NIL

Lawmakers to delve into issues involving college athletes

On the same day that news broke about President Donald Trump launching a commission focused on college sports, the Louisiana Legislature took a step toward creating a task force of its own to look at some of the same issues. According to Wednesday’s Yahoo! Sports report by Ross Dellenger, who you may remember as a […]

Published

1 month ago

May 13, 2025

Your Sports Nation

According to Wednesday’s Yahoo! Sports report by Ross Dellenger, who you may remember as a former LSU football beat writer for The Advocate, the presidential commission may be “the first step in what could be a months-long endeavor for solutions to the issues ailing the [college sports] ecosystem.”

While there has been no official announcement yet, Dellenger’s sources expect former Alabama coach and LSU-coach-turned-nemesis Nick Saban to lead the commission, along with Texas billionaire businessman Cody Campbell.

Also on Wednesday, the House Education Committee advanced House Resolution 15 by Rep. Rashid Young, which would create a task force to study “name, image and likeness” issues for college athletes in Louisiana.

Commonly known as “NIL,” name, image and likeness deals allow private businesses, and privately funded collectives associated with universities, to openly pay college athletes. Ostensibly, these are endorsement deals, though many observers see it as pay-to-play by another name.

State lawmakers in Louisiana and elsewhere began legalizing NIL about four years ago, forcing the National Collegiate Athletic Association to end its ban on athlete endorsements. You can read Louisiana’s statute here.

But the NCAA’s rules around NIL change often and are loosely enforced at best. States have been tweaking their own laws, in hopes of giving their schools a competitive edge.

As amended Wednesday, Young would chair an NIL commission that would hold its first meeting by Aug. 1, with a report due in January. The group would include another House member appointed by Speaker Phillip DeVillier, another by Attorney General Liz Murrill, six university athletic directors, three student-athletes, three members from the private sector, and higher ed Commissioner Kim Hunter Reed or her designee.

Among other issues, Young says he wants the commission to consider “transparency” in the NIL marketplace. While it won’t look at individual contracts, he wants to help athletes understand their true value.

“There are just a number of things that come with contracts that we’re not sure that they completely understand,” Young adds. “They don’t understand the tax implications.”

Young also notes that the college athletics world is awaiting approval of the House v. NCAA settlement, which would distribute $2.8 billion in back pay to former athletes and allow direct payments from schools to athletes. Potential roster limits, which could cost thousands of athletes their spots, are the current major sticking point.

“Jurisprudence may potentially change the way our schools have to treat athletes,” Young says. “And so we want to make sure that we are supporting our schools and the kids and getting ahead of it.”

He also wants to discuss how to support the NIL efforts of schools that don’t have big-budget athletics programs, like Grambling and McNeese.

Young also has filed House Bill 168, which would authorize a state tax deduction for NIL income of up to $12,500. Rep. Dixon McMakin’s HB166 has a similar aim, though without the cap.

McMakin notes that LSU’s Southeastern Conference competitors in Texas, Tennessee and Florida don’t have an income tax, and Georgia and Alabama have considered legislation to enact NIL tax breaks. He doesn’t want Louisiana’s schools to fall behind their peers in the NIL arms race.

But both bills currently are parked in Ways and Means, and their chances for final passage may be dim.

“I think there is interest in doing it,” McMakin says. “Unfortunately, right now in the state we’re in with our insurance crisis and other tax issues, that interest may not rise to the level of getting through the process this year.”

Perhaps that could be another topic for Young’s task force to take on.

Other instruments filed this session involving college athletics include:

—HB 639 by Rep. Neil Riser, would more than double the state tax on sports betting from 15% to 32.5%, dedicating 25% of the proceeds to a fund to support “athletic departments at public universities that are members of conferences that compete in NCAA Division One athletics at the Football Bowl Subdivision and Football Championship Subdivision levels in La. for the benefit of student athletes.”

—SB 200, by Sen. Jeremy Stine, would limit the amount of athletics scholarships that schools could offer to foreign citizens to 25% of the total. It would be known as the “Make American Athletics Great Again Act.”

—HCR 13 by Rep. John Illg, asks the SE to schedule football games at LSU after 6 p.m. during September for health and safety reasons related to the heat during day games. The measure does not mention other schools or conferences.

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Steve Sarkisian highlights what sets Texas apart in NIL recruiting battles

Texas Longhorns’ head coach Steve Sarkisian adamantly believes his program has the best product in the country. The Longhorns have certainly reached new heights under Sarkisian since he took the job in 2021. After a losing season in his first year, Texas has posted a 33-10 record with a Big 12 championship in 2023 and […]

Published

12 minutes ago

June 26, 2025

Your Sports Nation

Texas Longhorns’ head coach Steve Sarkisian adamantly believes his program has the best product in the country.

The Longhorns have certainly reached new heights under Sarkisian since he took the job in 2021. After a losing season in his first year, Texas has posted a 33-10 record with a Big 12 championship in 2023 and back-to-back College Football Playoff appearances over the last two seasons.

Things have also improved significantly on the recruiting trail, as Texas is coming off the nation’s top class of the 2025 cycle after signing the No. 6 class and No. 3 class, respectively, over the previous two cycles.

Additionally, the Longhorns have produced the most NFL Draft picks (23) by any program over the last two years.

Sarkisian noted those accomplishments, along with making the 2024 SEC title game in the first season in the conference, when explaining why Texas is such an enticing spot for some of the top players in the country.

“All the while that’s occurring at a top five public institution in the United States,” Sarkisian said Tuesday on “3rd & Longhorn.” “All the while being part of an athletic department that’s won four of the five last athletic director’s cups.”

Longhorns football is backed by a large NIL war chest that is estimated to spend $22.2 million this year, the most in the country, per NCAA estimates. And Sarkisian believes there are additional opportunties for his players given Austin’s lack of professional sports teams.

“But all the while you’re doing it in the city of Austin, which, oh, by the way, is the largest city in the US with no pro sports,” Sarkisian said. “So, no NFL, no major league baseball, no NBA. So, who are getting those NIL deals?”

Sarkisian and Co. appear to be using that aspect to sign recruits and transfers to lesser deals than they might get elsewhere, something he believes has to happen to maintain depth and stay near the top of college football.

“Maybe we get a guy for a little bit less than another school’s offering,” he said. “Especially in this day and age, that’s got to happen … I (a recruit) want to look at more of the long-term money and Texas is going to provide me an opportunity to to create more opportunities whether it’s on the field, off the field, degree, NIL, brand building, player development, opportunity in the NFL.”

“We’ve got a lot of avenues to go come here and be really successful,” Sarkisian continued. So, there’s a lot to it. But like I said, I think we have the best product in the US. I don’t think there’s another school that can say that.”

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IU basketball recruiting target Sammy Jackson picks VCU – The Daily Hoosier

Darian DeVries suffered his first high school recruiting decision day loss this afternoon. 4-star wing Sammy Jackson surprised many Wednesday when he picked perennial mid-major power Virginia Commonwealth over Indiana and Texas, along with St. Joe’s. Jackson announced the decision at his high school. His father, long-time NBA player Marc Jackson, also started his college […]

Published

50 minutes ago

June 26, 2025

Your Sports Nation

Darian DeVries suffered his first high school recruiting decision day loss this afternoon.

4-star wing Sammy Jackson surprised many Wednesday when he picked perennial mid-major power Virginia Commonwealth over Indiana and Texas, along with St. Joe’s.

Jackson announced the decision at his high school. His father, long-time NBA player Marc Jackson, also started his college career at VCU before transferring to Temple.

A Philadelphia product, Jackson chose to play at VCU for another product of his hometown. New VCU head coach Phil Martelli, Jr. played at St. Joe’s in Philadelphia.

Jackson took an official visit to IU earlier this month.

DeVries and the IU staff have several other wing players on their 2026 board, including Prince-Alexander Moody, who is on an official visit in Bloomington this week.

For more on where things stand with IU’s class of 2026 recruiting efforts, GO HERE:

IU basketball class of 2026 recruiting scorecard: Here’s where things stand in late June

For complete coverage of IU basketball recruiting, GO HERE.

The Daily Hoosier –“Where Indiana fans assemble when they’re not at Assembly”

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The importance of regaining the aura of Alabama Football

Published

1 hour ago

June 26, 2025

Your Sports Nation

The aura has been lost, and in year two of the DeBoer era, it is more important than ever for some of that to return to the Alabama football program. With the NIL and transfer portal era, there is a lot more parity in college football, and because of that, we’ve seen Alabama be less dominant and opponents having more confidence than ever before that they can beat Alabama. We saw that in 2023 with how Quinn Ewers came into Bryant-Denny Stadium and dominated, and it was seen far too much last season.

This summer so far, we’ve seen Diego Pavia’s social media response to Ryan Williams, and the newest hot topic this week is what Thomas Castellanos had to say about the week one matchup. I get it, players should have confidence in their abilities and teams being able to beat Alabama, but it’s a different world when Vanderbilt legitimately feels like they are on the same level, or a team coming off a 2-10 season has any bulletin board material to give going into the season. The jury is still out on the Crimson Tide going into this season, and because of that, now more than ever, teams feel like it’s time to get their licks back.

Everything seems to still revolve around what Nick Saban did and what he still does to help the program. Though his presence is important and his run will always be held in high regard, it is important that in Kalen DeBoer’s second season that we start to see less of that focus on the past. The big question is, how do you do that? And the simple answer is to win games, and that starts with winning convincingly in Tallahassee, winning all three revenge games at home in 2025, and ending the season much stronger than 2024 with at least one playoff game. The path of transition is far from easy, but if Duke was able to transition from Coach K to John Scheyer without much, if any, drop off, there is no doubt the same can be done in Tuscaloosa.

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St. John’s Coach Rick Pitino On NIL, Transfer Portal: ‘Complaining is of No Value’

Rick Pitino took St. John’s from being a team that was nowhere to be found in the NCAA Tournament conversation to a No. 2 seed in just two seasons. How did Pitino get the Red Storm to rise to prominence so quickly? Living in the reality of NIL and the transfer portal, rather than fighting […]

Published

1 hour ago

June 26, 2025

Your Sports Nation

Rick Pitino took St. John’s from being a team that was nowhere to be found in the NCAA Tournament conversation to a No. 2 seed in just two seasons.

How did Pitino get the Red Storm to rise to prominence so quickly? Living in the reality of NIL and the transfer portal, rather than fighting it.

“I felt the change was here and quitting, resigning, complaining is of no value,” Pitino said about NIL on Wednesday’s edition of “The Herd.” “You have to win the day. You have to get the job done, and I just felt that ‘Okay, we’re going to use it to the best of our abilities at St. John’s.’

“So, we’re an urban school; we’re a computer school; we play in Madison Square Garden as our home court: How can we maximize our potential by embracing the NIL and the transfer portal? We went away from high school basketball players, although we have taken one or two to develop, but by and large we’ve gone after older players.”

Pitino also expressed that parents have never been more involved in the recruiting process than now.

On the basketball front, Pitino explained what his practices look like.

“We have player development sessions every morning, Monday through Friday, where we go three-to-four different sessions with four players, and we try to take players like a Donovan Mitchell, a Terry Rozier who maybe’s not ranked top-20 or 25 in high school, and they’ve got a little bit of a weakness. Donovan Mitchell had a weakness with the arc on his jump shot. Everybody’s got a weakness coming out that’s not top 10, so we try to take those player development sessions and make the players better,” Pitino said.

“Our practices, yes, are very difficult, but I will say this: They’re not long. We don’t go more than two hours, but we go hard for two hours. We’re up and down for two hours. If I make a comment or a correction, it’s going to be within 12 seconds, and then we’re moving on because conditioning is a gigantic part of our style of play.”

After going 20-13 in the 2023-24 season, Pitino and the Red Storm put together a 31-5 campaign highlighted by winning the Big East regular-season title with an 18-2 conference record, winning the Big East Tournament and claiming a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament. While St. John’s was upset in the second round by No. 10 seed Arkansas, the 2024-25 season marked the first time in six years that the program had made the NCAA Tournament and the first time in 10 years that it had done so without having to play in the First Four round.

On the personal front, Pitino won the 2024-25 Naismith, AP and Big East Coach of the Year awards. St. John’s is Pitino’s sixth full-time men’s college basketball head-coaching gig, with the Hall of Famer previously coaching three seasons at Iona before leaving for Queens in March 2023.

St. John’s had a gargantuan transfer portal class this offseason, reeling in former five-star recruits and now sophomores Ian Jackson (previously of North Carolina) and Joson Sanon (previously of Arizona State), former Providence forward Bryce Hopkins, former Cincinnati forward Dillon Mitchell and former Stanford wing Oziyah Sellers, among others. 247Sports ranks St. John’s transfer class as the best in men’s college basketball.

While the Red Storm have minimal returning players, they have big man and 2024-25 All-Big East honoree Zuby Ejiofor back for his senior season. Next season, St. John’s will square off against SEC powerhouses Alabama and Kentucky, among other notable out-of-conference matchups.

Rick Pitino on the 2025 NBA Draft, Caitlin Clark’s Impact, Cooper Flagg

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NCAA allowing college basketball schedule to expand starting 2026-27 season

Gonzaga’s midseason showdown with Kentucky during the heat of the 2023-24 campaign was a rare instance of two college basketball heavyweights setting aside their conference obligations to deliver a thrilling nonleague matchup in the weeks leading up to the postseason. Up until that point, marquee nonconference games were mostly reserved for November and December, when […]

Published

2 hours ago

June 26, 2025

Your Sports Nation

Up until that point, marquee nonconference games were mostly reserved for November and December, when the college basketball calendar is at its most flexible. But in light of a recent proposal that, if approved, would extend the sport’s regular season by one game, more high-profile contests like the one between the Bulldogs and Wildcats in February 2024 could become more commonplace in the future.

According to a report from CBS Sports’ Matt Norlander, the NCAA Division I Council will approve an increase from 31 to 32 games beginning with the 2026-27 season. Teams will be allowed to schedule up to one more game, barring any last-minute vetoes, but won’t be forced to play out a full 32-game schedule if they choose not to. Contests against non-Division I opponents will also count toward the total.

An expanded schedule would mean that teams that advance to the National Championship game could play up to 41 games during that season. No team has ever crossed the 40-game threshold to this point.

Per Norlander, the driving factor behind the push for 32 games is tied to multi-team events and their increasingly restrictive guidelines stemming from conference expansion, which has led to schools in the same league competing against each other in some events. That was previously not allowed but has since been changed through a waiver process. It’s also worth noting that lengthening the schedule will allow MTEs like the NIL-driven Players Era Festival to schedule three- or four-game tournaments.

Players Era is set for a second run this November with 20 participants, including Gonzaga, and is hoping to grow to 32 teams by 2026.

Of course, money is also at the forefront. In addition to freeing up more opportunities for lucrative neutral site contests, moving to 32 games will allow programs to host one more home game. With the House settlement ushering in revenue sharing for college athletes, teams will certainly be looking for more ways to create revenue.

The maximum games a team can play in a season was set at 31 in 2006-07. The format was 28 or 29 predetermined games with room for three-game or two-game multi-team events if applicable, making it a 31-game cap.

The switch to 32 games would align with Gonzaga’s move to the Pac-12 conference, which is to be made official on July 1, 2026. Only time will tell how the league arranges its conference schedule for men’s basketball, as the Pac-12’s current priorities are to find another football-playing school to join as a full-time member.

MORE GONZAGA NEWS & ANALYSIS

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Highest-Paid College Football Players if NIL Existed Since 2000

Published

2 hours ago

June 26, 2025

Your Sports Nation

The analysis explores how college football players would have financially benefited from Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) deals had they been available since 2000. Writers ranked players like Johnny Manziel, Reggie Bush, and Tim Tebow based on their hypothetical NIL earnings, reflecting on the lucrative potential of their marketability. Manziel leads with an estimated $35 million, followed by notable players such as Bush and Tebow, showcasing how the rise of NIL could have dramatically changed athletes’ financial landscapes. This retrospective illustrates the growing tensions between athlete compensation and traditional NCAA policies.

By the Numbers

Johnny Manziel: $35 million
Reggie Bush: $25 million
Tim Tebow: $22 million
Cam Newton: $20 million
Vince Young: $15 million

Yes, But

There are contrasting views on whether NIL benefits would have truly leveled the playing field or just enhanced disparities among programs with existing resources. Some argue that while top-tier schools benefit more from these arrangements, lower-tier programs might struggle to compete for top talent.

State of Play

NIL policies are now a game-changer in college athletics, allowing players to monetize their brand.
The debate surrounding compensation in college sports continues to evolve as more athletes seek financial opportunities.

What’s Next

Future developments may involve more stringent regulations around NIL deals to address concerns regarding equity among athletes. Additionally, the impact of NIL on recruiting strategies and team dynamics is likely to reshape how colleges approach athletic programs.

Bottom Line

The exploration into past athletes’ potential NIL earnings underscores significant shifts in college athletics, highlighting how financial opportunities could redefine the landscape, empower athletes, and create lasting impacts on the NCAA’s structure.

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