Representing College Athletes in the Private-Capital Era: NIL Deals and Revenue-Share Contracts

This session examines the legal landscape an attorney must understand to effectively represent college athletes in NIL negotiations against sophisticated counterparties—PE-backed collectives, public, private, and now commercial university entities, and multimedia rights companies—under the post-House v. NCAA settlement framework. Attendees will learn how to structure contracts that survive Deloitte’s FMV review, identify and neutralize red-flag provisions including overbroad exclusivity, transfer clawbacks, perpetual IP rights, and exploitative agent fee structures, and advise clients on risks arising from an ever-changing regulatory landscape, two Executive Orders, and pending federal legislation. Attorneys will leave with a practical framework for drafting, negotiating, and auditing NIL agreements on behalf of individual athlete clients.

This session addresses key compliance elements related to athlete revenue-share and NIL agreements in the post House v. NCAA settlement era. The settlement permits participating Division I institutions to compensate student-athletes directly, beginning with an approximately $20.5 million institutional cap for the 2025–26 academic year, with the cap increasing over the settlement term. Attendees will learn to identify the key drafting and counseling risks in this emerging market: cap allocation and adjustment, NIL rights grants and activation obligations, interaction with third-party NIL and associated-entity deals, Title IX uncertainty, employment-status and wage-and-hour exposure, tax characterization and reporting, transfer-related restrictions, termination rights, liquidated damages and buyout enforceability, state-law variation, and payment-source risk where schools or conferences use private-capital or commercial-rights structures to fund athletics operations. By the end of the session, attendees will be able to evaluate a revenue-share agreement against the House settlement framework and the CSC compliance regime, spot provisions that may create Title IX, antitrust, employment, tax, state-law, transfer, or enforceability risk, and draft contractual protections that preserve institutional and athlete flexibility while the regulatory framework continues to evolve.
Additionally, this session addresses the college athletics’ potential transition from a donor-based model to an investment model which has been fueled by private capital offerings and the possibility of major college football and basketball transitioning to a private-owned collective bargaining model. The session will address those transition possibilities, including public=private partnership, booster-led private ownership, PE-backed spin-offs, conference credit facilities, and equity proposals— which are reshaping the industry.