Univ. of South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley said that she “has players sign non-disclosure agreements” in an “attempt to prevent players from telling each other how much they’re making from NIL deals or revenue sharing,” according to Michael Sauls of the Columbia STATE. Staley, appearing on “IMO with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson,” said that the NDAs are “one way she keeps the money players receive from affecting South Carolina’s locker room” and “no revenue discussions have yet to affect the locker room.” Sauls notes Staley is “supportive of this new era of college athletics that finds the players benefiting more than ever from a monetary standpoint,” but she “feels additional control is needed.” Staley is “believed to be one of the few, perhaps the only, head coach at South Carolina who prefers to directly handle” the program’s NIL discussions. South Carolina has “not made its own distribution breakdown public, but Staley has long argued for a larger piece of the rev-share pie.” Staley said, “We’ve got a certain amount of money that we have to work with, and I don’t over-promise.” She added, “I do some innovative things as well to help our players out in this space. We play games for money, and that money goes directly to our players, things like that.” Sauls notes South Carolina will be playing in the Players Era Women’s Championship, which will provide players with at least $1M of “NIL opportunities in each year that it participates” (Columbia STATE, 8/13).

MEMPHIS, Tenn. –  Another athletic year is set to begin at the University of Memphis, and as usual, women’s soccer will be the ones to set the stage. 

The 15-time conference champions will open the regular season with two home games, beginning against Southern Miss at 6 p.m. on Thursday, August 14. They will battle with Ole Miss on Sunday, August 17, at 7 p.m. With limited bleacher seating at the under-construction Track and Soccer Stadium, fans are encouraged to bring their own chairs for home games in 2025. 

With 14 freshmen, 12 sophomores, two juniors and one senior, the 2025 team is the youngest in program history. They are not short of returning production, however, as they bring back their two best goal contributors in junior forward Ashley Henderson (nine goals, three assists) and sophomore midfielder Ai Kitagawa (six goals, six assists). 

Also returning to the regular season champions is junior defender Finley Lavin, who has been a mainstay in the Tiger lineup since her freshman season. The trio was named to the American Conference Preseason Watch List and will be expected to carry heavy workloads throughout the center of the pitch. 

“You want to make sure the spine of your team is shored up, and having real experience in those positions definitely helps,” said head coach Brooks Monaghan. 

Several players took advantage of their enlarged roles in the spring to carve themselves a spot, and even more have done so in recent weeks. Despite the team’s relative youth, Monaghan hasn’t lowered the championship standard heading into his 26th season. 

“The biggest thing is kids adapting to ‘Memphis Soccer.’ You don’t know how hard it is at this level until you’re here. Communication is key, and we really rely on the leadership from returning players just as much as the staff. If we can stay healthy, I’m really optimistic about where we’re at.” 

With five power five opponents in the non-conference slate, August could prove to be a crucial month in the trajectory of this team’s season. 

Game One: Southern Miss 

The Lady Eagles will roll into town on college soccer’s opening night for the 16th match overall between the teams and the first since 2012. After losing the first four battles with USM in the program’s early days, Memphis has rattled off 11 straight wins against their former Conference USA foes. The combined score of those 11 matchups, spanning from 2002 to 2012, is 33-6. 

Southern Miss is coached by Mohammed El-Zare, who has been at the helm of the program since 2013. Last season, they went 3-7-5, posting a six-game unbeaten streak near the end of the year in a push for the Sun Belt tournament, which they fell just short of. 

Forward Raquelle Mitchell returns to Hattiesburg for her sophomore season, coming off a freshman campaign where she posted four goals and three assists. 

Game Two: Ole Miss 

In what has become one of the region’s biggest college soccer rivalries, Memphis will look to pick up a third consecutive victory over the Rebels for the first time in program history. Ole Miss won the first three matchups in the history; since then, it is 11-10 in favor of Memphis with three draws, and neither team has won more than two in a row. Last season, Kitagawa announced her arrival with two goals in an eight-minute span in the second half as the No. 8 Tigers won in Oxford, 2-1. 

Ole Miss was slated to battle MVSU at home in their season-opener on Thursday; the match has been canceled due to “personnel traveling issues.” The Rebels will play an exhibition against William Carey in its place before officially opening the season in Memphis. 

Molly Rouse is in her third year as Ole Miss head coach; she has accumulated a record of 12-20-4 through her first two seasons, and is 0-2 against Memphis. Returners Tate Blincoe, Lauren Montgomery and Katie Ramsden were all named to the SEC Preseason Watchlist. 

Tiger Tidbits 

How to follow the Tigers: For complete information on Memphis Tigers Soccer, visit www.GoTigersGo.com and follow the team’s social media channels on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. 

A judge on Wednesday granted a temporary restraining order allowing Indiana safety Louis Moore to practice with the Hoosiers for the next 14 days, a significant win for the 24-year-old challenging the NCAA’s five-year eligibility rule.

Moore, who started games at both Ole Miss and Indiana, recently filed a lawsuit against the NCAA in district court in Dallas County, Texas, arguing his three years at Navarro Junior College in Texas should not count against his eligibility. Moore also cited potential losses in earnings of around $400,000 from NIL deals.

Moore, who is currently enrolled at IU, graduated from Poteet High School in Mesquite, Texas, and attended Navarro from 2019 to 2022. He played football there, redshirted and was injured, and went to IU, where he played in 2022 and 2023. After his second year at IU, he transferred to Ole Miss for his third season of NCAA football (2024). He stated in his lawsuit that he entered the transfer portal on Dec. 27, 2024, because multiple schools advised him the recent court ruling for Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia would also allow Moore another season of eligibility.

Wednesday’s ruling was a major step closer to that. An injunction hearing on Aug. 27 will determine if Moore is eligible to play this season.

“They’re like a broken record,” Brian P. Lauten, one of Moore’s attorneys, told ESPN. “They keep making the same argument but expecting a different outcome. The NCAA is on the wrong side of this issue. … It violates the Sherman Antitrust Act and they keep making the same argument expecting a different result when what they should be doing is saying, ‘All right, now that some people are getting to play because our legal arguments don’t hold water, we need to have a uniform rule that makes it fair to everyone.'”

Tennessee won’t have to wait until next summer to reap the reward of switching from Nike to Adidas as its apparel provider. In announcing the 10-year deal with the three stripes that will be effective July 1, 2026, Tennessee also revealed that Adidas will immediately become involved in Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) deals with its student-athletes for the 2025-26 academic and athletic year. It expands the partnership between the two entities beyond just uniforms and apparel and better suits the current landscape of college athletics where athlete compensation is paramount to competing for championships in the most prominent sports.

The House settlement earlier this summer ushered in the revenue-sharing era of college sports, and Tennessee and other schools now can distribute up to $20.5 million (and more in the future) to its teams however it sees fit. But the NIL game introduced to college sports in 2021 isn’t going anywhere. The richest and most competitive schools – Tennessee, with its revenue this year nearing $280 million, considers itself in that echelon – undoubtedly will use it on top of the revenue-sharing checks to attract and keep top talent.

That aspect of the Adidas deal surely had to be appealing for Tennessee and athletic director Danny White, who earlier this year vowed that the Vols and Lady Vols were “as competitive as anyone” in college sports.

According to Tennessee’s release, Adidas “will offer unprecedented NIL opportunities for student-athletes across all 20 of the University’s varsity program” and already “is working to land NIL deals with Tennessee student-athletes during the 2025-2026 school year.”

“The role of a college athletics sideline partner has changed dramatically in the 11 years since we last partnered with Tennessee Athletics,” said Chris McGuire, adidas Vice President of Sports Marketing, North America. “adidas is establishing a new standard for investment in NIL with this partnership that will sustain UT’s powerful athletics program as the university continues competing for championships for years to come.”

Once the partnership officially begins next summer, Tennessee athletes will be eligible to participate in the Adidas NIL Ambassador Network, “which gives all student-athletes at adidas-partnered Division I schools the chance to benefit from their Name, Image and Likeness.”

Tennessee’s past partnership with Adidas (1995-2014) included the 1998 football national championship and back-to-back women’s basketball national titles (2007-08). The athletic department is currently in perhaps its best-ever stretch of collective success with Directors Cup finishes of No. 6, No. 3 and No. 6 in the past three years. The run has included two top-10 finishes in football, two Elite Eight appearances in men’s basketball, the 2024 national championship in baseball, two Women’s College World series appearances in the past three years in softball and the resurgence of the Lady Vols basketball program last season.

“From my days rocking the orange and white to now leading on and off the court, adidas has always had my back with the best gear and support,” said Lady Vol basketball legend Candace Parker, the President of Women’s Basketball for Adidas. “Seeing adidas link back up with Tennessee feels like coming full circle. I know this partnership is going to open a ton of doors for the next generation of Vols — and I couldn’t be more hype about it.”