© Sara Diggins/American-Statesman
Rules are meant to be broken. Well, they’re not really. But if a rule is put in place, you can bet your behind that somebody is working on a way to break it. That is especially true when it comes to college football, where players have already found a way to work around a proposed revenue sharing agreement that would cap athletic department spending at around $22 million per year.
Herein lies the problem. Nobody can legislate what others outside the athletic department spend on players via NIL deals.
Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports reports that a new company called Pathway Sports and Entertainment has already worked with several teams and athletes to secure group licensing deals regarding video game NIL agreements. The company has already signed up more than 450 players at Alabama, Illinois, Georgia, Texas Tech, Wisconsin and Oregon. It secured four-figure guarantees for those players in exchange for their NIL rights.
College Football Players Get Major Raise With New Group Licensing NIL Deal
Last year, EA Sports paid each college football player who opted in to be featured in College Football 25 $600 and a copy of the game. This year, each player who signed the new deal will receive $1,500 upfront in addition to royalties .The long-anticipated video game generated over $500 million in sales in the first week alone last year.
Alabama star wide receiver Ryan Williams told Dellenger that Pathway is “helping us get our fair share of royalties from a billion dollar business driven by a video game that is loved around the world.”
Of course, this isn’t the first time schools have worked to find a loophole in NIL laws. The agreed upon settlement states that “third-party NIL compensation to athletes outside of the revenue-sharing structure does not count toward the annual cap.” So nothing is stopping teams from spending above the $22 million cap.
The money just has to come from “outside sources.” And trust us, the biggest programs have plenty of “outside sources” to pull from.