Summary

• College booster collectives represent over 80% ($1.4 billion) of the estimated $1.7 billion college NIL market in 2024-25
• The College Sports Commission is attempting to restrict booster collective deals by requiring them to serve a "valid business purpose"
• Lawyers from the $2.6 billion House v. NCAA settlement argue that collective deals can be legitimate
• Collectives have helped fund athletes in lower-profile sports that generate little revenue
• Some collectives are adapting to new rules while others are waiting for further clarification
• Critics argue the new restrictions limit athlete earning potential outside the $20.5 million revenue sharing per school

Article

College football is still weeks away, but the sport is already gripped by a bruising confrontation that could have huge repercussions for the season ahead.

This one doesn't involve quarterbacks or head coaches, but another character who has been central to college sports for more than a century.

We're talking about boosters, as in the deep-pocketed alumni who for years have bankrolled sparkling facility upgrades and hefty coach salaries.

When the NCAA started letting athletes capitalize on their name, image or likeness (NIL) in 2021, these boosters formed collectives that would raise funds from fans -- in amounts from $25 to $1 million -- and steer the money to athletes in exchange for promotional or charity work.

Now, a fight is raging over whether booster collectives can still do that. At stake is a massive amount of money -- collectives made up more than 80% of the estimated $1.7 billion college NIL market in 2024-25, according to Opendorse, an athlete marketplace. Meaning that nearly $1.4 billion in compensation could vanish overnight if the new rules hold up.

That is, if the boosters agree to play ball.

"One thing I know about people who are wealthy is that they're going to do what they want," said Brad Heinrichs, who played varsity golf at Iowa and now runs the Swarm Collective that supports Hawkeye sports.

"Telling a wealthy person who owns a business that they can't pay a student-athlete $25,000 for advertising because some other third party tells him that he's overpaying and the student-athlete is only worth $10,000, you know, that just doesn't feel appropriate to me,."

At odds are college sports' new policing arm on one side and lawyers representing athletes in a recently settled antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA on the other.

The new College Sports Commission, launched by the major conferences to manage player-pay rules, has set out to curb the power and influence of booster collectives. The Commission set up a clearinghouse through which any player deal worth $600 or more must pass to be approved.

Many booster-collective deals don't satisfy a "valid business purpose" because they don't license a player's NIL for a commercial product or service, the Commission contends. So most collective deals will be nixed, the Commission warned in a recent memo to schools.