NIL
San Diego State Aztecs football’s first general manager, Caleb Davis
San Diego State hired its first-ever football general manager in March, a position becoming more common with NIL and revenue sharing continue to expand. SAN DIEGO — As the landscape of college football is ever-changing, San Diego State is trying to navigate, keep up and trailblaze. As a result, the school has hired Caleb Davis […]

San Diego State hired its first-ever football general manager in March, a position becoming more common with NIL and revenue sharing continue to expand.
SAN DIEGO — As the landscape of college football is ever-changing, San Diego State is trying to navigate, keep up and trailblaze.
As a result, the school has hired Caleb Davis in March as its first-ever general manager, a position becoming more common as NIL and revenue sharing continue to be major topics of discussion.
His responsibilities include evaluating the roster and incoming players, recruitment, financial allocations, being the primary liaison for Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) partnerships and negotiating NIL contracts with players and their representatives.
As the landscape of college football keeps changing, SDSU Athletic Director JD Wicker said that is why it was important to make this hire now.
“We are entering this new realm of college athletics where we are revenue sharing with our student-athletes,” Wicked said. “It made sense with our team and a squad that is that big, that you have to deal with a revenue sharing standpoint, with an NIL sharing standpoint. Most student-athletes have representation, whether that’s a mom, dad or uncle that required a lot of time from our full-time coaches, so having a GM to help manage that for Coach Lewis made sense.”
Davis is one of the youngest football general managers in college football at the age of 26 years old.
“It’s a blessing,” Davis said. “It’s a blessing every day. For me it’s about how if I told middle school Caleb, ‘Hey you’re going to be a general manager in college football before GMs were even a thing in college football and it’s going to be a place like San Diego State that has the history, has the tradition and everything you would want in a program’ I would have pinching myself because I wouldn’t believe it.”
He may be young, but he is proven.
Before coming to SDSU, he was the Director of Recruiting at Notre Dame, which was the college football national championship runner-up last season. Prior to that, he was the general manager of player personnel at Troy.
Head coach Sean Lewis thinks Dais is a young, bright mind.
“As someone who was the youngest head coach in the country, age is just a number,” Lewis said. “It is more about knowledge and experience, it’s about wisdom in this landscape. No matter how old you are, this position and landscape is only a couple of years old. It is in its infancy. So I think to be flexible, to be lifelong learner for lack of a better term, to be green and growing and open to new ideas so we can be flexible and we can pivot, I think those are things Caleb exuded in his interview process.”
Davis’ hiring is a stark contrast from what several other schools are doing. As college football takes on more of a pro model with GMs, schools have hired GMs with NFL experience.
For example, Oklahoma hired Jim Nagy, Stanford hired Andrew Luck and Cal hired Ron Rivera.
“It’s exciting, it’s competition,” Davis said. “If something like that doesn’t get your blood boiling, doesn’t give you goosebumps, doesn’t make you want to run through a wall to make San Diego State a playoff program, I don’t know what does. The first day Ron Rivera was hired, everyone was like ‘Oh, you have this NFL head coach you’re going up against and now we are competing against in week 3, and I love it. I’m probably one of the quietest competitive people you will ever meet in your life. I might not be outwardly trash-talking and everything, but there is a fire that burns inside of me to make sure not a single person in this country outworks me on a day-to-day basis.”
The amount SDSU has to spend on NIL money is not known. Davis did allude to the fact that the school doesn’t have the kind of money that the Ohio States and Notre Dames of the world have.
He still feels San Diego State can be effective in getting talented players.
“I always start every conversation with ‘Do you want to be here? Do you want to be at San Diego State?’ Every single time that answer is yes,” he said. “Kids want to be here, their parents want them here, their agents want them here. The next part of it is that everyone’s market value is always higher elsewhere. If Coach Lewis put his name in the coaching transfer portal could get more money elsewhere, I could get more money elsewhere, …our operations team could go get more money elsewhere. That’s always an option. It’s the same deal with our kids.”
“If you have the understanding you want to be here and you love this opportunity and you know we are not going to match what some of these power programs can do, then how can we get to a point where okay you feel confident turning away X amount of money elsewhere and you feel comfortable with the agreement you have in place here?”
Davis takes on a lot of responsibilities previously handled by the coaching staff. Negotiating contracts and handling academic compliance for student-athletes allows the coaching staff to focus more on what happens on the field.
San Diego State believes this hire will help bring plenty of success.
Davis is confident it will, too. “All I have been around is success at every step. I don’t plan on it being any different now,” he said. ” I just need to put my head down, work, and ensure the vision and the goals of this program are being reached on a day-to-day basis.”
RELATED: Whatever It Takes | San Diego Seals navigate working different jobs and a lot of travel to find success on the field
NIL
The new college sports agency is rejecting some athlete NIL deals with donor-backed collectives
The new agency in charge of regulating name, image, likeness deals in college sports sent a letter to schools Thursday saying it had rejected deals between players and donor-backed collectives formed over the past several years to funnel money to athletes or their schools. Those arrangements hold no “valid business purpose,” the memo said, and […]

The new agency in charge of regulating name, image, likeness deals in college sports sent a letter to schools Thursday saying it had rejected deals between players and donor-backed collectives formed over the past several years to funnel money to athletes or their schools.
Those arrangements hold no “valid business purpose,” the memo said, and don’t adhere to rules that call for outside NIL deals to be between players and companies that provide goods or services to the general public for profit.
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The letter to Division I athletic directors could be the next step in shuttering today’s version of the collective, groups that are closely affiliated with schools and that, in the early days of NIL after July 2021, proved the most efficient way for schools to indirectly cut deals with players.
Since then, the landscape has changed yet again with the $2.8 billion House settlement that allows schools to pay the players directly as of July 1.
Already, collectives affiliated with Colorado, Alabama, Notre Dame, Georgia and others have announced they’re shutting down. Georgia, Ohio State and Illinois are among those that have announced plans with Learfield, a media and technology company with decades of licensing and other experience across college athletics, to help arrange NIL deals.
Outside deals between athlete and sponsor are still permitted, but any worth $600 or more have to be vetted by a clearinghouse called NIL Go that was established by the new College Sports Commission and is being run by the auditing group Deloitte.
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In its letter to the ADs, the CSC said more than 1,500 deals have been cleared since NIL Go launched on June 11, “ranging in value from three figures to seven figures.” More than 12,000 athletes and 1,100 institutional users have registered to use the system.
But the bulk of the letter explained that many deals could not be cleared because they did not conform to an NCAA rule that sets a “valid business purpose” standard for deals to be approved.
The letter explained that if a collective reaches a deal with an athlete to appear on behalf of the collective, which charges an admission fee, the standard is not met 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.
The same would apply to a deal an athlete makes to sell merchandise to raise money to pay that player because 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” according to the NCAA rule.
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Sports attorney Darren Heitner, who deals in NIL, said the guidance “could disproportionately burden collectives that are already committed to spending money on players for multiple years to come.”
“If a pattern of rejections results from collective deals submitted to Deloitte, it may invite legal scrutiny under antitrust principles,” he said.
On a separate track, some college sports leaders, including the NCAA, are seeking a limited form of antitrust protection from Congress.
The letter said a NIL deal could be approved if, for instance, the businesses paying the players had a broader purpose than simply acting as a collective. The letter uses a golf course or apparel company as examples.
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“In other words, NIL collectives may act as marketing agencies that match student-athletes with businesses that have a valid business purpose and seek to use the student’s NIL to promote their businesses,” the letter said.
___
AP college sports: https://apnews.com/hub/college-sports
NIL
NCAA Under Fire After Deion Sanders Advocates for NIL Cap in College Football
NCAA Under Fire After Deion Sanders Advocates for NIL Cap in College Football originally appeared on Athlon Sports. The NCAA received some criticism after Colorado Buffaloes coach Deion Sanders proposed a solution to one of college football’s rising concerns. Advertisement Coach Prime said he wants to create an NIL salary cap similar to the system […]

NCAA Under Fire After Deion Sanders Advocates for NIL Cap in College Football originally appeared on Athlon Sports.
The NCAA received some criticism after Colorado Buffaloes coach Deion Sanders proposed a solution to one of college football’s rising concerns.
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Coach Prime said he wants to create an NIL salary cap similar to the system used in the NFL to create equal spending opportunities. Sanders came up with this idea after witnessing numerous SEC and Big 10 schools spend millions to recruit incoming freshmen.
“So the problem is, you got a guy that’s not that darn good, but he could go to another school and they give him a half million dollars,” Sanders said during the Big 12 media days on Wednesday. “You can’t compete with that. And it don’t make sense.”
Colorado Buffaloes head coach Deion Sanders reacts against the Arizona State Sun DevilsMark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
The Alabama Crimson Tide raised its spending by 82% in 2024. Due to these schools having high amounts or spending Sanders thinks this has created a disparity because programs like Colorado don’t receive as much funding as the Crimson Tide, making it harder for them to attract recruits.
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“You understand darn near why they’re in the playoffs,” Sanders added. “It’s kind of hard to compete with somebody who’s giving $25-30 million to a freshman class. It’s crazy.”
Furthermore, due to the House v NCAA settlement, schools can pay their athletes through a revenue-sharing pool, capped at $20.5 million. However, that amount could rise to $30 million by 2035 as schools begin putting more money into their NIL funds.
According to NFL reporter Albert Breer, some see this outcome as a failure on the NCAA’s end because they could have organized a system to properly send out NIL funding.
“I think there was an opportunity over the last 20 years for the NCAA [and] the conferences to get a hold of this early and create some sort of order, rules and guard rails,” Breer said during a recent episode of “The Herd with Colin Cowherd.”
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“And unfortunately, there wasn’t the leadership at the NCAA level with guys like Mark Emmert to do that. Those guys were more concerned with collecting every check until the money train stopped rolling, so now everybody else was left to pick up the pieces. And I think it’s sort of unpredictable which way that will all go.”
Related: Deion Sanders Delivers Verdict on Deion Sanders Jr.’s Recent Nike Collaboration
This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jul 11, 2025, where it first appeared.
NIL
The new college sports agency is rejecting some athlete NIL deals with donor-backed collectives – Twin Cities
The new agency in charge of regulating name, image, likeness deals in college sports sent a letter to schools Thursday saying it had rejected deals between players and donor-backed collectives formed over the past several years to funnel money to athletes or their schools. Those arrangements hold no “valid business purpose,” the memo said, and […]

The new agency in charge of regulating name, image, likeness deals in college sports sent a letter to schools Thursday saying it had rejected deals between players and donor-backed collectives formed over the past several years to funnel money to athletes or their schools.
Those arrangements hold no “valid business purpose,” the memo said, and don’t adhere to rules that call for outside NIL deals to be between players and companies that provide goods or services to the general public for profit.
The letter to Division I athletic directors could be the next step in shuttering today’s version of the collective, groups that are closely affiliated with schools and that, in the early days of NIL after July 2021, proved the most efficient way for schools to indirectly cut deals with players.
Since then, the landscape has changed yet again with the $2.8 billion House settlement that allows schools to pay the players directly as of July 1.
Already, collectives affiliated with Colorado, Alabama, Notre Dame, Georgia and others have announced they’re shutting down. Georgia, Ohio State and Illinois are among those that have announced plans with Learfield, a media and technology company with decades of licensing and other experience across college athletics, to help arrange NIL deals.
Outside deals between athlete and sponsor are still permitted, but any worth $600 or more have to be vetted by a clearinghouse called NIL Go that was established by the new College Sports Commission and is being run by the auditing group Deloitte.
In its letter to the ADs, the CSC said more than 1,500 deals have been cleared since NIL Go launched on June 11, “ranging in value from three figures to seven figures.” More than 12,000 athletes and 1,100 institutional users have registered to use the system.
But the bulk of the letter explained that many deals could not be cleared because they did not conform to an NCAA rule that sets a “valid business purpose” standard for deals to be approved.
The letter explained that if a collective reaches a deal with an athlete to appear on behalf of the collective, which charges an admission fee, the standard is not met 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.
The same would apply to a deal an athlete makes to sell merchandise to raise money to pay that player because 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” according to the NCAA rule.
Sports attorney Darren Heitner, who deals in NIL, said the guidance “could disproportionately burden collectives that are already committed to spending money on players for multiple years to come.”
“If a pattern of rejections results from collective deals submitted to Deloitte, it may invite legal scrutiny under antitrust principles,” he said.
On a separate track, some college sports leaders, including the NCAA, are seeking a limited form of antitrust protection from Congress.
The letter said a NIL deal could be approved if, for instance, the businesses paying the players had a broader purpose than simply acting as a collective. The letter uses a golf course or apparel company as examples.
“In other words, NIL collectives may act as marketing agencies that match student-athletes with businesses that have a valid business purpose and seek to use the student’s NIL to promote their businesses,” the letter said.
Originally Published:
NIL
Florida Gators donor Gary Condron wants to see ‘guardrails’ for NIL
USA TODAY Sports spoke with more than 10 boosters at high profile power conference schools about NIL, and only two talked on the record. One of them was University of Florida booster Gary Condron, the largest single financial donor in the history of Gator Boosters, Inc. USA TODAY Sports also interviewed and profiled Texas Tech […]

USA TODAY Sports spoke with more than 10 boosters at high profile power conference schools about NIL, and only two talked on the record. One of them was University of Florida booster Gary Condron, the largest single financial donor in the history of Gator Boosters, Inc.
USA TODAY Sports also interviewed and profiled Texas Tech billionaire booster Cody Campbell, who is working to reform the NIL space and “save college sports”, writes Matt Hayes. Hayes spoke to Condron about the current state of name, image and likeness.
“NIL space for boosters is like throwing money into a deep, dark hole with little to no return on the investment,” Condron said. “Nobody likes this. Not athletic directors, not coaches, not boosters. The only ones who like it are the players, and the attorneys and agents.”
Condron, 67, was a walk-on baseball player at Florida in the mid-1970s and graduated from UF in 1977 with a degree in building construction. He’s the CEO and founder of The Conlan Company, one of the leading builders for Amazon’s distribution centers around the country.
In addition to his support for Gator Boosters, Inc., Condron has helped fund the rosters for football, men’s basketball, baseball and other UF sports. He recently donated $1 million to Todd Golden’s program after his team won the 2025 national championship and the SEC Tournament.
“Gary’s been incredibly impactful on our success. I’m pretty sure, for football, baseball. He’s done a lot for all these different programs. Gary deserves a ton of credit for the success, because players are incredibly important,” Golden said of Condron after the title celebration at halftime of the spring football game.
“Gary gave us a great gift – and the reality of it is we need a lot more. We need a lot more to retain our players.”
Golden, who also thanked several other donors for their contributions, was able to retain his top frontcourt players and also signed one of the nation’s best transfer classes with three top-100 signees, adding a total of five players to the backcourt with a pair of top-50 recruits.
Condron’s efforts also helped Florida football coach Billy Napier close strong in the 2025 recruiting cycle and UF baseball coach Kevin O’Sullivan reload with his 2025 class, which currently consists of nine transfers and 12 recruits, including Jaden Bastian, Aaron Watson and Jordan Yost.
During his interview with USA TODAY Sports, Condron recalled working multiple jobs to pay his way through college. That process, Condron told Hayes, gets lost in today’s landscape with players getting paid and walk-on spots being eliminated. He would like to see some NIL reform happen.
“I came from a family that didn’t have two nickels to rub together,” Condron said. “If I had an opportunity to eat at the training table (at Florida) it was a blessing for me. If you saw what kids get today, the hair on your neck would stand up. I don’t know how much longer I can (fund NIL) unless we get some guardrails.”
NIL
New college sports agency is rejecting some NIL deals with donor
The new agency in charge of regulating name, image, likeness deals in college sports sent a letter to schools Thursday saying it had rejected deals between players and donor-backed collectives formed over the past several years to funnel money to athletes or their schools. Those arrangements hold no “valid business purpose,” the memo said, and […]

The new agency in charge of regulating name, image, likeness deals in college sports sent a letter to schools Thursday saying it had rejected deals between players and donor-backed collectives formed over the past several years to funnel money to athletes or their schools.
Those arrangements hold no “valid business purpose,” the memo said, and don’t adhere to rules that call for outside NIL deals to be between players and companies that provide goods or services to the general public for profit.
The letter to Division I athletic directors could be the next step in shuttering today’s version of collectives, groups that are closely affiliated with schools and that, in the early days of NIL after July 2021, proved the most efficient way for schools to indirectly cut deals with players.
Since then, the landscape has changed yet again with the $2.8 billion House settlement that allows schools to pay the players directly as of July 1.
Already, collectives affiliated with Colorado, Alabama, Notre Dame, Georgia and others have announced they’re shutting down. Georgia, Ohio State and Illinois are among those that have announced plans with Learfield, a media and technology company with decades of licensing and other experience across college athletics, to help arrange NIL deals.
Outside deals between athlete and sponsor are still permitted, but any worth $600 or more have to be vetted by a clearinghouse called “NIL Go” that was established by the new College Sports Commission and is being run by the auditing group Deloitte.
In its letter to the ADs, the CSC said more than 1,500 deals have been cleared since NIL Go launched on June 11, “ranging in value from three figures to seven figures.” More than 12,000 athletes and 1,100 institutional users have registered to use the system.
But the bulk of the letter explained that many deals could not be cleared because they did not conform to an NCAA rule that sets a “valid business purpose” standard for deals to be approved.
The letter explained that if a collective reaches a deal with an athlete to appear on behalf of the collective, which charges an admission fee, the standard is not met 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.
The same would apply to a deal an athlete makes to sell merchandise to raise money to pay that player because 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” according to the NCAA rule.
Sports attorney Darren Heitner, who deals in NIL, said the guidance “could disproportionately burden collectives that are already committed to spending money on players for multiple years to come.”
“If a pattern of rejections results from collective deals submitted to Deloitte, it may invite legal scrutiny under antitrust principles,” he said.
On a separate track, some college sports leaders, including the NCAA, are seeking a limited form of antitrust protection from Congress.
The letter said a NIL deal could be approved if, for instance, the businesses paying the players had a broader purpose than simply acting as a collective. The letter uses a golf course or apparel company as examples.
“In other words, NIL collectives may act as marketing agencies that match student-athletes with businesses that have a valid business purpose and seek to use the student’s NIL to promote their businesses,” the letter said.
NIL
The new college sports agency is rejecting some athlete NIL deals with donor-backed collectives | News, Sports, Jobs
Camp Randall Stadium is seen during an NCAA college football game between Wisconsin and Miami of Ohio, Sept. 12, 2015, in Madison, Wis. (AP Photo/Aaron Gash, File) The new agency in charge of regulating name, image, likeness deals in college sports sent a letter to schools Thursday saying it had rejected deals between players and […]


Camp Randall Stadium is seen during an NCAA college football game between Wisconsin and Miami of Ohio, Sept. 12, 2015, in Madison, Wis. (AP Photo/Aaron Gash, File)
The new agency in charge of regulating name, image, likeness deals in college sports sent a letter to schools Thursday saying it had rejected deals between players and donor-backed collectives formed over the past several years to funnel money to athletes or their schools.
Those arrangements hold no “valid business purpose,” the memo said, and don’t adhere to rules that call for outside NIL deals to be between players and companies that provide goods or services to the general public for profit.
The letter to Division I athletic directors could be the next step in shuttering today’s version of the collective, groups that are closely affiliated with schools and that, in the early days of NIL after July 2021, proved the most efficient way for schools to indirectly cut deals with players.
Since then, the landscape has changed yet again with the $2.8 billion House settlement that allows schools to pay the players directly as of July 1.
Already, collectives affiliated with Colorado, Alabama, Notre Dame, Georgia and others have announced they’re shutting down. Georgia, Ohio State and Illinois are among those that have announced plans with Learfield, a media and technology company with decades of licensing and other experience across college athletics, to help arrange NIL deals.
Outside deals between athlete and sponsor are still permitted, but any worth $600 or more have to be vetted by a clearinghouse called NIL Go that was established by the new College Sports Commission and is being run by the auditing group Deloitte.
In its letter to the ADs, the CSC said more than 1,500 deals have been cleared since NIL Go launched on June 11, “ranging in value from three figures to seven figures.” More than 12,000 athletes and 1,100 institutional users have registered to use the system.
But the bulk of the letter explained that many deals could not be cleared because they did not conform to an NCAA rule that sets a “valid business purpose” standard for deals to be approved.
The letter explained that if a collective reaches a deal with an athlete to appear on behalf of the collective, which charges an admission fee, the standard is not met 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.
The same would apply to a deal an athlete makes to sell merchandise to raise money to pay that player because 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” according to the NCAA rule.
Sports attorney Darren Heitner, who deals in NIL, said the guidance “could disproportionately burden collectives that are already committed to spending money on players for multiple years to come.”
“If a pattern of rejections results from collective deals submitted to Deloitte, it may invite legal scrutiny under antitrust principles,” he said.
On a separate track, some college sports leaders, including the NCAA, are seeking a limited form of antitrust protection from Congress.
The letter said a NIL deal could be approved if, for instance, the businesses paying the players had a broader purpose than simply acting as a collective. The letter uses a golf course or apparel company as examples.
“In other words, NIL collectives may act as marketing agencies that match student-athletes with businesses that have a valid business purpose and seek to use the student’s NIL to promote their businesses,” the letter said.
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