House case and Capitol Hill
All legal and regulatory eyes will be focused on Judge Wilken’s courtroom next Monday, April 7, 2025, where the hearing on Final Approval of the House case is set to begin at 10AM PT/1PM ET.
While the hearing is scheduled to occur on Monday, there’s of course no scheduled time for the Court’s decision. No matter—the Defendant Conferences announced that later next week, on April 9, 2025, numerous administrators and student-athletes will be in DC for College Sports Day on the Hill.
According to the event’s announcement, participants “will make the case for legislation creating a national standard for name, image and likeness (NIL) in their discussions with elected officials.” Presumably, the requested federal regulation would support the House settlement’s framework for third-party NIL regulation.
Persistent NIL questions and what to do about them
Even an approved House settlement would leave various areas impacting the regulation of college athletics unsettled, including third-party NIL. For example, state laws currently on the books would arguably conflict with aspects of third-party NIL enforcement previewed by the House Settlement Implementation Committee.
Interestingly, the folks at Athletes.org seem to agree with the group headed to Capitol Hill, at least with regard to NIL regulation posing persistent issues. Athletes.org defines itself as a voluntary membership organization including more than 4,000 current and former college athletes whose purpose is to support, educate and advocate for college and high school athletes on issues such as financial literacy, mental wellness and NIL activities. The organization recently made a submission in the House case, identifying what it argues are several key but unresolved issues, assuming settlement approval, including would-be conflicts between the terms of the settlement and state NIL laws.
As we’ve noted in the past, the House settlement—if approved—provides wide discretion for compliant and impactful third-party NIL. Institutions and student-athletes alike can avoid the headache of a clearinghouse and potential challenges by facilitating third-party deals with non-Associated Entities/Individuals. It would be better to focus attention now on developing such compliant and competitive advantage-providing deals than to later debate any qualms with the new system.
[View source.]
