Weekly Column: What House Actually Built is just the Beginning

In this week’s column, California Sports Lawyer® CEO, Founder, and Managing Attorney Jeremy M. Evans writes about the effect of NIL on student-athletes, colleges sports itself, and in other industries like music and artificial intelligence.

The use has become the trigger for licensing, not the talent or position.

You can read the full column below. (Past columns can be found, here).

The House v. NCAA settlement ushered in revenue sharing between colleges and student-athletes. The settlement also prevented litigation in the interim, with the possibility for renegotiation down the road. However, the settlement is also just the beginning for name, image, and likeness (NIL) in sports and entertainment, and potential litigation.

As a recap, the House settlement that went into effect on July 1, 2025, and provided the following for student-athletes. First, direct revenue sharing with a forward cap ($20.5M per school, and rising every year with a period for renegotiation). Second, no scholarship limits, but roster limits that prevent stacking players and creating minor league systems that also creates new compliance and potential labor tensions now and in the future. Third, a new enforcement layer created and referred to as the College Sports Commission (CSC) that has oversight, arbitration, and NIL “fair market value” review through a Deloitte-based clearinghouse. Lastly, the creation and distribution of a settlement backpay fund ($2.6–$2.8B over a decade) for past NCAA restrictions that prevented student-athletes from making money from their NIL. The House settlement institutionalized NIL payments with audits, caps on revenue sharing, and dispute resolution procedures.

There is some early resistance by colleges like Texas Tech University of the Big 12 Conference to sign the House settlement participation/enforcement agreement. The resistance demonstrates a deeper concern with the NIL system that is being voiced by coaches, fans, and student-athletes. Coaches are already being pushed to act as front office personnel in recruiting and spending dollars. The transfer portal decreases the need for freshman recruits and without a salary cap college sports have all the benefits of revenue without the regulation of professional sports. Schools hesitating to sign is telling of what will be fought over, re-interpreted, and re-litigated at it relates to antitrust laws, salary caps, the haves and have-nots, Title IX distribution, and state-law versus federal-law frameworks. In other words, if the agreement and implications were simple, no school would be hesitant about signing.

The framework for NIL payments also goes well beyond college sports. With the increase in artificial intelligence usage in music, NIL dealmaking, influence, and compliance expounds on the theory and implementation that obtaining permission and receiving compensation are becoming default public norms for identity use, whether it is a quarterback’s highlights or a singer’s voice model. Artificial intelligence makes formally expert tools and skills accessible. This meals that AI expands the “surface area” of NIL: synthetic songs, synthetic athlete performances, cloned voices, and deepfake ads. The use has become the trigger for licensing, not the talent or position.

Practically, this means that NIL contracts in sports will likely evolve toward entertainment licensing terms. For example, long-tail royalties, usage tracking, and specific AI permissions through blockchain compliance and other technical compliance measures. Entertainment and players unions and labels will push for House-style governance (clearinghouses, audits, penalties) for AI likeness use. Buyers of teams, catalogs, and talent will price deals around clean identity rights the way studios price chain-of-title. In conclusion, House built a system for paying people when the market uses who they are. The rest of entertainment and media are next.

About Jeremy M. Evans:

Jeremy M. Evans is the Chief Entrepreneur Officer, Founder & Managing Attorney at California Sports Lawyer®, representing entertainment, media, and sports clients in contractual, intellectual property, and dealmaking matters. Evans is an award-winning attorney and industry leader based in Los Angeles and Newport Beach, California. He can be reached at Jeremy@CSLlegal.com. www.CSLlegal.com.