NIL

Pathway Sports sets sights on maximizing returns for players in college football video game space

Published

7 months ago

May 5, 2025

Casey Schwab’s background doesn’t exactly scream “gamer.”

A Wisconsin graduate with a law degree from Southern Cal, Schwab’s career has included stops at NFL Network, Fox and, eventually, the NFLPA, running business and legal affairs for NFL Players Inc. He followed all that by founding Altius Sports Partners in 2020 amid the advent of NIL.

So, how and why, with a CV like that, is Schwab’s latest venture centered on, of all things, video games?

“There’s a lot of uncertainty [in the college space] around revenue sharing, the [House] settlement, employment status — or not employment status — collective bargaining,” he said. “But there’s not a lot of uncertainty around the commercial opportunities for college football players when it comes to video games.”

That clarity is why Schwab has moved on to a new venture — Pathway Sports and Entertainment.

Pathway’s business model is simple: The company aims to develop a video game group license for college football players by offering individual upfront payments of $1,500.

The real potential comes as those players signed on with Pathway could earn further compensation, should the group license subsequently be sold to a developer such as Electronic Arts, at which time players would receive no less than 70% of the net royalties.

So far, that pitch has been heard loud and clear.

Pathway has signed more than 2,700 players across the Power Four, just under half the total scholarship athletes at that level. That includes inking deals with at least 75% of the rosters at Alabama, Baylor, Texas, Georgia, Tennessee, Oregon, Nebraska, Wisconsin, SMU, Washington, Texas Tech and South Carolina, among others.

“It’s incumbent on us to perform,” said Eric Winston, president of Winners Alliance, the firm backing Pathway financially. “We’re not telling college players, ‘Hey, trust us,’ or ‘There’s a hope and a prayer and we’ll see what we can do.’ We’re out laying capital to these players so that they’re no worse off than the baseline — and we still believe that we can do multiples of that baseline better over time.”

The college football video game ecosystem exists in a relatively monopolistic state — opening the door for a disrupter such as Pathway.

EA, which declined to comment for this story when reached by Sports Business Journal, signed more than 11,000 athletes in relaunching its college football franchise last year via EA Sports College Football 25.

Those deals are technically individual and nonexclusive, though the majority of those athletes are also part of a group licensing agreement with OneTeam, which handles player payments and other responsibilities related to the game.

Pathway’s approach, albeit more aggressive, is essentially betting if it can sign enough players, developers would have to buy its group license in order to maintain a certain level of user experience.

After all, would the lone major college football video game sell to its maximum potential without half the players in the Power Four?

“There have been some headwinds,” Schwab conceded. “There’ve been some people who are confused by what we’re doing. There are some people who are challenged by what we’re doing. All of those are to be expected and, frankly, welcomed when you’re trying to disrupt and innovate and do something new.”

The announcement dropped like a hopeful hammer.

“For those who never stopped believing…” the post from EA Sports College’s X account read on Feb. 2, 2021, confirming the return of a college football video game.

While it was three more years before users had a downloadable game in front of them, EA Sports College Football 25 has since become the bestselling sports video game of all time, according to Circana (EA has not disclosed its exact sales figures).

“I was expecting it to debut as the biggest college football game in a launch month,” Mat Piscatella, Circana executive director, video games, told SBJ last year. “But I did not expect it to more than triple the lifetime dollar sales of the previous bestselling game [NCAA Football 07].”

For what massive success the revamped franchise has enjoyed after a decade-long hiatus, there has been ample consternation over athletes’ compensation related to their inclusion in the game.

The initial wave of onboarding real players into EA Sports College Football 25 — a significant shift from past iterations, given restrictions around NIL at the time — was done via a joint effort by EA, Learfield and OneTeam Partners.

Players were offered a flat payment of $600, regardless of position or school, along with a copy of the game for either PlayStation or Xbox. Cover athlete and “Ambassador” deals also were struck with a select number of athletes (terms of those deals have not been made public).

The issue Pathway intends to rectify: The upfront cash paid to players reflected neither their value to the game nor offered them a stake in how well it sold.

“Whether it‘s EA, whether it‘s whomever, we really think that we can bring value into a place that, quite frankly, players have not received it yet,” Winston said. “That just comes back to that core premise of why we’re doing this.”

Pathway’s efforts aren’t entirely novel, considering the machinations entailed in launching EA Sports College Football 25. But the backing behind Pathway, its key players and the group’s early returns are significant enough to merit notice.

The company’s three-person leadership team includes Schwab, former Georgia NIL collective frontman Matt Hibbs and Bob Philp, a longtime sports marketing executive most recently at CAA and Roc Nation. It also added Sami Robbins, who’d been managing college NIL partnerships at OneTeam, as its new director of college.

“Between myself, our investors and our operational team, we have quite literally decades of experience of structuring those deals, monetizing those deals, maximizing those deals for the athletes,” Schwab said.

In all, signing every scholarship player at the FBS level (134 schools) using Pathway’s $1,500 baseline could cost more than $17 million, or around $127,000 per school.

The company also is creating an activation program slated to feature up to 200 athletes for varying opportunities beyond the base payment.

Winners Alliance — an agency that has handled group licensing efforts in professional tennis and cricket and is headed up by OneTeam founding CEO Ahmad Nassar — is fronting the money to get Pathway off the ground. Winston declined to disclose how much is being invested, but it‘s understood enough capital has been poured in to pay players for multiple years.

Eventually, though, there will need to be a return on that investment.

Schwab told SBJ that Pathway’s profit plan centers on taking a cut of any deal that might be struck with potential game developers.

For example, Pathway and EA could hypothetically agree to a deal granting Pathway 10% of game sales in exchange for EA incorporating those players captured under the group license. If that game recorded $340 million in sales, Pathway would net $34 million, or double the rough investment it would take to sign all 11,000-plus FBS players.

Schwab noted at least 70% of the profit Pathway generates from a group license sale will go toward players. In this case, around $24 million of the theoretical $34 million agreement would be earmarked for athletes (about $2,100 per person) — $17 million toward the initial investments the company made in player signings, and roughly $7 million in new money. Pathway would then pocket the remaining $10 million.

“They have a value proposition for college players that is unique to anything else I‘ve seen in this space,” Arizona Cardinals tackle and Pathway adviser Kelvin Beachum said in a statement provided to SBJ. “They have a dedicated team and long-term vision that puts the players first, which is something I wish I had as a college player.”

Pathway has roared out of the gates since its first set of meetings with teams in February, but forecasting its long-term feasibility and potential isn’t as simple as back-of-the-napkin math.

For one, Pathway and EA have no current business relationship in place, and the latter is certainly under no obligation to create one.

There’s also competition on the market.

OneTeam — which handled NIL agreements for EA ahead of last year’s launch of College Football 25, and has played a major role with the NFLPA and EA’s Madden arrangement since 2020 — upped its one-time payments to athletes from $600 to $1,500 in March.

Still, the swath of agreements Pathway has struck should have a consequential impact in the not-too-distant future.

The deals the company inked in recent months are nonexclusive in 2025, but become exclusive in 2026 and extend through a player’s eligibility (exclusivity would end at that point).

More significant, Pathway also has included a right of first refusal in its deals for players who make a pro roster, giving the company a 90-day window to negotiate video game rights for those athletes.

That could theoretically create an impasse (or, on the flip side, incentivize partnership) between Pathway, the NFLPA, OneTeam and EA related to group licensing and the Madden franchise.

The NFLPA and OneTeam declined to comment for this story when reached by SBJ.

Schwab, however, insisted the ROFR included in Pathway’s deals is unlikely to be exercised.

“The only way it would make sense for us, or anybody, to exercise that right is if we had a deal with a video game developer to go pay more for those rights,” he said. “The analogy is if somebody has a right of first refusal on my house, and I’m trying to sell my house, I‘m going to be able to drive the rest of the market up for the value of my house.”

Pathway may also serve purposes beyond college football video games — though Schwab is adamant it‘s not a precursor to a union.

The company’s advisory board includes co-head of WME Sports Karen Brodkin and National Association of Basketball Coaches Executive Director Craig Robinson, suggesting a potential foray into college basketball.

More immediately, college sports leaders are determined to avoid classifying athletes as employees, despite seeking a way to collectively bargain (federal law requires one be deemed an employee in order to do so). Group licensing, thus, might provide a way to pseudo-organize without needing employee status or an antitrust exemption from Congress.

The approach is also one schools may look toward in a post-House settlement world, where NIL deals are likely to face more scrutiny from a Deloitte-run clearinghouse designed to judge fair market value on agreements worth $600 or more.

“I‘m a firm believer that the path forward [for college sports] is a situation where the student athletes can act collectively and we can reach an agreement with them in some form,” said former Notre Dame AD Jack Swarbrick, who‘s serving as an adviser for Pathway. “There are a lot of different ways to skin that cat, and so I‘m super supportive of anybody who‘s laying the groundwork for that. Casey certainly is.”

Alt text — In his new venture, Pathway Sports, Casey Schwab is trying to help college football players maximize their return from EA Sports new college football video game. Courtesy of Pathway Sports

NIL

$54 million college football coach now favored to be next Michigan head coach

Published

42 minutes ago

December 13, 2025

Your Sports Nation

Dillingham Out?

As the ripples of college football’s initial coaching carousel were starting to subside, here it goes again. Michigan was apparently closing in on Arizona State’s Kenny Dillingham as its next coach, but one of Lee Corso’s truisms came roaring back: not so fast, my friend. Dillingham is now rumored to be signing an extension at Arizona State, which means that the Michigan search will continue.

DeBoer A Possibility?

Other rumors with Michigan have centered around Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer. That’s convenient timing, as DeBoer himself is in jeopardy of a fourth loss in a second consecutive season at Alabama. It’s safe to say, as Paul Finebaum asserted recently, that Alabama’s CFP game with Oklahoma could deeply impact DeBoer’s future plans. If DeBoer did leave Alabama, the resulting coaching carousel fallout would likely be massive across the entire sport.

A New Favorite

But a new favorite is jumping thorough the Kalshi prediction market. Washington coach Jeff Fisch has leaped to a 37% chance to take the Michigan job as Dillingham fell from an overwhelming favorite to under 10% chances. Fisch is finishing the second year of a $54 million contract for seven years that he signed with the Huskies before the 2024 season.

Fisch’s Resume

A renowned offensive mind, Fisch graduated from the University of Florida and has climbed the offensive coaching ladder since. He did coach defense briefly with the NFL’s Houston Texans, but he’s otherwise worked on offensive with a bevy of college and pro teams. He’s been the offensive coordinator at Miami, with the Jacksonville Jaguars, and at UCLA.

Fisch rose to prominence in his first head coaching job at Arizona. His Wildcat teams climbed from 1 to 5 to 10 wins in his three seasons there. Since taking over Washington, Fisch is now 14-11 and has taken the Huskies to two bowl games.

Michigan’s Dilemma

Michigan seemed to be in good shape with Sherrone Moore after the departure of Jim Harbaugh to the NFL, but the events of the last week left the Wolverines suddenly without a coach and at a point in the coaching carousel where many of the biggest targets (Lane Kiffin, James Franklin) and even the top secondary targets (Jon Sumrall, Alex Golesh) have already been hired.

Given the uncertainty around the Michigan program, Fisch might make sense simply as one of the quicker hires possible. With Washington preparing for the LA Bowl this evening, Fisch recently reiterated his plan to coach the Huskies in 2026. That said, the prediction market is obviously not quite buying in on that plan.

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Trump calls NIL a ‘disaster’ for college sports and Olympics

Published

2 hours ago

December 13, 2025

Your Sports Nation

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

When President Donald Trump hosts an event in the Oval Office and opens things up to questions from the media, as he did on Friday while hosting members of the 1980 Miracle on Ice team, you get a lot of dumb questions.

I mean, I get that opportunities to ask the president a question are at a premium, but with Jim Craig and Mike Eruzione on hand, is that the time to ask about Venezuela?!

President Donald Trump gestures to the crowd before the start of the NFL Super Bowl 59 football game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs, Sunday, Feb. 9, 2025, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

Anyway, at least one member of the press asked a question that made a lot of sense, and it had to do with NIL.

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That’s fitting, as back when the Miracle on Ice team played, the Olympics were strictly for amateurs, and most of the team was plucked from various collegiate rosters.

Had they played 40-plus years later, they may have been rolling in some of that NIL dough.

But, as the president noted — and Sen. Ted Cruz would agree with — the current state of NIL is simply not sustainable and could cause serious damage to college athletics, and even the Olympics.

U.S. President Donald Trump, joined by the 1980 U.S. Olympic men’s ice hockey team, holds up a bill to honor the team in the Oval Office of the White House on Dec. 13, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

TRUMP WARNS COLLEGE SPORTS ARE IN ‘BIG TROUBLE’ IN CRYPTIC POST

“I think that it’s a disaster for college sports,” President Trump said. “I think it’s a disaster for the Olympics, because, you know, we’re losing a lot of teams. The colleges are cutting a lot of their — they would call them sort of the ‘lesser’ sports, and they’re losing them like at numbers nobody can believe. They were really training grounds, beautiful training grounds, hard-working, wonderful young people. They were training grounds for the Olympics.

“And a lot of these sports that were training so well would win gold medals because of it. Those sports don’t exist because they’re putting all their money into football. And by the way, they’re putting too much money into it, into football.”

President Trump noted that the top-performing athletic programs aren’t making enough money to sustain themselves, given the rate at which they’re paying highly sought-after players.

Jack Sawyer, Donald Trump and Ryan Day side by side

U.S. President Donald Trump stands with Ohio State Head Coach Ryan Day as he welcomes the 2025 College Football National Champions from Ohio State University to the White House during a ceremony on the south lawn in Washington, District of Columbia, on April 14, 2025. Ohio State won the national championship by defeating Notre Dame 34-23. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

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“They’re putting all of their money in, and I know something about it,” President Trump said. “They will not be able to stop. You have a college president [saying], “I’m telling you, sir, we give a guard $7 million, we’re going to win the national championship,’ and they’ll give them seven, then they won’t win it.

“And even if they do win it, colleges cannot afford to be paying the kind of salaries that you’re hearing about.”

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Kirk Herbstreit honors Arch Manning with major college football award

Published

2 hours ago

December 13, 2025

Your Sports Nation

The 2025 college football regular season is over and the time is now for ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit to hand out his personal awards for the year ahead of what’s sure to be an entertaining postseason. He calls them the Herbie Awards, which are given out to worthy somebodies across various categories.

For instance, you can go read who Herbstreit selected as his Offensive Player of the Year right here. But one of the awards Herbstreit came up with was called the Redemption Player of the Year, which he said is intended to award a guy who bounced back from an injury, a poor season the year before, or even someone who showed extraordinary growth from Week 1 to Week 14.

He nominated three players for the honor: Texas quarterback Arch Manning, Alabama linebacker Deonte Lawson, and Notre Dame defensive end Boubacar Traore. As you should already know, Herbstreit opted to give the Redemption Player of the Year honor to the most famous name in college football, Arch Manning, for navigating a difficult year into a very positive finish for he and the Longhorn program.

“I think he came in with unrealistic expectations,” Herbstreit said of the Texas QB. “When this season started, people were talking about, ‘He’s going to win the Heisman Trophy. He’s better than Payton. He’s better than Eli. He’s better than his grandpa. He’s going to win a national championship. It’ll be the first pick next year in the draft.'”

Texas Longhorns quarterback Arch Manning throws a pass | Scott Wachter-Imagn Images

Obviously, the season didn’t turn out that rosy. For Herbstreit, it was seeing Manning undergo the ego hit and the piling on of critics but still turn his season around to finish so strong that impressed him so much.

“When that didn’t pan out in the first half of the season, people were very, very critical,” Herbstreit continued. To his credit, he blocked all of that out. Didn’t take any of it personally. If anything, I think it motivated him to go out and help his teammates win games. And I was really happy for him enduring that and coming out on the other side.”

In his first year as the full-time starter, Manning finished with just under 3,000 total passing yards while guiding Texas to a solid 9-3 season given the harsh schedule they were saddled with. After some early-season offensive struggles and two losses in their first five games, Manning and the Longhorn offense hit a groove as the Longhorns won six of their last seven.

Across Texas’ final five games, Arch Manning threw for 300+ yards in three wins against Mississippi State, Arkansas and Vanderbilt, and then led a 27-point outing and scored two touchdowns, one passing and one rushing, to lead Texas over rival Texas A&M.

Rodriguez collects Bednarik Award for fifth national honor

Published

4 hours ago

December 13, 2025

Your Sports Nation

LUBBOCK, Texas – Texas Tech senior linebacker Jacob Rodriguez collected his fifth national award this season Friday evening as he was tabbed the winner of the Bednarik Award during the College Football Awards Show live on ESPN.

Rodriguez is the first Red Raider in program history to win the Bednarik Award, which is presented annually by the Maxwell Football Club to the nation’s top defensive player. The Bednarik Award selected Rodriguez over Ohio State safety Caleb Downs and Texas A&M defensive end Cashius Howell.

With the addition of the Bednarik Award, Rodriguez is now the winner of the Butkus Award (nation’s top linebacker), the Bronko Nagurski Trophy (nation’s top defensive player), the Lombardi Award (nation’s top lineman or linebacker) and the Pony Express Award (nation’s top duo with David Bailey) this season alone. He is the third player in history to win the Butkus Award as well as the Nagurski Trophy and Bednarik Award in the same season, joining Miami’s Dan Morgan (2000) and Notre Dame’s Manti Te’o (2012). Rodriguez joins Te’o as the only players to also win the Lombardi Award.

Rodriguez, who was also tabbed a first team All-American by the Walter Camp Foundation during the ESPN broadcast, has bolstered one of the nation’s top defenses, leading the Red Raiders to their first Big 12 title in program history this season and their first appearance in the College Football Playoff. The Red Raiders enter a potential matchup with either No. 5 Oregon or No. 12 seed James Madision at 12-1 overall, marking the most wins in program history.

Rodriguez has now led Texas Tech to four-consecutive bowl appearances during his career after going from a scholarship quarterback at Virginia, to walk-on linebacker with the Red Raiders and now a national award winner. He was joined during the ESPN College Football Awards Show by his parents, Joe and Ann Rodriguez, and his wife, Emma.

Rodriguez enters bowl season as the FBS leader with seven forced fumbles and ranks among the top-15 players nationally with 117 tackles. He is the first FBS player since 2005 to record at least five forced fumbles, two fumble recoveries and four interceptions all in the same season. His impact has bolstered a Texas Tech defense that leads the nation with 31 takeaways and ranks third nationally in scoring defense at 10.9 points per game. Rodriguez was responsible for nine takeaways himself — all in Big 12 play – thanks to his ability to punch the ball out and also read the quarterback in coverage.

Rodriguez is currently the highest-rated player in all of college football, according to Pro Football Focus, grading out at 93.3 overall so far this season. He is the top-rated player in the country in terms of rush defense, receiving a 95.5 grade in that area for a Red Raider defense that is easily the nation’s best in stopping opponents on the ground. Texas Tech is giving up only 68.5 rushing yards a game thanks to Rodriguez, who also ranks fifth nationally in coverage with a 92.3 grade.

Established in 1995, the Chuck Bednarik Award is one of the most-prestigious honors in college football, awarded annually to the most outstanding defensive player. This accolade recognizes exceptional talent, tenacity and impact on the defensive side of the ball. The award is named in tribute to Chuck Bednarik, a revered figure in football history known for his remarkable career as a linebacker.

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NIL

$15 million college football coach sues Big Ten school over buyout dispute

Published

5 hours ago

December 13, 2025

Your Sports Nation

It’s a darn tootin’ time to be a lawyer in the college sports space, eh? As college footbal programs all around the country change coaches, hand out buyouts and sign ridiculous new contracts, even some former coaches are trying to get what’s theirs.

Just this week, as the dust seemed to be settling nation-wide on a chaotic spin of the coaching carousel this fall, we had Sherrone Moore’s firing at Michigan and the ugly fallout from that ordeal, plus the somewhat surprising retirement of legendary Utah Utes head coach Kyle Whittingham, setting up a changing of the guard at Utah plus a brand new search in Ann Arbor — which may kickstart a whole other chain of coaching searches.

Amid all this talk of contracts and big buyout money, one former Nebraska coach, Scott Frost, has come out of the woodwork to sue Nebraska, alleging the ‘Huskers have shorted him on the agreed-upon buyout payments. Local news outlet WOWT had the news Friday evening:

“Former Nebraska football coach Scott Frost filed a lawsuit Friday, accusing the school of breaching his contract and mishandling millions in buyout payments and taxes,” they wrote. “In the complaint filed in Lancaster County District Court, Frost claimed the university wrongly stopped payments he said are owed for 2025 and 2026 under his employment contract. Frost is seeking a court order confirming Nebraska’s right to reduce those payments and seeking at least $5 million in damages.

Scott Frost was fired on the heels of a 10th consecutive loss in a one-possession game, this time to Georgia Southern, 45-42, following a poor start to the team’s season in 2022. At the end of that season, Nebraska placed former Baylor and Carolina Panthers coach Matt Rhule at the helm of the program, and he’s guided it ever since.

Scott Frost buyout details

Former Nebraska Cornhuskers head coach Scott Frost | Dylan Widger-Imagn Images

When Frost was fired in September of 2022, his buyout came out to roughly $15 million, and that number would have been split in half had the Cornhuskers merely waited a few weeks, until Oct.1, to officially pull the trigger. Now, per Yahoo Sports, the argument centers on some tax mumbo jumbo.

“According to the filing, Nebraska told Frost in December 2022 that it planned to count the projected value of his 2025 and 2026 buyout payments as income on his W-2 for that year,” wrote Jim Recalto for Yahoo. “Frost argues that move was improper and left him with a $1.7 million tax liability for money that had not been paid.”

Yahoo adds: “Frost says those future payments were guaranteed under his contract and could not be reduced or taken away. However, he also claims the university said in the same email that the payments could later be adjusted, without explaining how or why.”

Seek out your local CPA for a better read on this situation, but from the bird’s eye view, it appears that Frost had future buyout payments lumped into the same year he was fired, which definitely heavied his tax burden vs. taken the payments over several years. Then, the university tried to adjust or change those payments they had already lumped onto the W-2 which Frost had been taxed for.

Essentially, the man was taxed on money he hadn’t yet received, and then when it came to receiving said money, the process for getting it was changed around despite the fact Frost was already liable for the money. At least, that’s how Frost’s side puts it. Nebraska may have some explaining to do here.