Long Beach State Sports : Re: NIL$ and Revenue Sharing $ are not quite the same thing

Congress did not pass a law. Revenue sharing was part of a settlement agreement in class action lawsuits brought by former and current NCAA athletes against the NCAA.

Previous lawsuits had already resulted in ncaa athletes being allowed to earn money for the use of their Name, Image and Likeness (NIL). Ed O'Bannon was among the first athletes who took legal action against the NCAA on this issue.

Revenue sharing is a subset of NIL. It is a mechanism that allows the school to provide money to the athletes enrolled at the school with direct payments. Revenue sharing caps the total payments an institution can make.

Every athlete still has the unrestricted right to enter into a contractual arrangement with any private company or individual for the use of their name, image or likeness. Their school has no say whatsoever, although there is a process for disclosure and approval for any such contract.

Previous Message

Last summer congress passed a bill to allow schools to pay their athletes up to 20.5 million dollars from their revenue fund allotment. Most P4 schools will spend a lot of this revenue fund on their football roster. NIL is a different category. I was told recently that the LB Anchor fund, our revenue fund, was between 200k to 300k. I don't know of NIL money coming into LB. The university oversees the revenue fund.
Here is a link to what schools spent from the 2 categories to fund their programs.
https://nil-ncaa.com/

Here is a link to a good summary of the dual funding of fund money and NIL.
https://studbud.org/ncaa-revenue-sharing-nil-the-complete-2025-guide-for-college-athletes-schools-and-recruiters/