With the “House v. NCAA” settlement sparking uncertainty about the future of college soccer, we’re checking in with Steven Bank, Professor of Business Law at the UCLA School of Law. Bank is also an avid soccer fan and has been involved in the game at many levels: player, youth coach, referee, club administrator and soccer dad.

His UCLA School of Law courses include “International and Comparative Sports Law” and “Law, Lawyering, and the Beautiful Game.”

SOCCER AMERICA: The “House v. NCAA” settlement stipulates that the NCAA will pay nearly $2.8 billion to former college athletes who were denied NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) opportunities before July 2021. Will any of that go to soccer players?

STEVEN BANK: The short answer is that most soccer players will receive very little. The vast majority of the damages settlement is earmarked for specific injuries to football and basketball players relating to not receiving compensation for video game or broadcast revenue.

Some soccer players who received third-party NIL payments after they were permitted and also played before they were permitted may be eligible for a lost opportunities fund, but most soccer players are likely only eligible for the 5% of the $600 million additional compensation fund part of the settlement that is earmarked for participants in DI sports other than football or basketball and only if they received a partial or full scholarship.

Depending upon the number of participants in all these other sports and the number of claims filed, the amount the average individual soccer player might receive isn’t going to be more than a couple of hundred dollars and it could be substantially less.

Moreover, the damage settlement is currently under appeal on the grounds that it constitutes gender discrimination under Title IX for allocating the overwhelming amount of the funds to participants in male sports. So, right now, back-pay damages are paused and the whole allocation formula could change.

SA: Going forward, the settlement allows schools to directly pay athletes, to share up to $20.5 million per school per year with players starting 2025-26. How will this impact men’s and women’s soccer? Are only football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball players going to receive compensation from their schools?

STEVEN BANK: Schools are permitted to decide how they allocate the funds and that is likely going to evolve over time.

In theory, a school could allocate the money equally among all athletes, but in practice, they will probably allocate most to football and basketball and a few other popular and successful sports on their campus and a small amount would be left for the other sports. 

Purdue, for example, announced that $300,000 would be set-aside for non-revenue sports to retain or recruit high-level athletes and the remainder would go to football, men’s and women’s basketball, and volleyball. Kansas announced that it was including women’s soccer among seven sports that would receive the vast majority of the revenue share.  I expect that there will be other schools that will elevate their women’s soccer team to that group too because of their success and popularity and to equalize the payments between men’s and women’s sports. 

SA: The NCAA will no longer maintain sport-specific scholarship limits. Will that decrease scholarships available in men’s soccer? Women’s soccer?

RALEIGH, N.C. – NC State softball head coach Lindsay Leftwich picked up three commitments from the transfer portal as Kadie Becker (South Carolina), Sarah Johnson (Gaston College), and Maia Townsend (LSU) have signed with the Pack for the 2026 season.
 
Becker and Johnson join the Pack with two years of eligibility remaining while Townsend has one.
 
Kadie Becker | RHP | Granite Falls, N.C. (South Carolina/Charlotte)
Becker owns a career earned run average of 5.30 and 3-1 record in the circle. She made 12 appearances during both her freshman and sophomore campaigns. During the 2025 season at South Carolina, she struck out a pair of batters against Georgia State and LSU.
 
Sarah Johnson | OF | Charlotte, N.C. (Gaston College/McLennan CC)
Johnson joins the Pack after spending last season at Gaston College. The outfielder owned a .500 batting average and .825 slugging percentage during the 2025 campaign. She recorded 103 hits on the season, including a season high four hits against both Florence-Darlington Technical College and Pellissippi State.
 
Maia Townsend | OF | Morris, AL (LSU)
Townsend heads to Raleigh after spending the last three-years of her career at LSU.  The senior native appeared in 72 games and scored 22 runs over the course of her career. During her sophomore campaign, she recorded a career high 10 runs throughout the season.
 

Florida’s NCAA Tournament Title Game Revealed to be Most-Watched Basketball Game of the Year originally appeared on Athlon Sports.

The Florida Gators basketball program was must-watch TV last season, and the numbers back it up.

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Last season, Florida posted a sparkling 36-4 record, winning their final 12 games — nine against ranked opponents — to secure their third national title in program history.

The historic run, alongside the legitimacy of their competition, kept the basketball world enchanted.

According to the College Basketball Report on Twitter, Florida participated in two of the most-viewed basketball games of the 2024-25 season. Notably, Florida’s 65-63 win over the Houston Cougars was the most-watched basketball game of the year, garnering 18.1 million views and narrowly surpassing the 16.4 million viewers for Game 7 of the NBA Finals between the Indiana Pacers and Oklahoma City Thunder.

The fourth most-viewed basketball game of the season also involved the Gators. Their Final Four matchup against the Auburn Tigers drew 14.8 million watchers.

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Auburn entered the game with an impeccable 32-5 record while housing SEC Player of the Year Johni Broome. Florida would catch fire late, winning 79-73.

Still, the championship game against Houston captivated the nation, especially since their Big 12 foe had a 35-4 record and was fresh off a massive upset against the Cooper Flagg-led Duke Blue Devils.

The two juggernauts engaged in a tightly contested back-and-forth, but the Gators used elite defense late to emerge victorious. 2025 marked the team’s third title bout and their first since winning back-to-back championships under the guidance of head coach Billy Donovan and stars Al Horford and Joakim Noah in the mid-2000s.

Related: College Basketball World Reacts to Xaivian Lee’s $6 Million NIL Move

This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jun 26, 2025, where it first appeared.

Events at over 25 programs will create premium Learfield Impact NIL content and brand opportunities for over 350 student-athletes

Dallas, TX (June 26, 2025) — Learfield, the leading media and technology company powering college athletics, and Emmy Award-winning Learfield Studios, is scaling its Name, Image, Likeness (NIL) Content Day initiative to over 25 of the nation’s most prominent athletic programs including: Ohio State, Texas, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Iowa State, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Mizzou, NC State, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Purdue, SMU, Tennessee, Texas Tech, Washington, Wisconsin, Abilene Christian, Colorado State, Southern Illinois, UAB, and UT Arlington.

Designed to streamline NIL opportunities and reduce in-season demands on student-athletes, NIL Content Days will serve up to 350 athletes, capable of generating 750 pieces of original branded content across 27 schools.

“Learfield Impact NIL services sit at the intersection of content creation, brand integration, and on-campus operations, creating a unique opportunity to turn a single day of access into a season’s worth of NIL value for student-athletes, brand partners, and schools,” said Learfield Senior Vice President & Head of Content, Grant Jones. “These Content Days are built for efficiency, scale and with the full Learfield ecosystem in mind.”

NIL Content Day will feature up to five customized creation stations focused on sponsorship storytelling, equipping student-athletes with premium assets encompassing Learfield’s expansive enterprise, including multimedia rights, digital and social platforms, radio broadcast voiceovers, Paciolan’s ticketing, fundraising, and marketing ambassador program, and CLC’s licensed merchandise marketing.  Learfield’s local sports property teams will tap into their network of extensive partnership relationships and leverage Learfield’s Compass NIL platform to facilitate NIL dealmaking.

“Our student-athletes are balancing more than ever in today’s college landscape. As the first athletic program to pilot Learfield’s NIL Content Day last summer, we saw firsthand how it can give our athletes a focused window of time to create high-quality, brand-ready content that drives real value and opportunities without adding to their in-season demands,” said Ross Bjork, The Ohio State University’s Senior Vice President, and Wolfe Foundation-Eugene Smith Endowed Athletics Director.

As part of Learfield Impact, this initiative reinforces the company’s commitment to industry-leading NIL services centered around three foundational pillars: on-campus support, strategic content creation, and technology-powered dealmaking. The culmination of these pillars delivers the greatest NIL opportunities for each organization and its athletes.

“We are the industry leader in delivering real NIL campaigns, which humanize brand partnerships and invoke trust in their university communities,” said Solly Fulp, Executive Vice President of NIL Growth & Development from Learfield. “Student-athletes’ time is a premium and providing dealmaking efficiencies is critical. NIL content days is a creative way to help our schools and student-athletes tap into real NIL opportunities by capturing curated content in a single setting.”

Explore behind-the-scenes footage and photos from recent NIL Content Days here.

About Learfield
Learfield is the leading media and technology company powering college athletics. Through its digital and physical platforms, Learfield owns and leverages a deep data set and relationships in the industry to drive revenue, growth, brand awareness, and fan engagement for brands, sports, and entertainment properties. With ties to over 1,200 collegiate institutions and over 12,000 local and national brand partners, Learfield’s presence in college sports and live events delivers influence and maximizes reach to target audiences. With solutions for a 365-day, 24/7 fan experience, Learfield enables schools and brands to connect with fans through licensed merchandise, game ticketing, donor identification for athletic programs, exclusive custom content, innovative marketing initiatives, NIL solutions, and advanced digital platforms. Since 2008, it has served as title sponsor for the acclaimed Learfield Directors’ Cup, supporting athletic departments across all divisions.

Amos Alonzo Stagg was one of THE established coaches in major college football at the University of Chicago. That university was one of the powerhouse programs in the Western Conference, which became the Big Ten.

In 1927 he published the book “Touchdown” covering the history and challenges of major college football at the time. Almost a century ago, Stagg cited the fear of football being a sport where 80,000 fans would generate a single-game gate of $500,000 (about $9.3 million in today’s money). 

In the first 60 years of college football schools were doing all sorts of things that would seem right in line with the game today. Players were being paid by alumni to go to certain schools. Renegade programs had players that were not even enrolled in the school, or were enrolled but never really attended classes, or were enrolled in “snap” courses that required little or no work. 

The NCAA was established during those first few decades to set national rules for player safety and to curb the excesses of these growing sports “franchises” on their campuses. Stagg’s own football power Chicago ultimately deemphasized football, as did the Ivy League.

Fans, coaches, administrators and media all see the excesses of this new era. And a settlement in one case will not fix what we’re facing.

College sports needs to convene a national constitutional convention that can present an entirely new governing structure. The range of issues goes well beyond just NIL and revenue sharing. 

In the past two weeks I taped podcasts based in the UK and in Hong Kong. Part of the pre-taping conversation was a discussion of the big sports enterprises on our college campuses. The size and scope of college sports was eye-opening to these hosts.

This country has always been unique in that respect.

In 2025 we’ve just seen the latest jolt to the college sports system. Scholarship limits are out, roster size limitations are in. Pay to play is in, NIL is in provided it falls in line with “far market value.”

This system will have a new governing body that will enforce the rules regarding NIL and paying players. Note: the correct euphemism for paying players is “revenue sharing,” and remember the players are NOT employees. 

It will also require athletes (we can drop the pretense of the term “student-athlete” now) to get approval for any NIL deal of $600 or more (a ridiculously low number) through a clearing house. 

The proponents state that this new structure will have enforcement with real teeth. They believe the threat of strong sanctions will keep everyone in line. But we’ve seen this movie before. Rules that were set to level the playing field have been and will always be skirted or ignored by people who are willing to deal in cash and lie. 

And this new structure only holds until future litigation derails it. Title IX lawsuits are on the way. Future athletes who were never part of this settlement will sue to assert their rights. It will face challenges because players may demand to be treated like employees and have collective bargaining.  

What about the player who has exhausted his or her five-year eligibility limit and may be able to make more NIL and revenue sharing money by staying in college rather than playing overseas? How can the NCAA limit their careers; is that not a restraint of trade?

The point is that this thing is a long way from being settled. That’s generally how things end up when leadership allows events to overtake them through litigation rather than by asserting leadership.

The time has come for a true constitutional convention for college sports. 

And this constitutional convention should include not only university presidents, athletic directors and coaches. Presidents, ADs and coaches all have agents, and they jump around every couple of years. Many of them are like NASCAR drivers wearing the team logo that puts the most money in their pockets. 

It is also important to note that their financial interest often runs counter to what is best for a school. After all, management does not allow a union to unilaterally dictate how a company will operate. 

Given the transient nature of these employees, a university’s decision on the foundational values of its athletics department should be decided at the governing board level. The core values of a university should be directed from the top down honoring long established beliefs.

In the Big Ten, television executives, presidents and ADs made the decision to take the league to the West Coast. The governing boards of the universities were informed when it was a fait accompli.

Now many schools may be poised to walk away from the NCAA in football.

Taking a university out of the NCAA is bigger than just the athletics department. At several universities, the shortcuts now being taken to try to rack up success in football and basketball would surprise you. They threaten the integrity of the university.

Anyone who knows my history can tell you that I am no fan of the NCAA. But they do require schools to enforce academic standards and limit eligibility by requiring progress towards graduation. They report Academic Progress Ratings for every school and sport so that potential athletes and their families can make informed decisions.

Indeed, lost in all the NIL/House Settlement/revenue sharing/transfer portal discussions has been any meaningful mention of what this means academically for players and for schools. 

The governing boards of these major universities have been on the sidelines for much of this. None of these decisions have required approval by the governing boards. As we look to define the very core of what these sports entertainment enterprises will become, these are existential questions with answers that will stretch into the future. 

As such, representatives of these governing boards should be part of shaping that future. It is too big to trust people who have a financial interest in winning at any cost.

To be sure, involving trustees in shaping the future is no guarantee that they will ensure the integrity of the mission. Anyone who has ever served on a board can tell that many of them are partially populated by “fan-boy” types who are more interested in winning than academics. Many boards don’t even have a standing committee or subcommittee to oversee an area that can do incalculable damage to the reputation or academic integrity of the school.

But on a national scale, the people who bear the greatest fiduciary responsibility at each university need to be part of the solution.

So why should there be a constitutional convention? 

• The solutions for what is best for all of college athletics should not be dictated by two or three of four conference commissioners alone. 
• To date, waiting on Congress to act has been fruitless. And there does not appear to be any solutions on the horizon.
• An executive order by the president will ultimately result in more litigation.
• It is time that schools across the country faced the issues, came to a consensus and then presented it to move forward. 
• We need to define the academic structures that will govern this new world order. Or we need to decide that the academic part of athletics is not relevant and create a non-academic pro sports apprenticeship program for our players. 
• Most importantly, the universities need to honestly define what exactly it is that we are doing. Are we here to educate our athletes? Or are we here to just entertain alums, fans and friends and hope that while we do that and rake in their money that some of our athletes will leave here with some kind of meaningful education?

In the absence of crafting a new national college sports constitution, there will be laws passed and legislation and litigation coming that will challenge this settlement reality. As such, it is time for a legitimate constitutional convention for college sports that includes all the stakeholders from the schools, and a players’ union.

From that assembly we as the universities that play college sports must issue a consensus that clearly and honestly addresses reality. Until we present a thorough plan for the future, the lingering uncertainty will only invite more litigation and continue the current era where we are overtaken by events rather than leading the way.