A Bright-Line Moment for College Football

OPENING STATEMENTS

Demond Williams Jr. announced on Thursday night that he’s staying at the University of Washington. And in one sense, that’s the least important part of this entire week.​

Because what just happened in Seattle was a live-fire stress test of the post-House, college sports economy, in which seven-figure agreements are signed and the entire sport waits to see whether anyone is actually willing to enforce the paper.​

Williams’ decision to return may have averted historic litigation. But it also exposed, in bright light, the same foundational problems that seem to get louder by the month: the sport is moving fast toward professional money and professional control, without professional governance - without athlete-centered protections to match the stakes.​

Here’s what this episode revealed, and what needs to be addressed because this wasn’t the first situation of this variety (read: Xavier Lucas) and won’t be the last.

1) Contracts are becoming the sport’s new enforcement mechanism

This situation wasn’t about transferring, but whether a college athlete - in this case, one who reportedly signed a mid-$4 million contract to return - could treat that agreement as optional once the portal opened.​

The reaction from Washington and the Big Ten was instructive. When institutions frame “contract enforcement” as the backbone of stability, they are saying out loud what college sports has tried to avoid admitting: these are no longer informal NIL arrangements but retention instruments.​

That matters because when schools begin to enforce contracts like pros, they will inevitably invite the questions that pros have already answered through collective bargaining: What’s the grievance process? Who arbitrates? What protections exist for the athlete?​

2) The portal is starting to look like leverage, not a right

One of the most consequential reported terms in Williams’ agreement with Washington is that the school was not obligated to enter the athlete into the transfer portal or otherwise facilitate a transfer. That flips the portal from a neutral administrative system into a pressure point, something a school can use to force compliance, delay movement, or raise the cost of leaving.​

If that becomes common language, athletes will not just be negotiating dollars. They’ll be negotiating mobility itself. And the sport will find out quickly whether the courts are comfortable with that shift.​

3) “Not employment” disclaimers won’t end the employment debate

Those in college sports keep insisting these agreements are not employment - just NIL licensing, just revenue-sharing, just a new version of the old model. But courts tend to care less about labels and more about substance.​

If the practical reality is: “we pay you because you play, and if you leave, we sue,” then the athlete-employment argument doesn’t get weaker; it gets sharper. And cases like Johnson v. NCAA don’t need a better storyline than that to illustrate control, compensation, and economic dependence.​

4) Conference template deals raise antitrust heat

Reporting has described conference involvement in formulating these revenue-sharing agreements, including Big Ten template language. That creates a real legal tension: conferences are collections of competitors, and collective standard-setting around athlete movement and compensation can look, in the wrong courtroom, like coordinated restraint.​ Even if the intentions are “order” and “stability,” antitrust law doesn’t care about nostalgia. It cares about market effects.​

5) Representation breakdown is part of the story, not a sidebar

Williams’ agent publicly dropped him amid the dispute. That sequence is a warning label for the entire ecosystem: when millions are on the table, a player’s support system can change overnight, and legal guidance becomes the difference between leverage and liability.​

The real takeaway

Williams staying may feel like a return to normal. But it’s the opposite.​

What happened this week made one thing unavoidable: college sports is now debating who gets to write the terms of professionalism. And until there is a real governing structure – one that includes athlete voice, enforceable standards, and a fair dispute process – the next “near-lawsuit” won’t end with an Instagram reversal.​

EXHIBIT A

Over the holidays, I kept getting the same question: how are schools still spending “over the cap” in the new revenue-sharing era? Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger’s reporting on LSU’s pursuit of transfer QB Brendan Sorsby is a great explainer of how these packages get built — including large third-party NIL components tied to the school ecosystem.​ The new CSC guidance this week adds even more complexity: schools can now offset their revenue-sharing payments with third-party NIL dollars they help secure, but those offsets do not reduce the school’s cap hit; and athletes can be paid NIL money to promote events in which they participate. That combination makes it easier to structure multi-stream deals that look “over the cap” to the public while still technically fitting within the system’s accounting rules, even as it blurs the line between school-driven and “independent” NIL activity. What to watch now is enforcement, not the workaround. Deals will get denied. Players won’t receive “agreed-upon” money. Litigation will follow – perhaps someone even challenging the system itself. Remember: last year, plenty of schools effectively went “over the cap” by frontloading NIL before NIL Go existed.

EXHIBIT B

Earlier this week, the NCAA emailed member schools to tamp down speculation about a blanket eligibility fix, stating there is “no plan” for the Division I Board to issue a broader waiver even if the court grants relief to the five named plaintiffs in the Patterson case. In the wake of Diego Pavia’s eligibility extension, there’s become too much of an expectation that the NCAA will “just grant everyone a 5th year.” I hear it all the time. What I tell my clients is this: if you believe you have grounds for extended eligibility, don’t wait on a hypothetical policy shift. Consult a lawyer. Ask your school’s compliance office to file a waiver request now. Be prepared to litigate, if needed. Don’t wait on someone or something else to manifest.

ON THE DOCKET

I’m watching how the WNBA CBA negotiations play out, as I’m sure many outgoing women’s college basketball stars like Sarah Strong, Lauren Betts, and Azzi Fudd are as well. As athletes now enter the professional ranks with a sharpened legal lens shaped by NIL rights and campus equity battles, they will expect the same, if not greater, economic protections, autonomy, and voice than they experienced in college sports. If CBA talks falter, some top players may seriously consider more favorable alternatives, such as the Unrivaled league’s player-equity ownership model and flexible overseas-play provisions, which offer an antitrust-resilient path with more immediate financial upside than prolonged negotiations.

FOOTNOTES

"Everything in college athletics is chaos right now. There’s no clear vision... We don’t have it right... We’ve lost the mission."

- Outgoing Peach Bowl CEO Gary Stokan in an insightful, wide-ranging interview with FOS.