USA – NEW YORK Trends and Developments Contributed by: Mitchell Schuster and Richard T. Lobas, Meister Seelig & Schuster
NIL compensation opportunities during the college recruitment process – ie, before deciding whether to enrol or transfer to a university. There, plaintiffs alleged that the NCAA’s “NIL recruiting ban” unreasonably restrained competition, in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act, for student athletes among schools and suppressed NIL compensation opportunities for prospective Division I college athletes and current stu - dent athletes in the transfer portal. As part of the set - tlement, the NCAA was permanently restrained from, among other things, enforcing its by-laws constituting the NIL recruiting ban. Another development in this sphere came later in 2025 through the resolution of the college athlete NIL litigation case in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. There, the NCAA agreed to a USD2.78 billion settlement that would compensate athletes denied the opportunity to earn NIL revenue in the past but also establish a revenue sharing system to compensate those athletes for the ensuing ten years. Judge Claudia Wilken granted final approval of the class-action settlement agreement on 6 June 2025.
The NIL recruiting ban settlement and NIL revenue litigation settlement demonstrate a shift in the college athlete compensation paradigm, including through the lens of the NCAA. One side effect of this paradigm shift could be that student-athletes may become less susceptible to the influence of “fixers” trying to recruit them into betting schemes, like the one alleged in the sweeping indictment pending in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. All of these recent trends and developments in New York Sports Law focus on and grapple with protect - ing the integrity of the game while allowing space for gambling, which has clearly become an integral part of the fan experience. Consumer demand for that experience, along with technological developments, will continue to foster innovation from all parties on all sides of these issues. New York courtrooms are sure to remain a fixture of that innovation moving forward.
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