Abstract
On July 1, 2021, college athletics forever changed when the NCAA allowed college athletes to receive financial compensation for the use of their Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) in endorsements and other marketing engagements. While NIL has empowered college athletes and enabled them to profit from their athletic abilities, it has also thrown the college sports industry into chaos. The House v. NCAA settlement agreement, which was officially approved on June 6, 2025, was expected to establish better guardrails for universities. However, the agreement’s approval may only increase universities’ exposure under Title IX. Part of the House settlement agreement enables college athletic departments to directly allocate funds to individual college athletes. Because colleges have discretion to choose which athletes to pay, the distributions could come into direct conflict with Title IX, the federal law that prohibits education programs that receive federal funding from discriminating on the basis of sex. The problem is that no one knows how Title IX applies to these payments. Since the approval of the House settlement, both the Biden Administration and second Trump Administration attempted to provide relevant guidance; female student-athletes appealed the House v. NCAA settlement to the Ninth Circuit; and now a separate NIL/Title IX federal lawsuit is currently pending against the University of Oregon: Schroeder v. University of Oregon. Even so, as of the writing of this Article, colleges have largely been forced to operate in the dark when designing their revenue-sharing frameworks. However, until the courts issue opinions on the matter or the U.S. Department of Education publishes clear and official guidance, colleges should proceed with caution when directly distributing NIL payments to their college athletes.
Recommended Citation
Benjamin Moyer,
Complying with Title IX in the NIL Era,
130
Dick. L. Rev.
925
(2025).
Available at:
https://insight.dickinsonlaw.psu.edu/dlr/vol130/iss3/5