By: Billy Banfield
Published: November 14, 2025
The name, image, and likeness (NIL) era of collegiate athletics has turned the college sports world upside down—but who is actually profiting? The Supreme Court’s ruling in National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Alston established the legal framework that allows college athletes to profit from their popularity through endorsement deals.[1] Since this landmark decision in 2021, the floodgates have opened: statistics from the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) show that the average Division I (DI) college athlete made over $20,000 in total earnings during the 2024-2025 school year.[2] However, a closer look at these statistics reveals that over 60% of NIL deals go to football, men’s basketball, and baseball players.[3] Thus, female collegiate athletes are earning exponentially less money on average from NIL deals than their male counterparts.[4]
The stark disparity in NIL compensation between male and female athletes may implicate Title IX, the civil rights law prohibiting sex discrimination in federally funded education programs.[5] While Title IX precedent has recognized equal opportunity in collegiate sport participation,[6] the fifty-year-old law fails to contemplate how principles of gender equity apply to collegiate athlete compensation. Title IX applies only to those academic institutions that receive federal funding; thus, the prohibitions on sex discrimination do not apply to third party advertisers who enter into contracts with athletes.[7] Under the Alston third-party contract framework, it is unlikely that a successful Title IX claim could be brought against an academic institution for compensatory discrimination. However, a recent $2.8 billion settlement agreement reached between the NCAA and disgruntled former athletes has opened the door for colleges and universities directly compensating their student-athletes.[8]
The NCAA and the Power Five conferences[9] jointly settled three antitrust lawsuits, known as the House settlement, with terms permitting academic institutions to share athletic revenues directly with athletes.[10] The House settlement was agreed to after the defendants estimated tens of billions of dollars in damages if the cases went to trial.[11] These new developments put Title IX on center stage, as the “revenue sharing” model will likely lead to federally funded schools allocating shares of profits to the highest revenue-generating sports—which historically has been male dominated sports.
This revenue sharing model is different than the traditional compensation methods employed by the NCAA. Many college athletes have long been receiving “compensation” in the form of full ride or partial scholarships as consideration for their contributions to the athletic programs, but the House revenue sharing model changes the landscape. College athletes have tried to claim that they are entitled to compensation under employment law theories, but courts and colleges have refused to classify student-athletes as employees.[12] Thus, the House settlement is a monumental decision for college athletes who claim that they are entitled to compensation from their schools and may force the NCAA to treat student-athletes as employees.
In anticipation of this pay structure, Catherine Lhamon, the Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights,[13] publicly stated that schools must provide equal athletic opportunities based on sex with respect to benefits, opportunities, publicity, and recruitment.[14] While questions linger with regard to equitable distribution of funds across men and women’s sports, Assistant Secretary Lhamon affirmed that, “[i]n the new NIL environment, these same [Title IX] principles will apply.”[15] However, because the House settlement was just recently approved in June of 2025, the application of Title IX to the revenue sharing system has yet to be effectuated.[16] Therefore, Assistant Secretary Lhamon’s assertions that Title IX principles will be upheld under the revenue sharing model may be a lofty—and unrealistic—goal.
Without any guidance on how the revenue sharing model should comply with the financial elements of Title IX, student-athletes participating in high revenue generating sports will likely receive a larger share of the university’s compensation package.[17] As a result, male and female athletes will earn disparate salaries from universities on account of residual discrimination from decades of women being banned from participating in NCAA competition.[18] As of 2024, schools that provided NIL data shared that men out-earned women $92 million to $19 million.[19] This earnings discrepancy will require resolution by courts and legislative bodies, but until then, all monetary distribution strategies developed under this model will remain hypothetical.
The post-Alston NIL era has not only shifted the ways that college athletes can profit from their athletic talents but has also opened the door for egregious systemic sex discrimination. While the effect of the House settlement has yet to play out in this new era of college athlete compensation, the liability risk of equal pay and sex discrimination lawsuits against colleges and universities sits at an all-time high.[20]
[1] National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Alston, 594 U.S. 69, 108 (2021) (Kavanaugh, J., concurring); see Knight Comm’n on Intercollegiate Athletics, Brief on House v. NCAA Settlement 7 (Feb. 12, 2025) https://www.knightcommission.org/wp-content/uploads/KnightCommissionBrief_HousevNCAA_182025.pdf (providing a summary of the settlement agreement reached in House v. NCAA which allows college athletes to share in the profits generated by their athletic teams).
[2] NCAA, NIL Dashboard, https://nilassist.ncaa.org/data-dashboard/ (last visited Aug. 15, 2025).
[3] See id. (showing that football receives 40.7% of deals, men’s basketball receives 12.7%, and baseball receives 9.1%); see also NCAA, Estimated NCAA Revenue Sharing 2025-26, https://nil-ncaa.com/ (estimating that players on power five football teams will be entitled to share in over $15 million of profits).
[4] See NCAA, supra note 2 (noting that, although the average total athlete earnings are over $20,000, the median total athlete earnings are $713).
[5] 20 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq. (“No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex…be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any…activity receiving Federal financial assistance…”).
[6] See Cohen v. Brown University, 101 F.3d 155, 181 (1st Cir. 1996) (holding that Brown University violated Title IX by demoting women’s gymnastics and volleyball teams from university-funded varsity status).
[7] Erin Buzuvis, Title IX and Athlete Compensation in the Postamateurism Era, 93 Fordham L. Rev. 1579, 1586 (2025) (describing typical NIL deals as agreements between athletes and third parties as opposed to “school-facilitated” deals contemplated by the House settlement).
[8] John T. Holden et al., (Still) Anticompetitive College Sports, 66 B.C. L. Rev. 1627, 1655 (2025).
[9] The five major Division I athletic conferences: Southeastern Conference (“SEC”), Big Ten, Big 12, Atlantic Coast Conference (“ACC”), and Pacific (“PAC-12”).
[10] See Holden, supra note 8 (stating that the revenue sharing system is capped at $21 million per year per school, subject to increases as revenues increase).
[11] Knight Comm’n on Intercollegiate Athletics, supra note 1, at 3.
[12] See Jordan Zaia, The History and Future of Amateurism in College Sports, 35 Fordham Intell. Prop. Media & Ent. L. J. 503, 537 (2025) (explaining how the Dartmouth College men’s basketball team unionized and attempted to claim employment status with the National Labor Relations Board).
[13] Paula Levigne & Dan Murphy, Title IX Will Apply to College Athlete Revenue Share, Feds Say, ESPN (July 16, 2024), https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/40567726/title-ix-college-athlete-revenue-share-nil.
[14] Id.
[15] Id.
[16] See Nicole A. Buffalano, Dana S. Gross, Noah J. Kaufman & Ali M. Kliment, From Settlement to Scrutiny: Employment, NIL, and Title IX in College Sports, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, LLP (Aug. 26, 2025) https://www.morganlewis.com/pubs/2025/08/from-settlement-to-scrutiny-employment-nil-and-title-ix-in-college-sports (noting that there is ongoing litigation over the terms of the House settlement and the potential Title IX implications).
[17] Knight Comm’n on Intercollegiate Athletics, supra note 1, at 7 (noting that, under the House settlement, a university is not prohibited from providing all of its new payments to just one athlete).
[18] See NCAA, Celebrating Women’s History (Mar. 27, 2023) https://www.ncaa.org/sports/2023/3/27/celebrating-womens-history.aspx (noting that the NCAA did not include women’s athletics until 1981).
[19] Albert Samaha & Emily Giambalvo, As Women’s Hoops Booms, NIL Boosters Favor Men, Records Show, Wash. Post (Oct. 21, 2024) https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2024/10/21/college-basketball-basketball-nil-men-women/.
[20] See Nicole A. Buffalano, supra note 16 (describing the potential Title IX implications of the House settlement and associated litigation).