CLEMSON — The current era of college football has created numerous challenges for coaching staffs across the country.

One of the biggest comes on the recruiting trail. Make no mistake, recruiting has always been a cutthroat business, but at the end of the day, many recruitments tended to boil down to relationships. With the advent of NIL and the new revenue-sharing model that just began on July 1, relationships are starting to take a backseat for many in what has become a more transactional process.

At Clemson, Dabo Swinney has always strived to make his program different. The two-time national title-winning head coach has cultivated a culture inside his program that tends to really resonate with a lot of recruits. However, in this era, that’s not always enough.

For example, just over a week ago, Clemson missed on five-star DL Bryce Perry-Wright, who had been trending towards the Tigers for more than a year. A recruit who visited Clemson far more than any other school.

Defensive tackles coach Nick Eason, who was heavily involved in that recruitment, went in-depth on the difficulties coaches experience recruiting in today’s landscape. While he wasn’t referencing any player specifically, Eason readily admits those big boy battles are now harder to win, but at the same time, he still fully believes in the process at Clemson.

“We just have to be intentional about who we are,” Eason said during Clemson Football’s Media Outing at the Allen Reeves Football Complex on Tuesday. “Not compromising the things coach Swinney has built this program on. And that is graduating our players, equipping them with tools for life, making sure they have a great college experience, and obviously winning a championship.”

And for Eason, the foundation of that process will always start and stop with the relationships.

“You can not compromise giving up the relationships because of what is going on in college football,” Eason added. “I am still going to be intentional about building relationships. It is still a relationship business.”

Some schools have begun routinely handing out seven-figure deals to players fresh out of high school. Players who have never taken a snap at the collegiate level.

With the new revenue-sharing model now in place, Clemson is much better positioned to compete for highly-rated recruits in this new era. The Tigers did recently beat Texas head-to-head for a four-star defensive end in Dre Quinn. However, Swinney, nor any of his assistants, will ever compromise the culture he has worked so hard to build.

“That is just kind of where the landscape of college football is at with NIL,” Eason said. “But it is my job to just continue to be who I am and continue to build the relationships, because the relationships do matter. Who you work with matters. Who you are playing with matters. Coaching matters. And who you are getting coached by matters.”

Eason has been on the winning side of enough of those kinds of recruitments to know Clemson’s approach still works. In the last class, Eason landed five-star Amare Adams, winning out over Georgia and South Carolina. Two classes before that, he beat out Alabama for five-star Peter Woods.

However, he also knows he won’t win them all. No school ever does.

“Control the things I can control. That is all I can control,” Eason said. “How I treat people. How I build relationships and how I recruit. How I am intentional in knowing what our program is about. Just continuing to extend that message that comes from our head coach. That is all I can control.

“I can’t control the NIL world, and that isn’t my job to do that. My job is to love on the players I currently have, continue to recruit elite talent, and let the chips fall where they may. Because this is Clemson. A lot of players, recruits and their families are still looking for what we are about, and that can help us win national championships.”

Photo courtesy of Bart Boatwright

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) – Today’s something good starts with long lines outside Doak Campbell Stadium.

Florida State University football players like FSU linebacker Justin Cryer and student athletes handed out bags full of groceries and gave away school supplies.

“Just with how things are in today’s age of NIL college football, you know it’s we can, we can lose track of that. So support for us to stay grounded and to just get back with our community because we know they come out every day in this in the stadium and cheer loud for us, and it’s important that we just show that we care and now we’re here for them,” Cryer said.

More good news:

The Norvell’s Keep Climbing Family Foundation teamed up with Second Harvest on Tuesday to make the giveaway possible.

More than 150 families received food and supplies at the event.

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Less than two weeks after terms of a multibillion-dollar college sports settlement went into effect, friction erupted over the definition of a “valid business purpose” that collectives making name, image and likeness payments to players are supposed to have.

The new College Sports Commission sent a letter to athletic directors last week saying it was rejecting deals in which players were receiving money from collectives that were created solely to pay them and don’t provide goods or services to the general public for profit.

A lead attorney for the players responded by saying those instructions went against settlement terms and asking the CSC to rescind the guidance.

“This process is undermined when the CSC goes off the reservation and issues directions to the schools that are not consistent with the Settlement Agreement terms,” attorney Jeffrey Kessler wrote to NCAA outside counsel Rakesh Kilaru in a letter obtained by The Associated Press.

Yahoo Sports first reported details of the letter, in which Kessler threatens to take the issue to a judge assigned with resolving disputes involved in the settlement.

Kessler told the AP that his firm was not commenting on the contents of the letter, and Kilaru did not immediately respond to the AP’s request for comment.

Yahoo quoted a CSC spokesman as saying the parties are working to resolve differences and that “the guidance issued by the College Sports Commission … is entirely consistent with the House settlement and the rules that have been agreed upon with class counsel.”

When NIL payments became allowed in 2021, boosters formed so-called collectives that were closely tied to universities to work out contracts with the players, who still weren’t allowed to be paid directly by the schools.

Terms of the House settlement allow schools to make the payments now but keep the idea of outside payments from collectives, which have to be approved by the CSC if they are worth $600 or more.

The CSC, in its letter last week, explained that if a collective reaches a deal, for instance, for an athlete to appear on behalf of the collective, which charges an admission fee, that collective does not have a “valid business purpose” because the purpose of the event is to raise money to pay athletes, not to provide goods or services available to the general public for profit.

Another example of a disallowed deal was one an athlete makes to sell merchandise to raise money to pay that player because, the CSC guidance said, the purpose of “selling merchandise is to raise money to pay that student-athlete and potentially other student-athletes at a particular school or schools, which is not a valid business purpose.”

Kessler’s letter notes that the “valid business purpose” rule was designed to ensure athletes were not simply being paid to play, and did not prohibit NIL collectives from paying athletes for the type of deals described above.

To prevent those payments “would be to create a new prohibition on payments by a NIL collective that is not provided for or contemplated by the Settlement Agreement, causing injury to the class members who should be free to receive those payments,” Kessler wrote.

AP college sports: https://apnews.com/hub/college-sports

Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

Last Updated on July 15, 2025

The spectacular thing about online sports betting is that it casts a much wider net than land-based bookies. The reason online sportsbooks can afford to do something like that is because they have fans from all over the world. That means there is a much larger diversity of interests than land-based shops, that must cater to their local customers.

Of course, online sportsbooks do cover all of the most popular sports you can imagine. Football and basketball are staples at the Novibet online betting platform. But, for those who wish to delve just a bit deeper, there are plenty of other options to choose from. In this article, we are focusing on some lesser-known sports that get attention at online sportsbooks.

Darts

Darts is at the top of the list. Most people may not even realize that there is a worldwide darts competition. Professional darts players may have success in the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia. But, most of the rest of the world is unaware that professional darts even exists. Well, online sportsbooks are starting to change that.

By covering the latest darts competitions, bookmakers have elevated the popularity of the sport, almost single-handedly. Today, professional darts is more popular than it has ever been before. The sport is growing a large following in the United States, which is good because the USA has one of the largest online sports betting markets in the world.

Water Polo

Water sports are often overlooked. Most people are familiar with competitive swimming, of course. But, water polo gets a raw deal in terms of popularity. Which is a shame, because the sport can get quite exciting. It has a pretty large following in Germany, Austria, Croatia, and Serbia. But, other markets just don’t seem to have much interest in it.

Yet, water polo has popped off at online sportsbooks. The coverage that water polo gets online is pretty intense, considering its popularity outside of betting. Like with darts, the attention the sport receives at online sportsbooks helps get more people interested in the games themselves. Recently, water polo’s popularity has grown by a pretty large margin. Who knows, maybe in ten years it will rival volleyball.

eSports

It is tough to include something like eSports on this list. For one, eSports is the fastest-growing market in the world of sports betting. Not only that, but the popularity of the phenomenon is greater now than ever before. Yet, it is hard to say that the average person follows eSports, or even knows what the word may refer to. For those who don’t know, eSports is another word for competitive gaming.

The eSports betting market has exceeded all expectations at online sportsbooks. Games like League of Legends and Fortnite are especially successful. However, even lesser-known games are getting the attention of the big-name titles. It seems gamers are very invested in betting on their hobby. There are even talks of legitimizing eSports as a sport proper. Whether that happens any time soon remains to be seen. What is certain is that eSports have a long future in sports betting.

“I wasn’t even good enough to get free stuff” – Charles Barkley recalls his underappreciated recruitment compared to today’s NIL deals. originally appeared on Basketball Network.

In the recent rise of NIL deals in the new era of college sports, Charles Barkley’s recruitment story shows the difference between college athletes now and then.

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When Barkley, one of the most iconic basketball figures of all time, entered college at Auburn, he wasn’t heavily recruited; in fact, he had only three options: UAB, Alabama and Auburn. He chose the latter because of the immediate impact he could have there, not for the money, unlike the college athletes nowadays.

“I wasn’t even good enough to get free stuff,” recalled Chuck during an interview with Graham Bensinger on YouTube.

Barkley’s experiences might shock the newer generations who have been around the latest college sports landscape. The idea was that players were viewed as athletes who were there to receive a free college education rather than making connections and gaining financial opportunities through their NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness) deals.

NIL deals

A new age of recruitment is upon us. NIL deals have transformed the recruiting process mainly for Division I college athletes. However, top prospects who are both standout players and athletes earn more money, depending on their marketability.

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High school prospect A.J. Dybantsa, the No. 1 overall high school recruit according to ESPN’s 100 rankings and No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 NBA Mock Draft, has an NIL valuation north of $4 million, making him the top earner in this upcoming NCAA season. Something that old-school legends like Barkley could never have imagined while in college.

While earning that kind of money seems great, it’s a double-edged sword. Athletes nowadays have to perform on the court while also maintaining their brand to continue securing this kind of money, a pressure that players like Barkley didn’t face; their sole focus was on their education and on-court performances.

Related: “He was a son of a b—-. To put it mildly…” – Dominique Wilkins thinks Kawhi Leonard wouldn’t stand a chance guarding prime Larry Bird

The change in college sports

Although the new system clearly has benefits, fans will argue that the NCAA’s business-first mentality has resulted in a loss of purity for the game.

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When Barkley was in college, athletes weren’t even thinking about personal branding or financial opportunities; they weren’t even thinking about the NBA. Their main goal was to earn a degree and get a chance to play in the best league in the world.

“I wasn’t even thinking about the NBA, I was just thinking about going to college for free,” he emphasized about his sole purpose for college ball.

A significant shift from today’s view, where athletes with a large social media following coming out of high school often don’t even need to be exceptionally talented to have NIL deals waiting for them.

For example, Mikey Williams, who has a massive social media following and was the No. 34 overall prospect in the 2023 class, has generated a $2.3 million NIL valuation despite currently attending Sacramento State University. This money was unimaginable to the college players when Barkley played.

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Many fans find it difficult to grasp the evolution of college basketball since the days of all-time greats like Chuckster. And with NIL deals gaining traction, the transformation is still underway, shaping a future that’s bound to keep progressing.

The question is, will it affect the NBA and overseas basketball, with players declining the option to go pro and instead staying in college to cash in on their hefty deals?

Related: “Because making all this money on these kids and not educating them is a travesty” – When Charles Barkley slammed the NCAA’s $11B industry for failing student-athletes

This story was originally reported by Basketball Network on Jul 15, 2025, where it first appeared.