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USA Today
24-07-2025
- Business
- USA Today
Big Ten media days: Beth Goetz sheds light on Iowa athletics' revenue sharing plan
Iowa athletics director Beth Goetz joined the Hawkeye contingent that descended upon Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas for Big Ten media days on Thursday. Goetz broached a number of topics, including the new courtside riser seating section that is being implemented for men's and women's basketball and for Hawkeye wrestling during the coming 2025-26 athletics seasons. In addition to the future of Carver-Hawkeye Arena, Goetz was asked how the revenue sharing process has gone for Hawkeye athletics thus far after Judge Claudia Wilken approved the House v. NCAA settlement in early June that paved the way for schools to play athletes directly. "We've been really pleased. It's gone really smoothly in terms of the operationalizing of making that distribution. For many of our athletes, we made a first payment on July 1. No issues. It went relatively smoothly. I think it's already been reported that we're working through Venmo and so they were a really good partner. A lot of leg work and things like that to get it uploaded, but it went as smoothly as it could," Goetz said. Goetz was asked if every athlete or sport on campus would receive revenue sharing or if it was exclusive to a select list of sports. "Every athlete on our campus will not receive revenue sharing. So, we made decisions based on the first year, so we really looked at this as a snapshot in time with the ability again to pivot as we needed to. So, certainly focused on our revenue sports. "Doesn't mean you may not have a sprinkling of others. We have some scholarship pieces that will be a part of that as well. But, we'll have to see how it all plays out and how we need to adjust to the market to what our peers are doing etcetera as we go forward," Goetz said. Goetz didn't reveal which sports would be receiving revenue share payments, but indicated that the Hawkeyes' largest revenue generators would be considered first. "Well, it's sort of a moving target. At the end of the year, we'll have to see. Clearly, we're focused on men's, women's basketball and football and wrestling is a priority for us as well. But, there'll be a smattering of other individuals I think along the way that we'll see," Goetz said. There's still uncertainty beyond the initial House v. NCAA settlement. Yahoo! Sports' Ross Dellenger reported earlier this week that attorneys for the House plaintiffs have struck an agreement with the power conferences and NCAA officials to amend the decision-making from the industry's new enforcement arm, the College Sports Commission, related to how booster-backed collectives can compensate athletes. Per Dellenger, as part of the agreement, the College Sports Commission is expected to treat collectives or any 'school-associated entity' in a similar fashion as other businesses when determining the legitimacy of third-party NIL deals submitted to the CSC's NIL Go clearinghouse. This may relax some of the roadblocks that could exist for Iowa's SWARM collective as it pertains to exceeding the $20.5 million revenue share "cap." "A little more clarity would obviously be nice. But, at the end of the day, right now, all of that really just lies in terms of the settlement agreement. So, that's working with the plaintiffs lawyers and trying to figure out what that piece is going to play out. "It's helpful because I think Brad (Heinrichs) and I have a good relationship. We talk all the time. Just trying to get comfortable saying, hey, 'We're going to make the best decision we can today with the information we know and then pivot if we learn something else.' Probably since COVID, I think that's the way we've all had to operate in athletics for a while. And so you learn to get pretty comfortable in having a few contingency plans and just waiting to make plans to adjust in another six weeks or so," Goetz said. Iowa recently launched its Flight Funds program which is designed to support revenue sharing for football, men's basketball, women's basketball and men's wrestling, along with a general support Flight Fund. "Driving revenue has always been a priority at this level in college athletics and it's going to continue to be, so the different avenues that we have to do that, obviously being able to do a good chunk of that in-house now is helpful, and so we've got a lot of different strategies going on there. "But, depending on how settlement terms play out with collectives, we'll have to see if there's some things we can continue to do and to support from a third party, whether that's in a true collective form or something we work that into going forward. But, it's a lot of resource. We all know that is a component of it, but I think we're going to be well positioned to make sure we're at the table and can execute," Goetz said. Contact/Follow us @HawkeyesWire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Iowa news, notes and opinions. Follow Josh on X: @JoshOnREF
New York Times
24-07-2025
- Business
- New York Times
What we're hearing about college basketball budgets in revenue-sharing era: ‘Money-dump year'
NORTH AUGUSTA, S.C. — Have we maybe, finally, reached the peak of college basketball spending? It depends who you ask … but it's certainly possible. Why? Because this offseason, college sports' old and new funding models — established name, image, and likeness (NIL) norms, plus the introduction of revenue-sharing — overlapped, giving programs a one-year window to blow the bank. Advertisement 'This year is the money-dump year because of everything that's happening,' said one assistant coach at a mid-major-plus school. 'We will never see these numbers again. Now, what does that mean moving forward? We don't know.' That uncertainty was a near-consensus sentiment among the 35 coaches The Athletic polled at Peach Jam last weekend. Much of that stems from the unknown ramifications of the long-anticipated House vs. NCAA settlement, which took effect July 1 and allows schools — for the first time — to pay athletes directly through revenue sharing, with a $20.5 million cap per school for all sports combined. Athletes are still allowed to reach third-party NIL deals that don't count against the cap, but those agreements could come under more scrutiny in a post-House world, with a new clearinghouse — NIL Go — set to review them. Will NIL Go approve the sorts of million-dollar deals that have become the industry standard over the last four seasons? This early into the revenue-sharing era, coaches don't know. But if one thing is clear, it's that budgets for this season are eye-popping. To understand just how swollen budgets have become this offseason, we asked all 35 coaches: On average, what would you estimate teams in your conference spent on their rosters for the upcoming 2025-26 season? Coaches were granted anonymity in exchange for their candor. The answers are telling — even considering the wide range of budgets within each league. (In the 18-team ACC, for example, the difference between the highest- and lowest-spending schools is eight figures.) But for as sexy as those numbers are, it's crucial to remember why basketball budgets have grown, especially for next season. Prior to the House settlement, most college players were paid by school collectives, who funneled money directly from donors to athletes under the guise of NIL. Now, in a revenue-sharing world, schools can distribute up to $20.5 million annually to players. Men's basketball isn't getting that entire pie — Opendorse, an NIL marketplace company, estimates most high-major programs will receive 20.3 percent of that on average — but still: that's a few extra million teams can dole out. Advertisement So, when you combine old collective money — most of which schools intentionally spent before July 1 — with new revenue-sharing funds? Voila: You get a basketball bubble, and budgets reaching never-before-seen heights. 'There is a realization for most,' said one Big Ten assistant, 'that the money will not be the same.' In many ways, one byproduct of the House settlement led to this offseason's spending boon. That would be the College Sports Commission (CSC), the new enforcement agency responsible for regulating revenue-sharing and cutting down on the pay-for-play deals that have become the industry standard. To regulate 'fair' market deals, the CSC created a clearinghouse, NIL Go, which is run by Deloitte and which vets any third-party NIL deals worth over $600. Considering schools have regularly been paying top talents hundreds of thousands — if not millions — of dollars annually, coaches were understandably apprehensive about the clearinghouse review process. Most who The Athletic spoke to admitted that they 'front-loaded' contracts this offseason, spending as much collective money as possible in case NIL Go made it effectively unusable. 'With the collectives being in question, and all the details that are coming out about the settlement,' said one SEC head coach, 'I don't know what it's gonna look like.' And that uncertainty is still palpable. The CSC announced earlier this month that it wouldn't clear any collective deals, seemingly validating coaches' front-loading … only to reverse course on Tuesday after substantial backlash; the enforcement body now says it will consider collectives 'valid businesses,' but will still hold them to the fair 'range of compensation' rules that traditional third parties are subject to. What does that mean for future spending? Advertisement Simply, if high-major programs are to sustain their current roster budgets, then supplemental collective money is a necessity. Consider: The average expected revenue sharing allotment for high-major teams — about 20.3 percent of $20.5 million — comes out to about $4.2 million … or half of what programs are estimated to be spending this upcoming year. Is the college basketball economy really going to nosedive to that extent? 'You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube,' an ACC head coach said. 'The free market has (borne) what these numbers are, so now you can't come back and correct the free market, and say, 'Well, actually, this isn't the free market. What we determine is the free market is the free market.' If you were able to do that, we wouldn't be running to Congress asking for help, because that would be legal. What we're doing now isn't legal.' It's easy to talk about college basketball spending in a macro sense. But what does that look like at the one-on-one level with players? 'You're going to have a kid making 400 (thousand), and you're gonna go, 'Well, next year I only have 200 for you,'' an ACC assistant said. 'That doesn't usually sit real well.' As a Big 12 assistant put it: 'That's going to be a hard conversation to kids you're already loyal to.' The ramifications could be landscape-shifting. With players having more freedom of movement than ever, coaches worry that a stark drop in spending — especially in the span of one offseason — will lead to the most frantic offseason of the NIL era yet. Another roster construction concern: How much should coaches allocate for freshmen, especially those who rarely impact winning their first college season? 'A lot of these '26 kids have friends who were in the '25 class and got a lot of money — and now you're offering them a quarter of that?' said an SEC assistant. 'We're gonna struggle initially, trying to explain the difference.' Advertisement Which is why only three top-25 recruits in the 2026 class have committed so far. Other uncertainties abound, too. For all the talk about 'average' allotments to high-major programs, for instance, what about the blue bloods set to receive an outsized percentage of their school's revenue-sharing funds? What Duke and Kentucky receive, for instance, will be drastically different from what teams residing alongside powerhouse football programs — like Alabama, Ohio State, and Clemson — will ultimately get. 'If you're talking true rev share,' one blue blood assistant admitted, 'then we've been given an opportunity to be competitive.' There's also the looming threat of non-football leagues, namely the Big East and Atlantic 10. On one hand, not having football means most Big East schools won't come close to paying out the overall $20.5 million cap permitted by the House settlement. But on the other hand? Those same schools can give their men's basketball programs the largest cut of the revenue sharing pie, rather than the 20 percent that most of their high-major colleagues should receive. 'The Big East would be able to likely — with the commitment and the resources — double and triple some of these SEC and Big Ten schools,' said one Atlantic 10 head coach. 'I don't know what the next set of rules are going to be, but I guarantee you it's not going to be that.' Added the SEC head coach: 'We talk as a staff that we might be competing against Atlantic 10 schools for kids, if it's based on just money.' We won't know for a while whether or not the CSC truly has the teeth to stem the flood of collective money into college sports. But if it does, and revenue-sharing funds are something of a legitimate cap? Expect teams to get, uh, creative when it comes to navigating the clearinghouse's restrictions. Advertisement 'There's probably some guys out there,' one Big 12 head coach said, 'that are going to figure out a way to do some things that are within the letter of the law — (but) maybe not the spirit of the law.' Or, more succinctly, in the words of one WCC head coach: 'It's just going to bring back cheating. I don't want to be naive about that.' After surveying coaches at just under 10 percent of Division I schools, the only thing that's become clear is how divided the college basketball universe is on what to make of revenue sharing. Will it curtail massive donor influence in college basketball? Will it curb overall spending and level the financial playing field? Or is it just a slight impediment to the free market and the hefty prices that have emerged in the NIL era? Is it enforceable? Destined to get sued into oblivion? A precursor to collective bargaining? There's no clear answer to any of it. 'We continually ask for help and guardrails — and then when we get them, we complain about them, find ways around them, and then we sue the NCAA,' another ACC head coach said. 'Sooner or later, coaches are going to have to decide what they want this ultimately to look like. And if we're going to continue to find ways around stuff, or sue, then it's just going to be chaos.'
USA Today
14-07-2025
- Business
- USA Today
New agency to enforce legitimacy of NIL deals in college sports
For several years now, the world of NIL in college sports has essentially been the Wild West. Under the current system, every player is essentially a free agent after each season, and there is no salary cap for how much money schools can spend on players. However, that is reportedly about to change. With the dawn of the revenue sharing era, a new agency is reportedly going to enforce whether or not deals done outside of the revenue sharing system are legitimate endorsement contracts. A report last week from Stewart Mandel of The Athletic detailed plans for the new enforcement agency. 'The recently approved House settlement, which took effect on July 1, established a clearinghouse, called NIL Go, that must approve all third-party deals for more than $600,' Mandel wrote. 'The two main requirements for those deals are that they're for a 'valid business purpose' and within a fair-market 'range of compensation.' 'The goal is to prevent schools from utilizing booster-driven entities to funnel payments to recruits and transfers as a workaround to the $20.5 million revenue-sharing cap. 'Guidance issued Thursday by the College Sports Commission said that 'an entity with a business purpose of providing payments or benefits to student-athletes or institutions, rather than providing goods or services to the general public for profit, does not satisfy the valid business purpose requirement set forth in NCAA Rule 22.1.3.' 'It then cited as an example a collective that 'reach(es) a deal with a student-athlete to make an appearance on behalf of the collective at an event, even if that event is open to the general public, and the collective charges an admission fee (e.g., a golf tournament).' And, 'The same collective's deal with a student-athlete to promote the collective's sale of merchandise to the public would not satisfy the valid business purpose requirement for the same reason.'' If the new system works as intended, programs will not be able to simply pay as much as they want for players. The goal is to put all schools on more of an equal playing field, rather than giving a massive advantage to the ones with the biggest collectives. It will be interesting to see if this effort is successful, or if schools continue to find new ways to get around the rules.
Hindustan Times
10-07-2025
- Business
- Hindustan Times
The new college sports agency is rejecting some athlete NIL deals with donor-backed collectives
The new agency in charge of regulating name, image, likeness deals in college sports sent a letter to schools Thursday saying it had rejected deals between players and donor-backed collectives formed over the past several years to funnel money to athletes or their schools. HT Image Those arrangements hold no 'valid business purpose,' the memo said, and don't adhere to rules that call for outside NIL deals to be between players and companies that provide goods or services to the general public for profit. The letter to Division I athletic directors could be the next step in shuttering today's version of the collective, groups that are closely affiliated with schools and that, in the early days of NIL after July 2021, proved the most efficient way for schools to indirectly cut deals with players. Since then, the landscape has changed yet again with the $2.8 billion House settlement that allows schools to pay the players directly as of July 1. Already, collectives affiliated with Colorado, Alabama, Notre Dame, Georgia and others have announced they're shutting down. Georgia, Ohio State and Illinois are among those that have announced plans with Learfield, a media and technology company with decades of licensing and other experience across college athletics, to help arrange NIL deals. Outside deals between athlete and sponsor are still permitted, but any worth $600 or more have to be vetted by a clearinghouse called NIL Go that was established by the new College Sports Commission. In its letter to the ADs, the CSC said more than 1,500 deals have been cleared since NIL Go launched on June 11, 'ranging in value from three figures to seven figures.' More than 12,000 athletes and 1,100 institutional users have registered to use the system. But the bulk of the letter explained that many deals could not be cleared because they did not conform to an NCAA rule that sets a 'valid business purpose' standard for deals to be approved. The letter explained that if a collective reaches a deal with an athlete to appear on behalf of the collective, which charges an admission fee, the standard is not met because the purpose of the event is to raise money to pay athletes, not to provide goods or services available to the general public for profit. The same would apply to a deal an athlete makes to sell merchandise to raise money to pay that player because the purpose of 'selling merchandise is to raise money to pay that student-athlete and potentially other student-athletes at a particular school or schools, which is not a valid business purpose' according to the NCAA rule. A deal, however, could be approved if, for instance, the businesses paying the players had a broader purpose than simply acting as a collective. The letter uses a golf course or apparel company as examples. 'In other words, NIL collectives may act as marketing agencies that match student-athletes with businesses that have a valid business purpose and seek to use the student's NIL to promote their businesses," the letter said. ___ AP college sports:
Chicago Tribune
10-07-2025
- Business
- Chicago Tribune
The new college sports agency is rejecting some NIL deals with donor-backed collectives
The new agency in charge of regulating name, image and likeness deals in college sports sent a letter to schools Thursday saying it had rejected deals between players and donor-backed collectives formed over the past several years to funnel money to athletes or their schools. Those arrangements hold no 'valid business purpose,' the memo said, and don't adhere to rules that call for outside NIL deals to be between players and companies that provide goods or services to the general public for profit. The letter to Division I athletic directors could be the next step in shuttering today's version of the collective, groups that are closely affiliated with schools and that, in the early days of NIL after July 2021, proved the most efficient way for schools to indirectly cut deals with players. Since then, the landscape has changed yet again with the $2.8 billion House settlement that allows schools to pay the players directly as of July 1. Already, collectives affiliated with Colorado, Alabama, Notre Dame, Georgia and others have announced they're shutting down. Georgia, Ohio State and Illinois are among those that have announced plans with Learfield, a media and technology company with decades of licensing and other experience across college athletics, to help arrange NIL deals. Outside deals between athlete and sponsor are still permitted, but any worth $600 or more have to be vetted by a clearinghouse called NIL Go that was established by the new College Sports Commission. In its letter to the ADs, the CSC said more than 1,500 deals have been cleared since NIL Go launched on June 11, 'ranging in value from three figures to seven figures.' More than 12,000 athletes and 1,100 institutional users have registered to use the system. But the bulk of the letter explained that many deals could not be cleared because they did not conform to an NCAA rule that sets a 'valid business purpose' standard for deals to be approved. The letter explained that if a collective reaches a deal with an athlete to appear on behalf of the collective, which charges an admission fee, the standard is not met because the purpose of the event is to raise money to pay athletes, not to provide goods or services available to the general public for profit. The same would apply to a deal an athlete makes to sell merchandise to raise money to pay that player because the purpose of 'selling merchandise is to raise money to pay that student-athlete and potentially other student-athletes at a particular school or schools, which is not a valid business purpose' according to the NCAA rule. A deal, however, could be approved if, for instance, the businesses paying the players had a broader purpose than simply acting as a collective. The letter uses a golf course or apparel company as examples. 'In other words, NIL collectives may act as marketing agencies that match student-athletes with businesses that have a valid business purpose and seek to use the student's NIL to promote their businesses,' the letter said.
