Cat Flood recounted the DM she got from the Pennsylvania Beef Council around two years ago that started her down the road of cashing in on college volleyball stardom. The nonprofit wanted her to promote its mission of “building beef and veal demand with consumers of all ages.”

She recorded a series of videos for her Instagram, one of which got over a million views. In the post, she invited followers along a day in her life — notably, eating jerky for her first snack, steak for lunch and later on, more jerky. The council paid her $1,000.

Deals like this are commonplace in today’s college athletics landscape, where for four years, athletes have been profiting from use of their name, image and likeness [NIL].

“NIL made us all influencers,” Flood said.

As one of the University of Pittsburgh’s most popular athletes, Flood — who recently graduated — benefited from NIL deals, averaging one or two a month, and saw how their introduction changed the nature of college sports.

And more change is on the horizon with the June 6 approval of a landmark NCAA settlement letting colleges pay their athletes that takes effect July 1. Universities in the former Power Five conferences (recently reduced to four), including Pitt and Penn State, will each have to split $20.5 million annually between players for a decade. The yearly amount will increase incrementally.

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While the settlement ushers in more money for athletes, it’s unlikely to be spread evenly, and certain NIL deals will be scrutinized for the first time. Uncertainty about how the millions will be distributed and exactly how the settlement terms will be enforced has rattled college athletes and spurred state lawmakers alike.

PublicSource spoke to several athletes, state representatives and NIL experts about their thoughts on the second big change in compensation in just this decade. Here’s what they had to say.

Antonio Epps, Duquesne University

School division: Division I, outside of Power 4 conferences

Year: Senior

Sport: Football

Recent NIL deal: None

Dream NIL deal: Pizza Hut

Before NIL came into play, Epps said, “there was always talk about how being a college athlete was very similar to working a 9-5, in a sense.”

He was a sophomore when the NCAA allowed athletes to have NIL deals and became a part of Duquesne’s Red and Blue NIL collective. Through this, he’s able to make money from merch and generally feels NIL has been a good thing.

“It can help out a lot of people who didn’t have as much money coming into college,” he said.

Duquesne is one of the schools that can choose to opt into sharing a portion of their athletics department revenue with athletes, but isn’t required to do so.

A university spokesperson confirmed that Duquesne is opting in. 

Epps said that although the conversation has been about athletes, they’re being left in the dark when it comes to understanding what impact this will have on them.

“A lot of the conversations that happen, happen around us, but a lot of us are not told the [parameters] of what is being said.”

When the NIL policy first went into effect in 2021, it was expected that money would largely come from endorsement rights opportunities — think brand deals like Flood’s Pennsylvania Beef Council posts. Then collectives emerged, said University of Illinois labor and law professor Michael LeRoy.

Collectives are groups that pool donations to pay athletes for use of their NIL, while facilitating deals for them. While these are usually school-specific, they’re operated independently, though there’s often some level of collaboration with the college.

Once athletes sign contracts with collectives, there’s an expectation that they’ll get paid, but which players are paid and how much is up to the discretion of the collective’s head. Last fall, the founder of Pitt’s collective, Alliance 412, along with the university’s football coach, stopped paying all members of the team, instead compensating only some to incentivize better performance.

The NCAA settlement retains a longstanding ban on compensation solely related to athletic performance or participation. Nonetheless, the NIL system has been called “pay for play,” because it seemingly rewards performance in many cases.

“There’s so much pent-up demand among supporters and the businesses … neither the laws nor the rules have caught up with the market supply of NIL money for athletes,” LeRoy said.

A majority of NIL funds come from collectives, not endorsements, sponsorships or appearances, according to Philadelphia-based NIL agent and attorney Stephen Vanyo. When he’s looking at contracts with collectives for clients, he said a player’s NIL value is being assessed based on what they will bring to a team. This is subjective, but factors include stats and social media following.

None of the athletes PublicSource interviewed disclosed their NIL values. Some of them did not have the figures.

LeRoy, who has researched NIL earnings, said that men outearn women 10:1 in deals, with the most money going to men’s football and basketball players. The settlement is expected to do little to remedy this, opening the doors for lawsuits against schools under Title IX, which requires schools to provide equal financial assistance opportunities to men and women athletes.

With no stipulations on how colleges have to divvy up the $20.5 million, experts have predicted that as much as 70-90% will go to men’s football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball, in that order.

Cat Flood, University of Pittsburgh

School division: Division I, ACC

Year: Graduated in 2025

Sport: Volleyball

Recent NIL deal: Saxbys

Dream NIL deal: World Wildlife Fund or Free People

Last year, Pitt’s volleyball team was ranked third in the country by the NCAA, finishing the 2024-2025 season 33-2.

Flood joined the team in 2020 after one visit to a university volleyball clinic. “I fell in love with it on the spot,” she said.

Recruiting, to her, was all about considering, “Where am I going to have the best four years?” not where she could get the most money in NIL deals. She never joined Alliance 412.

“I didn’t love the idea of NIL, I had seen what it had done to a lot of players,” she said. “They were playing for the money, they were transferring for the money.” She preferred to use NIL to promote local businesses in mutually beneficial, ethical arrangements.

However, after the volleyball team’s continued success, she began to regret not taking NIL more seriously. She saw NIL funds flowing to men’s football and men’s basketball, which she believed was fair due to viewership. But she noted that despite her squad being “the best team at the university … the women’s side was getting nothing.”

With players now getting paid a portion of the revenue that college athletics departments receive, she wants to see women’s volleyball benefit.

“I hope that we bark up some NIL trees.”

In the year it’s taken for the settlement terms to be negotiated and finalized, schools have prepared to start paying athletes. One way was by presenting recruits with NIL contracts that would only become effective after the settlement’s approval.

Alex Guminiski, a Pittsburgh-based NIL agent and attorney, has seen over 20 of these so far — some for Pitt recruits — but due to confidentiality clauses, couldn’t give more details. He stressed, though, that “it’s not pay for play,” but rather “licensing deals.”

“The school is asking the player to grant the school the license to use their NIL in all sorts of media,” Guminiski said.

LeRoy, the professor who obtained similar contracts from schools in the Big Ten and SEC conferences, said players are being asked to give away “an irrevocable right” to their collegiate NIL. These terms aren’t negotiable, he added.

“They are going to be paid for this, and in many cases, paid well. But again, people likely don’t know what they’re signing.”

LeRoy worries about the exploitation of athletes, especially those without an agent. He sees these contracts as a way to sidestep the perennial question of whether college athletes are employees of the schools they play for — another area many experts believe will play out in the courts.

Vanyo called the settlement “another half measure” because of the legal challenges it is likely to ignite. He said the only sustainable solution for stabilizing the industry is to allow athletes to unionize and collectively bargain, as players in professional leagues do. Then, there’d be what he described as a “semblance of fairness.”

“It’s the only thing we’ve seen work in the American sports model,” he said.

Ryan Prather Jr., Robert Morris University

School division: Division I, outside of Power 4 conferences

Year: Junior

Sport: Basketball

Recent NIL deal: C4 Energy

Dream NIL deal: Nike

Ryan Prather Jr. has had a long journey to Pittsburgh. After playing at the University of Akron through his first two years of college, he decided to transfer and commit to RMU in 2024.

“I wanted somewhere I could go and showcase what I could do,” he said.

He changed schools in part to be closer to home and family, but also due to the opportunities he could envision. After transferring, he joined RomoRise, an NIL collective specifically for RMU students, and has taken advantage of the deals presented to him.

As the settlement is sure to prompt changes to deals, Prather said, “It definitely has an effect on anyone who’s trying to play in college … they come in with a certain amount in their head.”

Prather said he understood the benefit of college athletes getting paid to do what they love. “The money helps you out in the long run because if you use up your money and save it up and invest, you can start early rather than waiting until after college for your career to get started.”

The downside: “It’s kind of hard at the same time because no team is going to stick with each other.” With teams changing every year due to players leaving, it can be difficult to produce a cohesive team environment.

“More money doesn’t always mean a better situation.”

The NCAA has been trying to wrangle what it views as an out-of-control stream of money going to athletes via NIL deals over the past few years, in part because athletes are transferring schools at record numbers, which some believe is due to money offered by collectives.

Under the settlement’s rules, third-party NIL deals valued at or above $600 will be reported to a clearinghouse run by consulting firm Deloitte. The goal, LeRoy said, is to regulate the market.

The clearinghouse will determine if deals fall under “pay for play” and evaluate their fair market values. Deals have to be approved before an athlete can receive the funds.

Little is known about the specific criteria needed for compliance, but experts told PublicSource that there isn’t a set fair market value for any NIL deal, and trying to determine one is next to impossible.

Vanyo said fair market value in the industry is simply “what somebody’s willing to pay.”

“In no other industry do we have … a clearinghouse that then says, ‘OK, this is a fair salary,’” he continued.

Some experts describe the clearinghouse as a way to scale back how much some athletes are earning.

“While nobody knows for sure how this is going to come out, the clear implication is that most of the NIL deals, particularly in men’s revenue sports — football and men’s basketball — will not be accepted as fair market value,” LeRoy said. A new College Sports Commission, separate from the NCAA, could then reject such deals.

It’s been reported that Deloitte officials said 70% of past deals from collectives would be rejected under the clearinghouse. 

Unsurprisingly, legal challenges by those with rejected deals are expected to follow.

Aurielle Brunner, Chatham University

School division: Division III, Presidents’ Athletic Conference

Year: Graduated in 2025

Sport: Track and field, Soccer, Basketball

Recent NIL deal: P3R, a local event management organization

Dream NIL deal: Nike

Brunner believes college athletes are valued professionals and views the settlement as a “huge step for sports.”

She holds 10 All-American awards for her track and field success. As Chatham University’s most decorated athlete of all time, she quickly stood out in the local college sports scene and became one of the school’s first players to secure an NIL deal.

She’s part of an NIL Athlete program with the Pittsburgh-based sports event planners P3R, which spotlights players in underrepresented sports to advance the company’s mission to “keep Pittsburgh moving.”

Brunner said NIL opportunities are “a great way to get college athletes out there and into the world.”

Her role involves filming a monthly video sharing workouts, answering fan questions and talking about her accomplishments. For this, she receives $500 a year.

“Any amount was great for a college athlete playing three sports,” said Brunner.

She’s very aware of the disparity between athletes’ earnings and isn’t a fan of the clearinghouse and tighter NIL deal regulations introduced by the settlement. While Division III schools aren’t included, she’s confident that some of the funding changes will trickle down.

Several state legislatures have passed bills aimed at making it easier for athletes and schools to navigate the new revenue-sharing model.

Days before the settlement was finalized, three Pennsylvania House representatives introduced legislation targeting NIL earnings. Rep. Aerion Andrew Abney, whose district includes Pitt’s Oakland campus, said his bill would put the state on par with others that have prohibited the NCAA’s compensation limits on money from NIL collectives.

He said the bill would allow schools in the state “to have the same type of, if not more, of a competitive edge” than those in neighboring states by protecting student athletes against exploitation. As a trustee on Pitt’s board, he sent the legislation to the university for review.

Across the aisle, House Republican Leader Rep. Jesse Topper, of Bedford and Fulton counties, and Rep. Perry Stambaugh, R-Juniata and Perry counties, issued a memo highlighting their forthcoming legislation that aims to develop long-term financial security for college athletes. Their bill would require schools to provide financial literacy courses to players and offer them the opportunity to put NIL earnings in trust accounts.

“We do need to bring a little order,” said Topper, to what he called the “Wild, Wild West” of NIL.

“We see what’s going on with the courts. The more that we can as public policymakers set rules and guidelines through policy, the less uncertainty that’s out there,” he said.

When interviewed by PublicSource, neither Topper nor Abney had seen the other’s legislation. Abney said he shared his bill with the Republicans and was positive that there would be something to glean from both, as the legislature also tries to finalize a budget.

“At the end of the day, there’s got to be something in … their legislation and my legislation that we can, during this budget negotiation, find a solution to this topic.”

Maddy Franklin reports on higher ed for PublicSource, in partnership with Open Campus, and can be reached at madison@publicsource.org.

Ayla Saeed is an editorial intern at PublicSource and can be reached at ayla@publicsource.org.

This story was fact-checked by Jake Vasilias.