AROUND NIL | JULY 7, 2025
- Golf NIL
- Jul 8
- 2 min read
Updated: 14 hours ago
July 11, 2025—House attorneys say the NCAA and power conferences are violating the settlement by greenlighting new NIL rules that disqualify hundreds of existing athlete deals. A two-page letter calls out the College Sports Commission’s July 11 guidance for redefining what counts as a “valid business purpose”—blocking payments from collectives for signings, appearances, and promotion. Attorneys argue the rule rewrite isn’t just wrong. It’s damaging, and athletes are losing money right now.
NIL Go, the new oversight arm, says 70% of past collective-backed deals would fail under current standards. Some athletes still haven’t been paid. The attorneys want the NCAA to walk it back or face a return to court. “This process is undermined,” Jeffrey Kessler wrote, accusing the CSC of overreach. The broader hit: collectives are sidelined, athletes are left hanging, and a system designed to empower them is suddenly pulling back.
July 13, 2025—College sports' regulatory scramble just delivered its next major milestone. The Student Compensation and Opportunity through Rights and Endorsements (SCORE) Act hit the U.S. House on July 10, 2025, bringing a national framework that's been years in the making.
The bipartisan bill cuts straight to the chase: federal NIL standards requiring "valid business purposes," $20.5 million in annual revenue sharing, and an end to scholarship threats over injury or performance. Schools get three-year healthcare mandates for former athletes, 16-sport minimums, and agent fees capped at 5%. The kicker? Big Ten and SEC schools earning over $50 million in media rights lose their student fee safety net.
But the politics tell a different story. Despite bipartisan sponsors—Republicans plus Democrats Janelle Bynum (OR) and Shomari Figures (AL)—the bill faces heavy Democratic pushback. Critics hammer the revenue formula as a gift to wealthy programs at the expense of smaller schools. The House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee has scheduled a July 15 markup, although key lawmakers are calling for a timeout, demanding fixes before moving forward.
