USA Trends and Developments Contributed by: Enric Ripoll-González, Jorge Sanz and Marco Barbosa, Cases Lacambra
If courts or regulators eventually classify college ath - letes as employees, the implications would be extraor - dinary. Schools would face workers’ compensation obligations, minimum wage requirements, payroll taxes and potential collective bargaining. Title IX com - pliance would become exponentially more complex. The entire structure of college athletics, rooted in edu - cational mission and tax-exempt status, would need fundamental reconsideration. Whether that happens depends on litigation outcomes that remain years away from final resolution. Title IX in the revenue sharing era Title IX was designed to ensure equal opportunity in educational programmes, including athletics. For dec - ades, that meant schools had to provide equitable resources, facilities and scholarships to men’s and women’s teams. Revenue sharing complicates this significantly. The core dilemma is obvious: football and men’s basketball generate the vast majority of revenue at most schools, but Title IX requires equitable treat - ment across programmes. If schools allocate revenue- sharing payments based purely on revenue genera - tion, women’s sports will receive far less. If schools distribute payments more evenly to satisfy equity requirements, they will face pressure from football and basketball athletes who believe they are being shortchanged relative to their economic value. There is no easy answer. Schools are experimenting with different allocation models, but none have been tested in court or regulatory proceedings yet. Some focus on equal opportunity arguments, emphasis - ing that women athletes have equal access to NIL opportunities even if actual earnings differ. Others are building equity into their direct payment models by ensuring women’s programmes receive proportional resources. The Department of Education’s guidance on this issue has been inconsistent and politically contested, leaving schools to make difficult choices
model is breaking down under the combined weight of antitrust lawsuits, state law variation, political pres - sure and simple market forces. Power is shifting to conferences, particularly the major football conferences that generate the most revenue. These conferences are establishing their own NIL policies, transfer rules and revenue-sharing frame - works. What emerges increasingly looks like market segmentation: elite revenue-generating programmes operating under one set of rules, while smaller schools and non-revenue sports function under different con - straints. The fundamental question is whether centralised gov - ernance of college athletics is sustainable at all. If the biggest schools and conferences effectively write their own rules, what purpose does the NCAA serve? Could college sports fracture into separate competitive tiers with different regulatory regimes? And if federal leg - islation eventually imposes uniform standards, what would those standards be? The landscape is in flux, and nobody can predict with confidence what college Soccer in the United States has crossed a threshold. It is no longer a promising growth market or a curiosity supported by immigrant communities and suburban youth leagues. It has become a permanent fixture in the American sports landscape, backed by serious institutional investment and generating genuine com - mercial returns. The evidence is everywhere. Major League Soccer (MLS) franchises that sold for tens of millions a dec - ade ago now trade for hundreds of millions. Interna - tional stars are choosing MLS as a destination, not just as a retirement league. The upcoming 2026 Fed- eration Internationale de Football Association (FIFA; International Federation of Association Football) World Cup, co-hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada, represents global validation of America’s soccer infrastructure. Women’s professional soccer is drawing record attendance and media deals. This is not potential anymore; it has arrived. athletics will look like in 2030. Soccer’s American Moment From experiment to establishment
without clear regulatory direction. Where governance goes from here
The NCAA is losing control. For over a century, it functioned as the central authority governing college sports, setting rules and enforcing compliance. That
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