STATE COLLEGE — The world of college football, and college athletics as a whole, has completely changed over the past few years.
In the last four seasons alone, there have been changes to the roster limits, scholarship numbers and the Name Image and Likeness potential for student athletes.
In a pending antitrust settlement worth $2.8 billion, the United States House of Representatives is taking on the NCAA, claiming the NCAA broke federal law by putting restrictions on student-athletes making money from their NIL.
Part of the assumed agreement involves the cutting of roster spots across all collegiate sports. The proposed chopping of rosters would reduce Division I opportunities by at least 4,739.
While the settlement is not set to be finalized until April 7, 2025, the NCAA has made it clear it is not willing to pay the $2.8 billion in damages. This means leaders across college sports are working together to ensure the settlement is signed.
Per ESPN, it’s assumed football would move from a 121.4 roster limit to 105, basketball from 16 to 15 and baseball from 41.9 to 34, with roster cuts impacting other sports as well.
While the roster cuts mean a decrease in Division I players, the number of scholarships in the top division is set to increase because all collegiate athletics will now be able to give out, at least, partial scholarships to all of its athletes. For example, football teams will be allocated an extra 20 scholarships, jumping from 85 to 105 in 2025.
What this means, though, is that a lot of teams will have to make significant cuts to their rosters, inflating the transfer portal with players who have no team.
“This was the toughest year I’ve ever had in college athletics. We had to make some really challenging decisions that went against our family first environment, and who we preach we are, who we feel we are,” Penn State women’s soccer coach Erica Dambach said about the cuts she had to make in preparation for the rule changes. “And I was very disappointed for these families and for these young women that have done everything right to be a part of this program.”
However, these changes also mean the athletes that remain in Division I programs will receive more money.
Another part of the settlement agreement between the NCAA and the House is a revenue sharing model. It would allow Division I programs to give its athletes up to 22% of the average Power Five School annual athletic revenue.
Per the NCAA, the average revenue sharing power for both men’s and women’s Power Five soccer teams is $56,681. Under the current roster size of 31.2 for women’s soccer, athletes would receive approximately $1,817 per year. This would increase to $2,060 in 2025 when the roster is cut down to 28 athletes.b The slight increase in money may not seem like a big deal to some, but for sports with less revenue, or the conferences with less money, any percentage increase counts.
“You start to put $150, $250, $300 in somebody’s pocket over the course of the season. That’s real money, right?” Adam Cook, vice president of Campus Ink Sports and Northwestern professor, said. “And that’s going to change in a pretty material way, what their experience is, whether it be, ‘hey, it’s not that big of a deal,’ or to some others, ‘but I don’t live around here, and because of my NIL money, I was able to actually buy a flight home at Christmas.’”
While revenue sharing looks more likely than not, student-athletes have yet to be able to dip into the school’s money.
Per Sports Illustrated, the average NIL deal is worth $2,716. This statistic does not give the full picture, though, as football and basketball deals take up over 60% of all NIL deals and are disproportionately large. The median worth of an NIL deal is $62 per deal. However, well over half of all NIL deals are worth under $100.
This is the same case with the average student earnings per Sports Illustrated. The average listed was $21,331 while the median was a more realistic $480.
This means Penn State athletes and those around the country, had to find creative ways to make use of NIL. Campus Inks’ The NIL Store is one of those ways.
The store allows over 18,000 athletes and 90-plus schools to grow their brand and revenue through merchandise sales. Products range from jerseys to graphic tee shirts, with part of the money going to the athletes, part to the university and part to Campus Inks themselves.
Likewise, Happy Valley United has created another path for Penn State athletes to gain some financial aid, outside of scholarships.
HVU writes contracts with Penn State teams and individual athletes to make money through working with charities or local businesses. The money that HVU uses to pay the athletes mainly comes from its subscription-based memberships.
Fans can pay from $10 a month to $500, to gain access to exclusive merchandise, happy hours for select football home games, behind the scenes access to Penn State sports and a lot more. The money raised is put back into the school in the way the NIL deals with the programs and its athletes.
Despite these resources, many believe Penn State is far from reaching its NIL potential. After all, per the NCAA, Penn State placed 11th in NIL money raised for its football team with $13,793,489 in 2024.
Considering Penn State’s active alumni base of over 700,000 members — the largest in the country — 11th is not that high.
“I think there’s a next level, and I think we need a next level. Which means a lot more money to be raised,” Jen Ferrang, general manager of HVU, said. “Internally athletics has a plan to take it to the next level.”
So how do schools make more money for their programs?
Well one technique is reaching out to wealthy fans or alumni. For Oregon, this was Phil Knight who has a net worth of over $34 billion. Over the summer, on an ESPN CFB XM radio show, Rick Neuheisel reported that Knight was offering “unlimited NIL” for the Ducks.
Most recently, the No. 2 corner in the country, Na’eem Offord flipped from Big Ten foe Ohio State to Oregon. Offord claimed a large part of the decision was due to Knight offering him his own Nike shoe if he came to Eugene.
Michigan is another school utilizing its fans. Larry Ellison, the second richest man in the world worth over $200 billion, pledged money for a reported $10.5 million NIL deal to get five star quarterback Bryce Underwood.
Penn State has flaunted its alumni’s money in 2024 through donations to its $750 million renovation to Beaver Stadium. While the project won’t be done until 2027, donations for the football program could begin sooner than that, as other schools take advantage of this opportunity.
But is NIL really just about being able to recruit the best player in the country to try and compete for a national championship?
Simply put, no. NIL was meant for college athletes to get some of the money that the school was profiting from off them.
In 2023 alone, Penn State made a reported $202.2 million from its college athletics operating revenue, per its financial filing.
Prior to NIL, students who put hours of work in each week to raise this revenue, saw none of it. NIL gives them the opportunity to benefit from their performance outside of educational financial aid.
Another positive spin on the purpose of NIL is giving athletes the chance to develop professionally.
Cook argued in his article, “NIL and Professional Development,” that NIL gives student-athletes the opportunity to “learn by doing.” What better way to learn about branding, contracts, business and advertising than doing all of those things to yourself.
“The other thing for the athletes is we will coach them, teach them, give them assets, walk them through how best to build their brand in merchandise,” Cook shared.
After all, the NCAA lists the team environment and the vast experiences of collegiate sports as a perfect preparer “for the few who will compete professionally and for the majority who will go pro in something other than sports.”
Penn State also created a program to help athletes navigate NIL and use it as life lessons for the future. The program, STATEment, was set up in 2021 to aid students in understanding and growing their brand through education programs with an emphasis on entrepreneurship.
Even with programs like this, NIL is still far from where it should be in terms of equity. Changes and lawsuits should be expected for years to come as schools and the NCAA continue to search for an equilibrium of power over an ever-changing topic.
