not a priority,” he said. “It’s always going to be important. The question is, ‘How much can Northwestern afford to make it a focus versus other commercial revenue streams and other areas of effort?’”
“I don’t have a firm answer for that because we’re still figuring it out,” Bauer said. “It’s really a question of resources and institutional priorities.”
In the age of name, image and likeness compensation in the NCAA, winning often comes with financial perks, not just championship banners. The biggest payouts are largely concentrated in the highest-revenue sports, most notably football and men’s basketball.
“The sports that generate the most revenue — understandably so — are going to be the ones that receive the bulk of that revenue back,” Bauer said.
So what would an increased focus on commercial NIL look like going forward?
“We’ve done deals with at least one athlete from all 19 of our programs,” Schmidt said. “Almost 400 athletes have done an NIL deal with TrueNU over the past few years.”
“I do think these sports, specifically the Olympic sports, will be under greater scrutiny at their own individual schools,” Gilfillan said. “Every university is weighing a cost-benefit analysis of what they can and cannot afford.”
Gilfillan also said athletic directors across several universities have sent letters to alumni and fans warning of potential changes. Potential cost-cutting measures, he said, could include cutting roster spots or limiting funds for travel, food, equipment and/or healthcare training staff.
“Equity is important,” Bauer said. “We never like to do anything for one gender sport that we don’t do for another one.”
The ‘Cats won a national championship in 2023 and reached the title game again last season before a heartbreaking 14-13 loss to Boston College. This year, No. 3 Northwestern has surged to a 9-2 start, with big wins over Notre Dame, Syracuse, Maryland and USC and the only losses coming to No. 1 Boston College and No. 2 North Carolina. Despite challenges, some of the team’s on-field success has translated to the NIL sphere, an area that is rapidly growing at Northwestern.
Regardless, Gilfillan said NIL collectives, operating separately from revenue-sharing, can continue to have an impact if they make an effort to do so.
As for Northwestern, Bauer said most athletes won’t receive major revenue-sharing benefits, making other commercial NIL opportunities all the more important.
“What is driving NIL are the major revenue sports, which are football and basketball,” Rotering said. “That’s not just true at Northwestern. That’s true NCAA-wide.”
Despite this, Mitch Gilfillan, an NIL expert and attorney at Quinn Johnston, said the revenue-sharing model could place sports that lose money under greater examination.
Northwestern lacrosse players can also make money through the Northwestern NIL Store, which sells branded apparel, jerseys and custom gear. As of March 28, all but seven Northwestern lacrosse players have profiles on the website. And deals don’t stop there. For example, first-year attacker Aditi Foster recently partnered with the clothing brand Hollister to promote their products through Instagram.
For Northwestern student-athletes, most NIL income comes from TrueNU, a collective that creates partnerships between charities and student-athletes. TrueNU raised approximately .6 million in revenue in 2023, according to its tax Form 990, available through ProPublica. Now, Jacob Schmidt, TrueNU’s executive director, said the organization’s revenue has reached more than million since its launch in fall 2022. Schmidt also said TrueNU raises at least 95% of NIL income at Northwestern, and a “handful” of lacrosse players participate in a lot of events with the organization. Schmidt declined to comment on how much NIL income goes to lacrosse players specifically.
For Northwestern lacrosse, along with thousands of other Division I programs, the net impact of the upcoming House settlement remains murky. Still, Bauer said he thinks NIL will always be a part of Northwestern’s vision.
The upcoming House v. NCAA settlement adds an additional piece to the NIL puzzle. On April 7, there will be a final approval hearing to confirm the terms of the settlement. If approved, the settlement would pave the way for individual universities to begin revenue-sharing with student-athletes, with an estimated cap of .5 million per university in 2025-26, according to the NCAA website.
“When we first started, there was only one apparel partner, and it was Fanatics,” said Brad Bauer, the general manager of Northwestern’s official NIL program. But Bauer said Fanatics was unwilling to work with highly successful Northwestern sports like lacrosse, field hockey and softball, so instead, he decided to establish a partnership with Campus Ink to run the NIL Store and include all programs.
Northwestern women’s lacrosse, the university’s most successful program with eight national titles, is an NIL wild card.
Still, challenges persist in the development of major NIL opportunities in women’s lacrosse. According to the Equity in Athletics Data Analysis from the U.S. Department of Education, Northwestern paid approximately million in expenses for sports outside of football and basketball between Sept. 1, 2022 and Aug. 31, 2023. During that same period, it obtained approximately million in revenue from those sports, according to the report.
“I think each individual sport still has the capability to either fundraise or to provide NIL opportunities for student-athletes if their athletic department doesn’t have the funds to do it,” he said. “That takes work, and it takes a group of volunteers. It takes a group of people that are strongly invested into those specific programs to continue to make sure that they’re successful.”
Lacrosse-specific data was not available, but the charts appeared to indicate that football and men’s basketball were the only revenue-positive sports during that time. Rob Rotering, a Northwestern graduate and athletics department donor, said the amount of revenue in women’s lacrosse might limit the NIL opportunities players could pursue.
In addition, Bauer said the NIL department has almost finished a project to produce licensed NIL trading cards for lacrosse and softball, in partnership with ONIT Athlete.

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Ohio State football team loses out on big-time five-star recruit

The Ohio State football program has been trying to beef up its 2026 recruiting class as the summer continues. They continue to try to land some of the biggest recruits left on the board, despite some lacking NIL plans. The Buckeyes had the fifth-best recruiting class heading into Sunday. Five-star linebacker Xavier Griffin made his […]

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June 30, 2025

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The Ohio State football program has been trying to beef up its 2026 recruiting class as the summer continues. They continue to try to land some of the biggest recruits left on the board, despite some lacking NIL plans. The Buckeyes had the fifth-best recruiting class heading into Sunday.

Five-star linebacker Xavier Griffin made his recruiting decision on Sunday afternoon. He was choosing between the Buckeyes, Texas, Alabama, and Florida State. Heading into the day, he was an Alabama lean, but Ohio State was hoping they did enough late to grab him.

Griffin is listed as the second-best linebacker in the country. He stands at 6’3 and 200 pounds and is from Gainesville, Georgia. Ohio State was the only northern team that he had in his final list of schools. That was always going to be hard to overcome. In the end, it was too much to overcome.

The Ohio State football team loses out on five-star linebacker Xavier Griffin

Instead of picking the Buckeyes, Griffin decided to commit to Alabama. The Crimson Tide were the favorites to land him, so they ended up with him anyway. Ohio State would have loved to have gotten Griffin, but they weren’t expecting to land him, nonetheless.

If the Buckeyes are going to land another five-star recruit in this class, they would prefer it to be Felix Ojo, the second-ranked tackle in the country. Even though he had a bad day during a recent Rivals camp, he is still good enough that he could start day one if they needed him to.

James Laurinaitis has done enough recruiting in the last couple of years to know that he certainly can recruit at an elite level. Losing out on one recruit isn’t the worst thing in the world. He landed a five-star recruit just last year.



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Louisville Basketball gets great news from NCAA to cap off tremendous offseason

Throughout the college basketball offseason, one major storyline to watch has been the NCAA’s waiver process for select players. Just a few days ago, the NCAA denied a waiver for Memphis center Dain Dainja to get another year, which forced him to move on to the pros. Earlier this offseason, the NCAA had already denied […]

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June 30, 2025

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Throughout the college basketball offseason, one major storyline to watch has been the NCAA’s waiver process for select players. Just a few days ago, the NCAA denied a waiver for Memphis center Dain Dainja to get another year, which forced him to move on to the pros.

Earlier this offseason, the NCAA had already denied a waiver to Louisville forward Aly Khalifa. This was originally a surprise, as he had redshirted this past season after transferring from BYU. However, reportedly, having already taken a redshirt year at Charlotte previously caused issues with his eligibility. 

The good news for the Cardinals is that, following an appeal of the original denial, the NCAA reversed its decision.

Louisville is a consensus preseason top-25 team, thanks in part to a great transfer portal haul that includes Isaac McKneely and Ryan Conwell. 5-star prospect Mikel Brown Jr. is set to run the offense, while Kasean Pryor returns after suffering a season-ending injury. 

The hope is that Khalifa will be the missing link to make the offense as good as possible. He’s one of the best passing big men in the country, and when he was at BYU, he played a key role in their elite offense, averaging 4.0 assists per game as a big man.

Khalifa and Pryor are the leading bigs for the Cardinals next season. Joining them in the frontcourt are a trio of international prospects, including Vanglis Zougris, Sanada Fru, and Mouhamaed Camara. If any of them break out into key contributors, then this team will be a contender to compete for another ACC title.

Khalifa’s stats don’t scream “all-league” on paper, but that won’t be his role. He gives the team another facilitator and takes pressure off the freshman Brown on the offense, which may be the biggest beneficiary. This news caps off what has been a great offseason for Coach Pat Kelsey and the Cardinals.





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The College Basketball regular season is expanding to 32 games

More changes are coming to men’s and women’s college basketball. Over the past few months, multiple changes have occurred in college basketball, including the landmark revenue-sharing programs that will begin in July. Federal Judge Claudia Wilken approved the House v. NCAA settlement at the beginning of June. It allows schools to directly pay athletes from […]

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More changes are coming to men’s and women’s college basketball. Over the past few months, multiple changes have occurred in college basketball, including the landmark revenue-sharing programs that will begin in July.

Federal Judge Claudia Wilken approved the House v. NCAA settlement at the beginning of June. It allows schools to directly pay athletes from a revenue-sharing pool capped at $20.5 million for the 2025-2026 season.

The bulk of the money will be divided among men’s and women’s basketball, football, and wrestling, with the cap projected to increase every year.

In response, the four major sports formed “Flight Funds” programs as a charitable avenue for donors to give directly to the programs or a general fund.

In addition to the revenue-sharing programs, an NCAA oversight committee made multiple changes to men’s college basketball, focusing on the pace of play.

The rule changes that were put in place include adding a coach’s challenge that can be used at any point during the game in response to an out-of-bounds call, basket interference, goaltending, or a player in the restricted area.

After the new rules were put in place, the NCAA Division I Council also approved a regular season game expansion.

CBS Sports’ Matt Norlander reports that a committee approved expanding the regular season from 31 to 32 games, beginning in the 2026-2027 season. The move was made to encourage teams to schedule better non-conference games later in the season.

The expansion ends a 19-year span of a 31-game maximum for the regular season.

Starting in the 2026-2027 season, teams can schedule an extra game, but they will not be forced to do so. Most teams are expected to increase their schedule to the new 32-game maximum.

The extra game allows teams to play a better opponent later in the season and potentially add more highly-ranked Quad wins to their NCAA Tournament resume.

Norlander notes that money is a big driving factor for the 32-game maximum. With more games comes more revenue, which can be used to pay athletes.

More Hawkeyes News:





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Latest I’m hearing on 5-star EDGE Trenton Henderson

Here’s the latest of what I’m hearing on Trenton Henderson: LSU has put together a significant NIL package that—to be as transparent as possible—the competitors weren’t willing to match. This is a fluid situation and lots can still happen. LSU feels confident in where it stands with Henderson in the final days, but it looks […]

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Here’s the latest of what I’m hearing on Trenton Henderson:

LSU has put together a significant NIL package that—to be as transparent as possible—the competitors weren’t willing to match.

This is a fluid situation and lots can still happen. LSU feels confident in where it stands with Henderson in the final days, but it looks as if LSU will likely be the destination if this ages consistently.

Would be a massive blow.



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Michigan Football Recruiting Heater Continues After $6M Donation

© Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images Audio By Carbonatix The Michigan football team is hot on the recruiting trail as the month of June comes to a close. The Wolverines have racked up more than a half-dozen commitments over the last week. Coincidentally, they received a massive $6 million pledge from […]

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Michigan football coach Sherrone Moore

© Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

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The Michigan football team is hot on the recruiting trail as the month of June comes to a close. The Wolverines have racked up more than a half-dozen commitments over the last week.

Coincidentally, they received a massive $6 million pledge from big time booster Matt Lester amid the heater. The program continues to flaunt its deep pockets while cashing in on the recruiting trail.

The donation came as a way to cover costs associated with the newly renovated and expanded football locker room. It was made as a way of recognizing the 2023 national championship team.

More on the gift and donor from MGoBlue.com:

Through Princeton Management, a real estate property management and development company, Matt [Lester] offers a summer internship program for U-M football student-athletes. He is also a founding member of the Champions Circle NIL collective specifically for football, and supports men’s and women’s basketball, swimming and diving, and women’s gymnastics through NIL.

Lester is a major donor. He’s also a founding member of the NIL collective that funds the football team’s payroll.

The Wolverines have been known to pay for top talent in the past. We’ll get to see an example of that investment in the 2025 college football season when freshman Bryce Underwood takes the field.

The school reportedly offered $12 million to land his commitment. It’ll hope to see it pay off with another title. More help is on the way in the 2026 recruiting class.

Michigan football is on a recruiting heater.

Seven new players have committed to the program this week, headlined by five-star defensive pass rusher Carter Meadows. The Wolverines beat out the rival Buckeyes for that pledge.

The other six players include the top prospect in the state of Hawaii, the second-ranked players in Missouri and Massachusetts, and four-star Texas wideout Zion Robinson.

With the newest group in the bag, the Michigan ’26 class ranks ninth in all of college football. The investment into players and facilities is paying off in the recruiting rankings. They’ll hope to see similar results on the field.





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BYU QB Jake Retzlaff to Enter Transfer Portal, Per Reports

BYU QB Jake Retzlaff to Enter Transfer Portal, Per Reports originally appeared on Athlon Sports. BYU quarterback Jake Retzlaff is planning to enter the transfer portal, according to ESPN’s Pete Thamel. Sources say he has informed several members of Kalani Satake’s coaching staff and Cougars players of his plan to leave. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This comes after Salt […]

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BYU QB Jake Retzlaff to Enter Transfer Portal, Per Reports

BYU QB Jake Retzlaff to Enter Transfer Portal, Per Reports originally appeared on Athlon Sports.

BYU quarterback Jake Retzlaff is planning to enter the transfer portal, according to ESPN’s Pete Thamel. Sources say he has informed several members of Kalani Satake’s coaching staff and Cougars players of his plan to leave.

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This comes after Salt Lake Tribune’s Kevin Reynolds reported that Retzlaff was facing a seven-game suspension for violating BYU’s Honor Code tied to a civil lawsuit.

An attorney representing Retzlaff denied allegations that his client sexually assaulted a woman in 2023.

In response to a lawsuit in the Third Judicial District Court in Utah, Retzlaff’s lawyer issued a statement via a court filing on Friday. “Mr. Retzlaff specifically and categorically denies each and every and all allegations that he bit, raped or strangled [the woman], which are ridiculous and bizarre allegations, all of which are false and untrue.”

After the lawsuit was filed, BYU issued a statement saying, “The university takes any allegation very seriously, following all processes and guidelines mandated by Title IX.” However, they didn’t get into specifics on the situation. “Due to federal and university privacy laws and practices for students, the university will not be able to provide additional comment.”

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Retzlaff enters his senior season after throwing for nearly 3,000 years and 20 touchdowns to 12 interceptions last year. BYU was one win away from their first Big 12 championship appearance.

Related: Ty Goettsche Opens Up About Five-Star QB Ryder Lyons, BYU’s Surge (Exclusive)

Sitake and offensive coordinator Aaron Roderick must prepare to move forward without Retzlaff. McCae Hillstead might be the next QB on the depth chart. The transfer from Utah State threw for 399 yards and four touchdowns during his freshman season. Treyson Bourguet and Bear Bachmeier will also compete for the starting job.

BYU opens the 2025 football season on Saturday, August 30 against Portland State.

This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jun 29, 2025, where it first appeared.

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