The idea that American college athletes can be paid is still an adjustment, even for Americans. So, for fans in the United Kingdom, it may be even more difficult to wrap their heads around it.
With the Union Jack Classic starting this upcoming season—the Arizona State Sun Devils and Kansas Jayhawks American football teams will meet on Sept. 19 at Wembley Stadium—it may serve as a helpful crash course to explain NIL, what it stands for, what it is, and its influence on American college sports.
“Name, image, and likeness” is what the acronym of NIL means. The long and short of it is that American college athletes can now profit off their “name, image, and likeness.” Prior to the court case House v. NCAA, American college athletes were forbidden from things like sponsorships or brand deals, but now, these athletes are more than welcome to chase additional streams of revenue using their status as collegiate athletes. There is serious money to be earned here. On3’s NIL valuation rankings, lists four players with valuations over $4 million.
Plenty of people bemoaned at the time that these changes would negatively affect college athletics, as it would effectively professionalize college sports. But the side in favor of NIL pointed to the amount of money colleges used to make on the backs of the athletes without them seeing a dime.
Particularly in American college football and men’s college basketball, colleges have been cashing in on massive television deals and bringing in millions of dollars. Once the size of the contracts and revenues—several made more than a billion dollars this past year—generated by the conferences continued to grow, it was harder to deny athletes a share of the profits.
NIL extends beyond just simple advertisements and sponsorships though. The settlement of the House case in 2025 resulted in colleges now being able to compensate players without a middleman. The money is coming directly from the institutions themselves. Schools are allowed to spend $20.5 million on athletes across their various teams.
This figure seems both very large and incredibly small. Compared to the NIL from just a few years ago, tens of millions of dollars being available is a massive jump. But considering that the Michigan men’s basketball team spent a reported $10 million on their championship winning roster, the numbers aren’t exactly adding up.
Yes, the colleges themselves are capped at that $20.5 million figure, but NIL collectives are allowed to surpass that amount. Collectives are typically supported by alumni—with very deep pockets and lots of money to spend—and collect funds to give to athletes at a given school. Bigger schools have more and bigger collectives. That’s why schools like Ohio State have football teams with an estimated value north of $40 million.
There is an unspoken issue here. What is stopping the most cash-strapped schools from simply outbidding others for the most talented player? The answer is both a lot and nothing.
There were rules and regulation coming out of 2025 settlement meant to stop what is referred to as “Pay-for-play.” Which is exactly what it sounds like—paying an athlete to attend a school and play for the sports team. The settlement also created the College Sports Commission, meant to be a regulatory body for these NIL and compensation related cases.
The College Sports Commission states that compensation must be for a “valid business purpose” (not giving an athlete money for the sake of giving an athlete money) and must be paid at “fair market value” (an athlete cannot receive several million dollars for showing up at a single event).
These are meant to be guardrails, but really, they’ve had little effect. The $20.5 million cap is hardly much of a cap at all. If anything, it’s a starting point from which the collectives and boosters go from.
If a team has a dedicated—and rich enough—fanbase, they can afford to build rosters that more than double the original cap.
The original concerns with NIL were about the players, but now, they have shifted more towards the teams and programs. Money and talent continued to concentrate at the highest level of play. Many point to the lack of upsets in March Madness as cause for concern. They worry that it is too easy for bigger programs to lure talented players away from smaller programs.
To some degree, this fear is real. NIL and the transfer portal have allowed players to hop from team to team in search of more playing time, more money, or for any combination of reasons.
It’s difficult to speculate what may happen with NIL and the transfer portal in the coming years because it’s very fluid. Rule changes are bound to happen as fixing these issues is a key priority for those involved in the sport.
In many ways, college sports are still lawless, and the teams and players are doing their best to capitalize.
