Alabama football fans have had recent fun bashing Hugh Freeze and Auburn Athletic Director John Cohen. The pair claimed that after Aug. 1, Auburn’s recruiting success will blossom as many current commits flip from other schools. The flips will be the result of recruits learning from written offers that promised dollars may not be real. Freeze stated, “We’ve got great interpretations from our administration and our legal team on what the (House) settlement really means and how we should operate, and that’s what we’re doing. And if others are operating in a manner not with that, I’m hopeful that they’ll be called out on that at some point.”

Alabama fans have good reason to scoff. Freeze and Auburn have a considerable history of rule-breaking. Auburn may have hit the brakes on college football’s spending spree because the school’s resources have been depleted. That doesn’t mean that Freeze’s and Cohen’s comments were wrong.

Freeze and Cohen are right to suggest there should be a reckoning across college football’s biggest spenders. Still, expecting clarity to happen quickly or smoothly is unrealistic. During Big 12 Media Days, multiple coaches mentioned general confusion about player compensation and the struggles of the College Sports Commission to enact enforcement measures and approve NIL deals.

Yahoo’s Ross Dellenger began the title of a recent story with “We don’t know the rules”. Dellenger was expounding on what he had heard from Big 12 coaches. Check out some comments below.

• “We don’t know the rules. The settlement passed, but who knows what Deloitte is going to clear. Until there is clarity, you’re living in limbo.”

• “You are seeing a lot of people lie and promise fake things.”

After talking to multiple coaches, Dellenger concluded, “Schools are making big enough contract offers to recruits that they cannot possibly remain under college football’s new compensation cap, some coaches believe. Others are guaranteeing third-party NIL deals as part of the total compensation package to athletes, something against new revenue-share rules. A few are doling out cash from their collectives to high school players in an attempt to induce their commitment, also against new rules.”

Lawyers and conference administrators are working to codify the new enforcement process. Understandably, the effort is progressing slowly. The NIL Go Clearinghouse is also lagging in approving submitted deals, with a reported 60-plus percent of deals in limbo.

Alabama Football’s Kalen DeBoer has been quiet, but other SEC coaches have not

Hugh Freeze has not been the only SEC football coach to be vocal about the problems. As reported by Dellenger, Kirby Smart stated, “Some school-affiliated booster collectives are currently compensating high school players — upward of $20,000 a month — to remain committed and eventually sign with their school.” Additionally, most NIL deals promised to recruits and transfers have not been approved by the clearinghouse.

Quick clarity on new rules, enforcement, and penalties was a pipe dream. It was always going to be a muddled situation that would take at least months to resolve. While Auburn will not suddenly zoom up recruiting rankings in August, Alabama football fans might once want to cut Freeze some slack. He was not wrong in claiming that programs are gaming the new system.

This summer Anna Maria College Men’s Ice Hockey goalie Matthew Hennessey represented Team Canada in the 2025 ISBHF U23 Ball Hockey World Championships in Hradec Kralove, Czechia.

Hennessey tended the net in four games for Canada, helping the team win Silver in the Championship game against Czechia. While in net, Hennessey made 80 saves with an 89.89 SV% and a 3.03 GAA earning himself Best Goalie of the tournament.

Matthew will be returning to Paxton this fall for his third season with the AMCATS after helping the team reach their most successful season in program history.

Read more here.

What is life like being a multimillionaire college athlete before ever stepping foot on the gridiron or basketball court?

Just ask AJ Dybantsa, the top-ranked prospect in the nation who is set to suit up for the BYU Cougars this upcoming college basketball season. The 6-foot-9, 200-pound forward out of Brocktown, Massachusetts, has burst onto the scene as one of the most heralded prospects in recent memory. Multiple recruiting outlets rank him as the No. 1 recruit in the 2025 class, and he is widely projected to be the top overall pick in next year’s NBA Draft.

But before he suits up for the Cougars this year, Dybantsa has been busy in the always-evolving NIL space, agreeing to multiple brand partnerships and carrying an NIL valuation of more than $4 million, per On3. 

Dybantsa made another big splash this past week, signing a multi-year deal with Fanatics Collectibles, one of the company’s most significant NIL partnership deals to date. Fanatics has exclusive collectible partnerships with multiple athletes and welcomed Dybantsa as its newest ambassador in a video clip released on Wednesday.

The agreement with Fanatics’ memorabilia arm is worth eight figures, according to a source familiar with the deal. The exclusive partnership will be centered around trading cards and memorabilia, including autographs, game-used jerseys, inscriptions and Dybantsa’s inclusion in Fanatics brand marketing campaigns.

According to Fanatics collectibles, Dybantsa will be featured in a number of upcoming products, among them Bowman U NOW – a program that celebrates moments in collegiate sports – and other Bowman offerings.

Dybantsa was already part of Fanatics Collectibles’ McDonald’s All-American Game deal and has reported NIL partnerships with the likes of Red Bull and Nike.

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Everyone involved believes that it will be worth the wait for Tennessee State University to become the first historically Black college and university (HBCU) to have a hockey program. 

But wait, they must.

The school announced Thursday that the program will not begin play this season as planned. Instead, the launch has been delayed until the 2026-27 season due to issues related to the financial crisis that stemmed from the state underfunding the university by at least $544 million over 50 years. Staff members had focused on fundraising in recent months even as they recruited players and worked to build a schedule, all while tackling the myriad other logistics required to get an athletics program up and running. Ultimately, time ran out.

“Deferring the inaugural season … is the right step to build a foundation worthy of the university,” Kevin Westgarth, the National Hockey League’s VP of Hockey Development and Strategic Collaboration, said in a release. “TSU has faced challenges before and always met them and come back stronger, and we expect hockey to be the latest chapter of that story.”

TSU announced in June 2023 that it would create an ice hockey program and planned to begin play as a Division I team this fall. The NHL and its local franchise, the Nashville Predators, backed the effort, which is seen as an important step in broadening the appeal of the sport. The NHL has provided funding and resources through its Industry Growth Fund. College Hockey, Inc. also offered support and input to ensure all the necessary steps were taken to create a successful and enduring program.

In recent months, however, TSU’s financial issues impacted every aspect of the university community. It was determined the hockey program would need to be self-funded, meaning a budgetary goal of $5 million needed for the first two seasons would have to be met without support from the university.

“Working closely with the NHL and the Predators, we agree that an additional year will provide the program with the time and resources it needs to launch at full strength and with long-term financial success in mind,” TSU Interim President Dwayne Tucker said.

Coach Duanté Abercrombie, hired in April 2024, has directed the fundraising effort. In the short term, the focus now will be on community engagement, initiatives to increase donations and continued program development (recruiting, facility planning, staff development, etc.) in an effort to maintain the excitement for and enthusiasm about a program that seeks to be a catalyst for other HBCU institutions to do the same.

“College Hockey, Inc. remains fully supportive of Tennessee State’s commitment to adding men’s ice hockey to its athletics program,” Sean Hogan, Executive Director of College Hockey, Inc., said.  “We’re excited to work closely with TSU as it prepares to launch and to see the impact this historic initiative will have on both the university and the growth of college hockey.”

Related

The “new-ish” framework governing Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) compensation for student-athletes continues to mature after the NCAA-House settlement. Recent guidance from the College Sports Commission introduces new requirements for disclosure and compliance, centered on a critical concept: “valid business purpose.” For student athletes and potential sponsors, understanding this refined-but-still-tricky definition will be essential for structuring permissible and effective NIL agreements.

On June 7, 2025, a new era of oversight began, mandating that NCAA Division I student-athletes report third-party NIL deals valued at $600 or more through a new portal, NIL Go. This system, developed with Deloitte, is designed to vet agreements against key criteria, ensuring they are commercially sound and not merely a pretext for pay-for-play. The problem is that NIL Go has been functioning far from perfectly.

The oversight will continue and the new guidance may accelerate some NIL deal review. The Commission’s evaluation rests on three pillars: the payor’s association with the school, a reasonable range of compensation, and, most notably, the existence of a “valid business purpose.”

The Core of Compliance: Valid Business Purpose (VBP)

The CSC guidance specifies that a deal must have a legitimate commercial rationale. The core of the VBP requirement is that the entity paying the student-athlete must be “seeking the use of the student-athlete’s NIL for a valid business purpose, meaning to sell a good or service to the public for profit” (¶ 14).

This standard directly targets arrangements where the primary goal is to channel funds to athletes rather than to promote a public-facing commercial enterprise.

The guidance states, “An entity with a business purpose of providing payments or benefits to student-athletes or institutions, rather than providing goods or services to the general public for profit, does not satisfy the valid business purpose requirement” (¶ 15).

Deconstructing a Tricky Example

The College Sports Commission provided a specific, and potentially challenging, example to illustrate this point.

The guidance clarifies that certain activities undertaken by NIL collectives—entities often formed with the express purpose of supporting a particular school’s athletes—do not meet the VBP standard on their own.

Consider the hypothetical situation presented:

“For example, a NIL collective that has a business purpose to pay student-athletes associated with a particular school or schools does not satisfy Rule 22.1.3 when it reaches a deal with a student-athlete to make an appearance on behalf of the collective at an event even if that event is open to the general public and the collective charges an admission fee (e.g., a golf tournament).

In this example, the NIL collective’s purpose is to raise money at the event to pay that student-athlete and potentially fund deals with other student-athletes at that school, which are not goods or services available to the general public for profit.” (¶ 16)

This logic extends to merchandise sales. If the “whole purpose in selling merchandise is to raise money to pay that student-athlete and potentially other student-athletes at a particular school or schools,” it is not considered a valid business purpose (¶ 17).

The distinction is subtle but significant. The primary purpose of the transaction determines its validity. If the collective’s activity—be it a golf tournament or a t-shirt sale—is fundamentally a fundraising mechanism to pay players, it fails the VBP test. The “good or service” (the event ticket or the merchandise) is incidental to the non-compliant purpose of athlete payment.

A Path Forward for Collectives and Brands

This CSC guidance does not foreclose opportunities for collectives or the businesses that support them. Instead, it directs them toward an allegedly more compliant operational model.

The Commission notes that these same deals would be permissible if the entity paying the student-athlete and receiving the public’s money were a genuine business with a purpose beyond paying athletes, such as “a golf course, an apparel company” (¶ 18).

This points to a viable path: NIL collectives—if they still exist—can potentially function as marketing agencies. They can broker deals between student-athletes and legitimate businesses that seek to use an athlete’s NIL to promote their actual goods and services.

The guidance explicitly allows for this, mandating that there is “documentation establishing that the sources of those specific funds were the entities with a valid business purpose that received the benefit of the student’s NIL” (¶ 19).

For schools, athletes, and the brands they represent, this clarification underscores the importance of proper structuring and documentation—good for all the lawyers and agents. When engaging a student-athlete, especially through an intermediary like a collective, the commercial logic needs to be clear. (Disclaimer: This is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or financial advice.)

It sounds like the agreement should demonstrate that the athlete’s NIL is being used to drive sales or promote a bona fide business, not simply as a pass-through for compensation.

While these new rules introduce compliance burdens for unsophisticated student-athletes, they may also offer a clearer, if narrower, path for legitimate commercial partnerships in the collegiate sports arena.

If certain programs are gaming the system (e.g., football-focused schools) to exceed the $20.5 million revenue sharing cap, then perhaps this enforcement catches or deters using unclean NIL funds for pay-to-play salaries.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Tennessee State is delaying the inaugural season of its men’s hockey program by a year as the school addresses financial issues associated with launching the program.

The Tigers will now start playing in the 2026-27 season rather than in 2025-26.

Tennessee State announced in June 2023 that it was planning to become the first historically Black college and university to sponsor Division I men’s hockey. Duanté Abercrombie was hired as the program’s first head coach in April 2024.

The decision to delay the start of competition was made by the school in collaboration with the NHL, Nashville Predators and College Hockey Inc., and that it reflected their “shared commitment to building a sustainable and competitive program.”

“We agree that an additional year will provide the program with the time and resources it needs to launch at full strength and with long-term financial success in mind,” Tennessee State interim president Dwayne Tucker said in a statement. “The extra preparation period will focus on recruiting, facility planning, staff development, and fundraising efforts. It also aligns with a broader vision to grow the sport of hockey in diverse communities.”

The release announcing the move noted that the school had received a $250,000 grant from the NHL/National Hockey League Players Association and continued support from the Predators.

“Deferring the inaugural season of TSU Tigers hockey to 2026-27 is the right step to build a foundation worthy of the university,” said Kevin Westgarth, the NHL’s vice president of hockey development and strategic collaboration. “TSU has faced challenges before and always met them and come back stronger, and we expect hockey to be the latest chapter of that story.”