— Insights · NIL

NIL Is Having Its Craziest Summer Yet. Here's What's Actually Happening.

Congress, the courts, the NCAA, the SEC, and the Big Ten are all fighting over the same thing at the same time. A guide to the signal underneath the noise.

Insights

The Senate Is About to Vote on College Sports

The Protect College Sports Act — co-sponsored by Senators Cruz and Cantwell, along with Senators Schmitt and Coons, about as bipartisan as college sports gets — cleared the Senate Commerce Committee 19-9 and is now heading to a full Senate floor vote, expected this month. If it passes, it's the first national NIL law in history.

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The SEC and Big Ten Are Fighting the Bill — Together

The two richest, most powerful conferences in America released a joint statement opposing the Act after their proposed revisions were rejected. Alabama and Auburn — two programs that have not agreed on much in a century — put out a rare joint letter of their own.

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The NCAA Is Watching the Spending Arms Race Get Out of Hand

This one surprised me. The most-discussed NIL dynamic of the last 30 days is the growing recognition inside the NCAA that the current spending trajectory is unsustainable — and that the $20.5M revenue-sharing cap from the House settlement is already being treated as a floor rather than a ceiling.

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The Cap Is Already in Court

Meanwhile, the $20.5M revenue-sharing cap from the House settlement — the number that's supposed to define what schools can pay players directly — is being challenged in federal court. A new antitrust suit, Ili & Mirer v. NCAA, filed June 9 in the Northern District of California, argues the cap violates NIL laws in 17 states, including California, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee.

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The Downstream Effects Are Everywhere

NCAA president Charlie Baker floated a regional model for non-football sports to cut travel costs in the revenue-sharing era. On Face the Nation, he described the mounting pressure schools feel to rationalize travel schedules for sports that play 30, 40, or 50 games a season — against opponents now spread coast to coast after years of conference realignment. It got 350 upvotes on r/CFB and a mix of "this actually makes sense" and "this will kill mid-majors." He's not wrong that flying a women's swim team from Arizona to Maine four times a year gets harder to justify when you're simultaneously…