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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.

• “This is some people’s bucket list item,” Pat McEvoy, longtime manager at Rocco’s, told The Courier Journal. “Sometimes as an Omaha native, you take that for granted, and you never want to do that.”
• This year, Rocco’s partnered with a company called JottShots, which had 120,000 premade Jell-O shots “in a warehouse ready to go,” McEvoy said.

OMAHA, NE. — Standing inside Rocco’s Pizza & Cantina, where foil seals from thousands of Jell-O shots adorn the concrete floor like stickers, feels a bit strange. Almost surreal. 

I would pinch myself, but the smell of cotton candy vape and the way my Nike dunks stick to the beer-soaked ground are too precise to be figments of imagination. 

This place, home to the world-famous Jell-O Shot Challenge, only exists on social media for most. College baseball fans see a picture of the same $40 whiteboard updated three times a day for about 10 days a year. That and the actual games played during the Men’s College World Series dominate their timelines. 

Louisville baseball finally gets to be part of the festivities again this year. U of L used to be a perennial power, a strong presence in Omaha every few seasons or so under head coach Dan McDonnell. But it had been a minute. The post-COVID, NIL and transfer portal era of college sports was not kind to the Cards.

Now they’re back and privy to a city’s party, a sport’s once-in-a-year showcase, for the first time since 2019 (coincidentally the same year as the inaugural Jell-O Shot Challenge).

Comparing anything to the Run for the Roses may feel blasphemous to some Louisvillians, but the romance that surrounds the MCWS feels similar to that which surrounds the Kentucky Derby every year. It’s a big small town that burns bright for one major sporting event every year. Rain, sleet or merciless Midwestern sun be damned. Swap pastel hats, fascinators and mint juleps for Jell-O shots, ballcaps and backward-facing sunglasses.

(If it’s any consolation, the MCWS claims to be “the greatest show on dirt,” but whoever’s in charge of NCAA championship branding must’ve forgotten the dirt track at Churchill Downs, home of “the greatest two minutes in sports.”)

There’s just something about these signature events. They reenrapture American sports fans with their pastimes of old. Horse racing, baseball and boxing don’t carry the same cultural capital they did 100, 75 or even 50 years ago. But the Kentucky Derby, in its 151st year, and the MCWS, in its 75th, continue to capture our hearts and minds and wallets.

“This is some people’s bucket list item,” Pat McEvoy, longtime manager at Rocco’s, told The Courier Journal. “Sometimes as an Omaha native, you take that for granted, and you never want to do that.”

The 2024 MCWS had an economic impact of $115 million, according to a study by Visit Omaha and Tourism Economics. The event supported 22,429 jobs, created more than 75,000 hotel nights and generated more than $3.5 million in local taxes. The 2024 Kentucky Derby generated $434 million for the city of Louisville.

Uber’s peak hours are from the time the 6 o’clock games end to about 2 a.m., when all the bars are legally required to close. For 10 days, “it’s crowded everywhere,” my Uber driver Madhu said Friday night, as we rode from the bustling corner of 13th and Cass streets to the media hotel teetering the Nebraska-Iowa state line. Once the MCWS is over, “this place looks like a ghost town.”The same can be said for Rocco’s. Opening weekend at Charles Schwab Field saw lines wrapped around Rocco’s down the block. Fans clad in purple, gold, and various shades of blue and red spilled out the sides and onto the front patio. Inside shields you from the summer sun, but the air is twice as heavy. 

Sure, congealed sugar and vodka might not have the same je ne sais quoi as Woodford Reserve or Maker’s Mark. But Louisvillians don’t care. Bring on the jiggly gelatin. What better way to celebrate their return to Omaha after five years away? 

Willie Clarkson Jr. bleeds red. Not crimson or garnet or burgundy. But Cardinal red, to be exact. 

He is from Louisville and graduated from Male High School and U of L’s College of Business in the 2000s. In 2009, he moved to Chicago and then relocated to Dallas, where he’s lived for the last seven years.

Clarkson, like many Louisvillians, is a basketball fan first. But when Louisville baseball came to Arlington, Texas, for the Shriners Children’s College Showdown in February, he decided to take advantage of having the hometown team visit his new backyard. U of L went 2-1 that weekend, defeating then-No. 7 Texas 4-3 in 10 innings and then-No. 12 Arizona 13-1 in eight innings.

“OK,” Clarkson thought to himself, “this team is going to be special.”

So he continued to watch from afar, traveling to Louisville for the Wake Forest series in May and the NCAA Super Regional earlier this month. Catching a quick flight from Dallas to Omaha at that point felt like a must-do. 

He pulled up to Rocco’s to support Louisville’s efforts off the diamond, too, fully decked out in Cards gear — L’s up from the ballcap on his head to the soles of his sneakers.

Here’s how you play the game:

Step 1, walk up to one of two bars.

Step 2, pick a flavor — margarita (green), fruit punch (red), berry (blue) or hard lemonade (you guessed it, yellow) — and a school.

Step 3, pay $5, $1.50 of which will go toward your team’s local food bank, and 50 cents will go toward an Omaha-based nonprofit.

Step 4, peel off the seal and enjoy.

Usually, prep work starts three days before the MCWS begins. But this year, Rocco’s partnered with a company called JottShots, which had 120,000 premade Jell-O shots “in a warehouse ready to go,” McEvoy said. Each day starts with about 18,000, as the warehouse works to keep the restaurant stocked up all series long.

BetMissouri actually drew up odds (“for entertainment purposes only”) in honor of this year’s Jell-O Shot Challenge before the MCWS began. LSU, of course, tops the rankings with a 73.3% chance of victory after winning the challenge by 60,000 shots in 2023. 

The Tigers fan base is tantamount to the 1998 New York Yankees of drinking. The 2007 Boston Red Sox of boozing. The, well, 21st-century UConn women’s basketball of libations.

All right, you get it.

Arkansas had the second-best odds at 10%, with Louisville third at 4.8%.

As of about 10 p.m. central time on Sunday, U of L sat in second-to-last place with 1,315 Jell-O shots purchased on its behalf. Only UCLA, which hadn’t cracked quadruple digits, trailed the Louisville. Murray State’s 6,420 ranked No. 2. LSU, of course, led the way with 13,552.

All’s fair in love and war and drinking games. But this competition means more than a buzz and some bragging rights. 

Participating generates hundreds of thousands of dollars (more than $350,000 over the last three years, McEvoy said) for food banks across the country. Participating means seeing the final white board tally knowing you helped shape those numbers. And participating means your team made it to the MCWS.

Louisville’s offense struggled in its 2025 MCWS debut against Oregon State on Friday night. The Cards trailed 3-1 until late-game heroics from Tague Davis (RBI single) and Kamau Neighbors (RBI single) tied things up in the top of the ninth. Perhaps the Cardiac Cards had struck again. 

Not quite.

Gavin Turley hit the game-winning RBI double to send U of L to the losers bracket.

“The adrenaline was just pumping, the blood was flowing, the sweat, the potential tears were coming in,” Clarkson said. “But you’re just living for that moment, that excitement. No one else can take that away, regardless of the result, win or lose.”

To buy tickets for the College World Series in Omaha, click here.

Reach college sports enterprise reporter Payton Titus at ptitus@gannett.com, and follow her on X @petitus25.

Wildcats baseball loads up: Transfer portal class shoots UK to no. 3 in the nation

Kentucky baseball has completely overhauled its roster through the transfer portal, making seismic moves that have rocketed the Wildcats to No. 3 in the latest 64analytics Top Team rankings. Only Georgia and South Carolina stand above them/ UK’s beast of a haul screams “we’re here to win now.”

Here’s the breakdown of each incoming impact player:

Pitching reinforcements

RHP Jack Bennett (WKU)
A Kentucky native from Paducah, Bennett went 7-1 with a 3.13 ERA over 63 innings, striking out 49 batters while appearing in 14 games in 2025.

Awards:
2025 ABCA/Rawlings All-Midwest Region Second Team
2025 All-Conference USA Second Team
2025 College Baseball Hall of Fame National Pitcher of the Year Midseason Watch List
2025 Perfect Game USA Midseason All-American Third Team

RHP Burkley Bounds (EKU)
As a true freshman from Lexington in 2025, Bounds logged 41 innings across 18 appearances (2 starts), going 2–0 with a 4.17 ERA and 39 Ks.

RHP Kaden Echeman (NKU)
Over 2025 with NKU, Echeman was 3–3 with a 4.34 ERA, 87 strikeouts in 56 innings.

RHP Connor Mattison (GCU)
At Grand Canyon, Mattison logged 41 strikeouts with a 5.40 ERA and a 2-1 record over 2025 in 11 appearances.

RHP Ryan Mullan (LMU)
A reliable reliever, he posted a 3.77 ERA over 45.1 innings with a 4–2 record, ranking seventh nationally in appearances in 2024.

RHP Bryson Treichel (UNF)
Freshman season at North Florida saw him strike out 74 batters in 61.2 innings (4–5, 5.25 ERA) and earn ASUN Freshman All‑Team honors

Bowie behind the plate

C Alex Duffey (Elon)
Duffey delivered a potent .344/.463/.479 slash with 13 doubles, 4 homers, 54 RBI in 2025, earning Second Team All‑CAA honors.

A Look at Infield Depth

INF Tyler Cerny (Indiana)
A swingman at both second base and shortstop, Cerny slashed .281/.903 OPS with 10 homers, 14 doubles, 32 RBI and 53 runs over 55 games.

Building on history

With a 2025 appearance in the Clemson regional, this season marked the first time in program history with three straight NCAA Tournament appearances. That consistency now meets an injection of talent especially in the pitching department where it will be sorely needed.

Pitching Depth & Talent – Six new righty arms, from weekend starters to multi‑inning relievers, give coach Nick Mingione’s staff much needed flexibility. As last year the bullpen was a weak spot giving up several late leads, including blowing 2 5 run leads in a loss to West Virigina.

Offensive Reinforcement – Cerny’s pop, Duffey’s savvy catching, and lineup versatility balance UK’s offensive profile.

Program Momentum – Getting everything going after keeping the core young players is key to continue building a program that threatens every year.

Looking ahead

The mix of experience, local talent (like Bennett and Bounds), and power arms set UK up for a deep postseason run. Mingione was already talking like next year could be a special season, which you can read more about here. Now it looks like he can add more bullet points to that speech.

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