- within Intellectual Property and Immigration topic(s)
The legal and compliance landscape for name, image, and likeness (NIL) rights in college sports has changed dramatically over the last two years. What began as a response to state NIL statutes and constitutional challenges to NCAA amateurism rules has matured into a national regulatory system with centralized oversight, formal enforcement mechanisms, and expanding institutional responsibility. As of early 2026, colleges and universities—particularly those competing in Division I athletics—must treat NIL not as a peripheral student issue, but as a core compliance and governance concern that touches athletics administration, legal compliance, finance, and institutional governance.1
At its foundation, NIL refers to a student-athlete's right to control and monetize the commercial use of their name, image, likeness, voice, and personal brand. NIL agreements commonly involve endorsements, sponsored social media content, appearances, camps, clinics, merchandise licensing, or other promotional activities tied to an athlete's public profile. While student-athletes now have broad authority to enter these agreements, NIL compensation remains regulated. Arrangements that function as pay-for-play or serve as disguised recruiting or retention inducements continue to raise compliance concerns, particularly when institutions have knowledge of the underlying activity or are perceived as facilitating such arrangements.2
The modern NIL framework was reshaped by the resolution of House v. NCAA. On June 6, 2025, a federal court granted final approval to a landmark antitrust settlement resolving claims that the NCAA unlawfully restricted athlete compensation.3 The settlement authorized Division I institutions to directly share athletics revenue with student-athletes, subject to annual caps widely reported to begin at approximately $20.5 million per institution.4 In addition to creating a new revenue-sharing model, the settlement replaced informal NIL oversight with a centralized enforcement structure governing third-party NIL activity and institutional compliance.
That enforcement structure is administered by the College Sports Commission (CSC), which oversees NIL compliance through NIL Go, a centralized reporting and review platform. Student-athletes must disclose qualifying third-party NIL agreements, which are reviewed for valid business purpose and compensation reasonableness. By late 2025 and early 2026, public reporting confirmed that the CSC was rejecting a meaningful number of submitted deals, reinforcing that NIL Go review is substantive rather than procedural and that institutions cannot assume approval is automatic.5
Institutional responsibility was further clarified in October 2025, when the NCAA Division I Board of Directors adopted amendments implementing the House settlement. These amendments expanded reporting obligations and confirmed that institutions have affirmative duties when they become aware of NIL activity through athletics staff, donor interactions, booster collectives, or other associated entities.6 The concept of institutional knowledge now plays a central role in NIL compliance, limiting institutions' ability to rely on formal separation or a lack of direct involvement as a defense.
In early January 2026, the CSC issued guidance focused specifically on NIL activity connected to the transfer portal. The guidance responded to growing concern that third-party NIL offers were being used to induce transfers or retain athletes before deals were submitted to or cleared through NIL Go. The CSC cautioned that such practices could expose student-athletes to significant risk if promised compensation is later rejected and could also create compliance exposure for institutions and associated entities involved in or aware of the offers.7
On January 23, 2026, the NCAA Division I Council approved a significant new commercialization policy allowing commercial sponsor patches on uniforms, equipment, and apparel, effective August 1, 2026. The policy permits limited commercial logos during regular-season and conference competition, subject to sport-specific size and placement rules.8 Although the policy does not directly govern NIL compensation, it represents a meaningful shift in how institutions may monetize their athletic programs in a post-House environment.
The uniform patch policy operates within the same commercial ecosystem that has developed alongside NIL and revenue sharing. By allowing institutions to sell new categories of on-field sponsorship inventory, the NCAA has opened a revenue stream that historically was prohibited at the collegiate level. This development reflects the practical reality that institutions must identify new sources of revenue as direct payments to student-athletes become a routine and significant budgetary obligation.
The policy also intersects with NIL in practical and contractual ways. Student-athletes retain the right to enter individual endorsement agreements, and conflicts may arise when an athlete has a personal sponsorship with a brand that competes with an institutional patch sponsor. The increased visibility of game-worn commercial branding heightens the likelihood of disputes over exclusivity provisions, disclosure obligations, and contract drafting. Institutions should anticipate these issues and address them proactively through coordinated sponsorship agreements, apparel contracts, and NIL education materials.
While the NCAA has not formally linked patch revenue to the revenue-sharing framework created under House, the timing and structure of the policy are notable. Institutions now face new obligations to fund direct payments to student-athletes, and uniform sponsorships provide an institution-controlled revenue stream that may help offset those costs. In this respect, the policy reflects the NCAA's broader shift toward a more openly commercial model of college athletics, one in which institutional revenue generation and student-athlete compensation are increasingly interconnected.
What colleges should do now is focus on coordination, clarity, and documentation. Institutions should review sponsorship, apparel, and multimedia rights agreements for potential conflicts with athlete NIL deals, update NIL policies and education materials to address institutional sponsorships, and ensure alignment among athletics, legal, compliance, and marketing teams. Transfer portal periods and new commercialization initiatives should be treated as predictable compliance pressure points rather than isolated events.
Equity considerations further complicate the NIL landscape. The introduction of direct institutional payments to student-athletes has prompted renewed attention to Title IX compliance, particularly as institutions design revenue-sharing models and other compensation frameworks tied to athletics participation. Ongoing appeals related to the House settlement underscore that compensation structures must be evaluated carefully to ensure they do not create unintended disparities among categories of student-athletes or undermine an institution's broader equity obligations.9 As a result, colleges and universities should assess NIL and revenue-sharing decisions in close coordination with Title IX compliance efforts and institutional equity policies, taking into account participation opportunities, benefits, and resources across athletics programs as a whole.
Recent litigation in Tennessee and across the Southeast highlights how NIL continues to intersect with antitrust and eligibility disputes. Tennessee played a prominent role in challenging the NCAA's former NIL recruiting restrictions, and cases involving Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia and former University of Tennessee guard Zakai Zeigler illustrate how eligibility limitations are increasingly framed as restraints on NIL earning potential.10 These cases underscore that NIL considerations now permeate a wide range of legal challenges involving college athletics.
The NIL era has not reduced institutional responsibility—it has expanded it. Colleges and universities that approach NIL as a regulated, interconnected commercial market will be best positioned to manage risk, maintain compliance, and support student-athletes as college sports continue to evolve.
Footnotes
1 College Sports Commission, NIL Overview and Compliance Framework (2025–2026), https://www.collegesportscommission.org/nil.
2 Id.
3 House v. NCAA, No. 4:20-cv-03919 (N.D. Cal. June 6, 2025).
4 ESPN, Judge Grants Final Approval of House v. NCAA Settlement (June 6, 2025).
5 Associated Press, College Sports Commission Rejected Hundreds of NIL Deals Worth Millions (Jan. 2026).
6 NCAA Division I Board of Directors, Adoption of NIL-Related Bylaw Amendments (Oct. 28, 2025).
7 College Sports Commission, Third-Party NIL Rules Reminder and Transfer Portal Guidance (Jan. 8–9, 2026).
8 NCAA Division I Council, DI Council Approves Commercial Patches for Uniforms, Equipment and Apparel (Jan. 23, 2026).
9 Associated Press, Female Athletes Appeal House Settlement Over Title IX Concerns (2025).
10 Pavia v. NCAA, No. 24-6153 (6th Cir. 2025); Zeigler v. NCAA, No. 3:25-cv-226 (E.D. Tenn. 2025).
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