In an attempt to stay tapped into all things NIL, I've sorted through and gathered seven interesting NIL centered news items today, the title of each section will redirect you to the initial column, as I did not translate all of the columns into this page. Just the best cliff notes.
Cheers,
Oklahoma, Texas Tech, Georgia State, UTSA, North Carolina, Georgia and Florida are where the conversations start tonight!
Castiglione sent out an email to OU fans on Tuesday expanding upon the Sooners' revenue-sharing plan and calling for their support.
"I call on you, our Sooner family, to help us rise to the challenge," Castiglione wrote Tuesday.
"The reality of a new $20.5 million expense that will increase annually requires us to make thoughtful decisions around how we drive new revenue while considering changes to our current investments," Castiglione wrote. "Like our peers across the country, we're looking at everything from reallocating existing funds for the purpose of revenue sharing, to evaluating future ticket pricing and premium offerings across all sports."
ESPN's Dari Nowkah, an OU alum didn't mince his words following Saturday's loss.
“You want to take it as me calling out a fanbase that I love," Nowkah said on SEC Network. "Go ahead. These guys are walking into an arena that’s half-full, that is dead. It looks dead on television, I don’t believe it’s overly alive in person. You look around this league at basketball arenas, at baseball (stadiums), they’re full. There’s a level of passion there.
“We are not seeing it and we haven’t seen it from the jump this season in Norman, Oklahoma, and that’s disappointing. And I hope it changes."
Maybe the craziest quote though... "We invest in academics. It's the first thing we work on, "Cobb assured. "We want these kids to graduate. But NIL has changed the game."
Campbell is the co-founder and CEO of Double Eagle along with John A. Sellers. Diamondback will pay roughly 6.9 million shares and $3 billion in cash. It expects the deal to close on April 1.
Working with Texas Tech head coach Joey McGuire and general manager James Blanchard, Campbell helped piece together the No. 1 portal class according to On3. The price tag came out to a reported $10 million, per ESPN.
Following Texas Tech’s loss 41-27 loss to Colorado in early November, Campbell wrote on X that there was “awful officiating” in the game. A user commented below, telling the billionaire to “buy us an O-line.”
Campbell replied, saying, “I will.” The Texas Tech booster followed through with his process, putting together the top class in the portal. That was highlighted by running back Quinten Joyner (USC), who picked the Red Raiders over Ohio State. They also added receiver Reggie Virgil (Miami, OH), who had 41 catches for 816 yards and nine touchdowns in 2024. Virgil chose Tech over Oklahoma, Florida and Florida State.
The average ticket price increase across all seating areas is 8 percent.
New season tickets start at just $105, which is competitive with UTSA’s peers in the American Athletic Conference, and attending Roadrunners’ games remain one of the best values in all of FBS Football.
When you think college basketball, you think Carolina blue.
Or the football program, the perpetual little brother in the athletic department that has been pushed to the tip of the spear by the sheer will of a sport that has overtaken everything college athletics? No national title banners flying at Kenan Stadium, just five ACC championship flags of decades gone by.
The payment structure of that expected $20 million pool is built by each school, and not every player in every sport will receive the same amount of money. That’s not even considering external NIL deals, which will still be widely available — and more important, another area of contention between football and basketball.
At some point, the fight will come to this: what’s the biggest bang for the buck?
The football team that Belichick and Lombardi believe can be built into a national power despite its inherent obstacles in recruiting against the elite of college football? Georgia, Alabama, Ohio State, Michigan, LSU and Texas, among the many, aren’t going anywhere — and have more resources.
Or the basketball team, which is the DNA of college basketball, a program so prominent, recruits (and transfer portal recruits) will flock to with the right coach.
This, of course, brings us to the next inevitable subject: The possibility of moving on from struggling coach Hubert Davis. If North Carolina decides replace Davis, who is under contract through the 2027-28 season, where does it go for his replacement?
In no previous world where NIL and pay for play didn’t dictate decisions, would North Carolina “hope” about anything with the basketball program. It would take action, immediately.
It would hire the biggest, baddest coach it could find, and celebrate the transition to a new beginning. It would declare that things were returning to the Carolina Way, and that nothing would be left to guess in the quest to return to the elite of college basketball.
Sort of like what the football team just did with Belichick.
See the fight now?
We already saw the power play by the North Carolina Board of Trustees, forcing athletic director Bubba Cunningham to hire Belichick and throwing ridiculous amounts of money at a sport that prior to this offseason was treated as a functional distraction – by those same board members – until basketball tipped.
A guaranteed $30 million deal (over three years) for Belichick in addition to - as stated in his term sheet - $10 million annually for an assistant coach salary pool and $5.3 million annually for support staff.
That’s a $25.3 million annual investment in football — before player procurement, revenue sharing and NIL agreements. The total investment could surpass $40 million.
Forty million.
I don’t think I’m speaking out of turn here, but there’s no chance that the investment in the shining beacon of a basketball program along bucolic Skipper Bowles Drive – even per capita – reaches those ridiculous levels.
See the fight now? The 33rd team did, and planted its flag early.
There’s only so much cash to go around.
Ohio allows the athletic department at its largest college, Ohio State University, to run an almost $38 million deficit, according to a report to the NCAA.
The University of Florida may soon have to emulate these actions. At a meeting in late January, members of the Florida university system’s Board of Governors, including UF representatives, met to discuss what schools across the state plan to do to raise athletic funds.
“Change is inevitable, and you have to adapt,” said UF booster Robert Lloyd. “I am very nostalgic for the old days.”
“For instance, in the bowl games, players opt out,” Lloyd said. “They don’t play because the money from the bowl games goes to the institution and its boosters. It doesn’t mean anything to the athlete.”
At the Board of Governors meeting, a major concern was keeping up with schools across the country in paying players. Amy Meyers Hass, the Gators’ deputy athletics director, explained at the meeting that schools are scrambling to figure out how to raise funds.
“We are all thinking about what we can add to ticket prices or add ons or sponsorships or marketing opportunities,” Hass said. “Anything that might generate some new revenue.”
To dedicated fans like Lloyd, a rise in ticket prices or additional fees is not something they would want to see.
“Once you get those fees in, they’re hard to get out” Lloyd said.
“We are seeing states around the country who are either issuing executive orders to their governor’s office, some have legislated in this space,” Hass said. “Those pieces of legislation tend to sort of loosen the restrictions that historically existed on the institutions.”
States like Georgia, Virginia and Ohio have already passed such legislation. In all these cases, the state governments are allowing universities to either directly pay student athletes for their NIL benefits or are allowing athletes to profit from their likeness in other ways.
Universities in other states are also using education and general state appropriations toward athletics. Pennsylvania, California, and Arkansas are among the states that allow certain higher education institutions to do so.
Florida, however, does not allow its universities to use such funds. In Lloyd’s opinion, it should stay that way.
“I feel like I give plenty,” Lloyd said. “If I was willing to give to the NIL collective, I’ll do that separately. But I don’t think it’s appropriate for taxpayers. I just think that’s a misuse of public funds.”
Morteza Hosseini, chairman of UF’s Board of Trustees, disagreed with Hass on the point of flexibility. In his opinion, this will cause universities to take funds away from academics, which will harm students, he said at the meeting.
Hosseini mentioned that UF already charges an athletic fee of about $2 per credit hour. While he doesn’t want to increase in-state tuition, Hosseini did not rule out generating additional revenue from out-of-state students.
“We may have an opportunity in the future…with that out-of-state tuition,” Hosseini said. “We see a lot of out-of-state very qualified students trying to come to our universities because we’re doing such a good job.”
https://www.wuft.org/sports/2025-02...-of-florida-scrambles-to-raise-athletic-funds
Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia, the 40-page complaint argues the NCAA has, “breached its obligations to the third-party beneficiaries by seeking to enforce unlawful, anticompetitive Bylaws which interfere with the rights of athletes and Division I institutions in the labor market.”
It’s just the latest lawsuit to stem from Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia’s courtroom win against the NCAA, where he argued that because the governing body counts junior college seasons towards NCAA eligibility and athletes cannot redshirt after they have played four years, NCAA rules violate antitrust law.
Cheers,
Oklahoma, Texas Tech, Georgia State, UTSA, North Carolina, Georgia and Florida are where the conversations start tonight!
1. OU athletic director Joe Castiglione calls for fans' 'help' with revenue sharing imminent
OU athletic director Joe Castiglione says the Sooners' success is only made possible by fans' "unwavering support."Castiglione sent out an email to OU fans on Tuesday expanding upon the Sooners' revenue-sharing plan and calling for their support.
"I call on you, our Sooner family, to help us rise to the challenge," Castiglione wrote Tuesday.
"The reality of a new $20.5 million expense that will increase annually requires us to make thoughtful decisions around how we drive new revenue while considering changes to our current investments," Castiglione wrote. "Like our peers across the country, we're looking at everything from reallocating existing funds for the purpose of revenue sharing, to evaluating future ticket pricing and premium offerings across all sports."
ESPN's Dari Nowkah, an OU alum didn't mince his words following Saturday's loss.
“You want to take it as me calling out a fanbase that I love," Nowkah said on SEC Network. "Go ahead. These guys are walking into an arena that’s half-full, that is dead. It looks dead on television, I don’t believe it’s overly alive in person. You look around this league at basketball arenas, at baseball (stadiums), they’re full. There’s a level of passion there.
“We are not seeing it and we haven’t seen it from the jump this season in Norman, Oklahoma, and that’s disappointing. And I hope it changes."
2. The changing playbook: GSU athletic director reflects on the future of college athletics
Any interesting POV from a Non-Power 4 (Georgia State) Athletic Director, I suggest taking a scroll through. I'm unable to copy and paste from the Newnan Times-Herald.Maybe the craziest quote though... "We invest in academics. It's the first thing we work on, "Cobb assured. "We want these kids to graduate. But NIL has changed the game."
3. Texas Tech NIL collective founder Cody Campbell sells company for $4.1 billion
Cody Campbell, a major Texas Tech booster, sold his oil and natural gas company Double Eagle to Diamondback Energy on Tuesday for approximately $4.08 billion in cash and stock. The founder of Texas Tech’s NIL collective The Matador Club, Campbell was the main financial source for the Red Raiders’ top-ranked transfer portal class this winter.Campbell is the co-founder and CEO of Double Eagle along with John A. Sellers. Diamondback will pay roughly 6.9 million shares and $3 billion in cash. It expects the deal to close on April 1.
Working with Texas Tech head coach Joey McGuire and general manager James Blanchard, Campbell helped piece together the No. 1 portal class according to On3. The price tag came out to a reported $10 million, per ESPN.
Following Texas Tech’s loss 41-27 loss to Colorado in early November, Campbell wrote on X that there was “awful officiating” in the game. A user commented below, telling the billionaire to “buy us an O-line.”
Campbell replied, saying, “I will.” The Texas Tech booster followed through with his process, putting together the top class in the portal. That was highlighted by running back Quinten Joyner (USC), who picked the Red Raiders over Ohio State. They also added receiver Reggie Virgil (Miami, OH), who had 41 catches for 816 yards and nine touchdowns in 2024. Virgil chose Tech over Oklahoma, Florida and Florida State.
4. UTSA Athletics Announces New Pricing and Seating Model For UTSA Football
As part of its continuing commitment to invest in a championship-caliber football program which can compete for American Athletic Conference titles and College Football Playoff berths, as well as supporting its student-athletes at the highest level, UTSA Athletics is implementing a new pricing and seating model for the 2025 UTSA Football season.The average ticket price increase across all seating areas is 8 percent.
New season tickets start at just $105, which is competitive with UTSA’s peers in the American Athletic Conference, and attending Roadrunners’ games remain one of the best values in all of FBS Football.
5. North Carolina power struggle: Bill Belichick, men's basketball fighting over millions
The basketball program of Dean Smith and Michael Jordan and those six national championship banners hanging in the rafters of the Smith Center? The program that believes it's synonymous with the best of the best, the elite of the elite?When you think college basketball, you think Carolina blue.
Or the football program, the perpetual little brother in the athletic department that has been pushed to the tip of the spear by the sheer will of a sport that has overtaken everything college athletics? No national title banners flying at Kenan Stadium, just five ACC championship flags of decades gone by.
The payment structure of that expected $20 million pool is built by each school, and not every player in every sport will receive the same amount of money. That’s not even considering external NIL deals, which will still be widely available — and more important, another area of contention between football and basketball.
At some point, the fight will come to this: what’s the biggest bang for the buck?
The football team that Belichick and Lombardi believe can be built into a national power despite its inherent obstacles in recruiting against the elite of college football? Georgia, Alabama, Ohio State, Michigan, LSU and Texas, among the many, aren’t going anywhere — and have more resources.
Or the basketball team, which is the DNA of college basketball, a program so prominent, recruits (and transfer portal recruits) will flock to with the right coach.
This, of course, brings us to the next inevitable subject: The possibility of moving on from struggling coach Hubert Davis. If North Carolina decides replace Davis, who is under contract through the 2027-28 season, where does it go for his replacement?
In no previous world where NIL and pay for play didn’t dictate decisions, would North Carolina “hope” about anything with the basketball program. It would take action, immediately.
It would hire the biggest, baddest coach it could find, and celebrate the transition to a new beginning. It would declare that things were returning to the Carolina Way, and that nothing would be left to guess in the quest to return to the elite of college basketball.
Sort of like what the football team just did with Belichick.
See the fight now?
We already saw the power play by the North Carolina Board of Trustees, forcing athletic director Bubba Cunningham to hire Belichick and throwing ridiculous amounts of money at a sport that prior to this offseason was treated as a functional distraction – by those same board members – until basketball tipped.
A guaranteed $30 million deal (over three years) for Belichick in addition to - as stated in his term sheet - $10 million annually for an assistant coach salary pool and $5.3 million annually for support staff.
That’s a $25.3 million annual investment in football — before player procurement, revenue sharing and NIL agreements. The total investment could surpass $40 million.
Forty million.
I don’t think I’m speaking out of turn here, but there’s no chance that the investment in the shining beacon of a basketball program along bucolic Skipper Bowles Drive – even per capita – reaches those ridiculous levels.
See the fight now? The 33rd team did, and planted its flag early.
There’s only so much cash to go around.
6. Fans weigh in as University of Florida scrambles to raise athletic funds
The University of Tennessee introduced a 10% “talent fee” on all athletic tickets for the 2025 season. The school also added a 4.5% increase on football ticket prices to help pay athletes.Ohio allows the athletic department at its largest college, Ohio State University, to run an almost $38 million deficit, according to a report to the NCAA.
The University of Florida may soon have to emulate these actions. At a meeting in late January, members of the Florida university system’s Board of Governors, including UF representatives, met to discuss what schools across the state plan to do to raise athletic funds.
“Change is inevitable, and you have to adapt,” said UF booster Robert Lloyd. “I am very nostalgic for the old days.”
“For instance, in the bowl games, players opt out,” Lloyd said. “They don’t play because the money from the bowl games goes to the institution and its boosters. It doesn’t mean anything to the athlete.”
At the Board of Governors meeting, a major concern was keeping up with schools across the country in paying players. Amy Meyers Hass, the Gators’ deputy athletics director, explained at the meeting that schools are scrambling to figure out how to raise funds.
“We are all thinking about what we can add to ticket prices or add ons or sponsorships or marketing opportunities,” Hass said. “Anything that might generate some new revenue.”
To dedicated fans like Lloyd, a rise in ticket prices or additional fees is not something they would want to see.
“Once you get those fees in, they’re hard to get out” Lloyd said.
“We are seeing states around the country who are either issuing executive orders to their governor’s office, some have legislated in this space,” Hass said. “Those pieces of legislation tend to sort of loosen the restrictions that historically existed on the institutions.”
States like Georgia, Virginia and Ohio have already passed such legislation. In all these cases, the state governments are allowing universities to either directly pay student athletes for their NIL benefits or are allowing athletes to profit from their likeness in other ways.
Universities in other states are also using education and general state appropriations toward athletics. Pennsylvania, California, and Arkansas are among the states that allow certain higher education institutions to do so.
Florida, however, does not allow its universities to use such funds. In Lloyd’s opinion, it should stay that way.
“I feel like I give plenty,” Lloyd said. “If I was willing to give to the NIL collective, I’ll do that separately. But I don’t think it’s appropriate for taxpayers. I just think that’s a misuse of public funds.”
Morteza Hosseini, chairman of UF’s Board of Trustees, disagreed with Hass on the point of flexibility. In his opinion, this will cause universities to take funds away from academics, which will harm students, he said at the meeting.
Hosseini mentioned that UF already charges an athletic fee of about $2 per credit hour. While he doesn’t want to increase in-state tuition, Hosseini did not rule out generating additional revenue from out-of-state students.
“We may have an opportunity in the future…with that out-of-state tuition,” Hosseini said. “We see a lot of out-of-state very qualified students trying to come to our universities because we’re doing such a good job.”
https://www.wuft.org/sports/2025-02...-of-florida-scrambles-to-raise-athletic-funds
7. Georgia baseball player seeking additional eligibility, sues NCAA
Georgia baseball player Dylan Goldstein filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the NCAA, seeking an additional year of eligibility and arguing his year at junior college should not count toward his eligibility. Goldstein is seeking a preliminary injunction and a hearing so he can return to playing for Georgia this weekend.Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia, the 40-page complaint argues the NCAA has, “breached its obligations to the third-party beneficiaries by seeking to enforce unlawful, anticompetitive Bylaws which interfere with the rights of athletes and Division I institutions in the labor market.”
It’s just the latest lawsuit to stem from Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia’s courtroom win against the NCAA, where he argued that because the governing body counts junior college seasons towards NCAA eligibility and athletes cannot redshirt after they have played four years, NCAA rules violate antitrust law.
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