USF’s NIL collective shuts down as universities move to direct pay for athletes<\/a><\/p>\nUniversity of Florida men\u2019s basketball coach Todd Golden told the panel non-revenue sports need to be a key part of any NIL conversation. Golden also agreed with Higgins regarding agents.<\/p>\n
Golden said some people have changed careers from \u201cbarbers or trainers into NIL representation in the span of two or three months because they see the opportunity to make a 10 to 15 percent fee off students that honestly don’t really need the services all that much.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Golden also cautioned some Florida-only rules on agents could hinder recruitment in the state if agents see a bigger payday from a non-Florida school.<\/p>\n
University of Florida Deputy Athletic Director Amy Hass said more talk is needed with student-athletes, administrators and coaches as \u201ca lot of people are spending their time being emotionally in their feelings about it and wishing it were what it used to be 10 years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
The state task force is intended to build on a March 6 meeting held by President Donald Trump on college sports that included Gov. Ron DeSantis among the panelists.<\/p>\n
Trump signed an executive order on April 3 that calls for the NCAA to set a five-year participation limit for individuals, cap student-athlete transfers to one in a five-year period and a second one for those who earn a four-year degree, and to create a national registry for agents to monitor NIL activity.<\/p>\n
The NCAA is also urged to update rules to protect women\u2019s and Olympic sports through \u201csustainable\u201d revenue sharing. The federal government would withhold funding from universities that don\u2019t comply with Trump\u2019s order.<\/p>\n
U.S. Sen. Ashley Moody, R-Tampa, last week announced plans to file a bill backing Trump\u2019s proposals.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe cannot sit back while college sports become unregulated professional free agency in a university jersey,\u201d Moody stated. \u201cSeventeen-year-olds are being asked to compete against 25-year-olds, and players are hopping from school to school each year, chasing money instead of excellence.\u201d<\/p>\n
The NCAA is expected to address the age eligibility issue this summer.<\/p>\n
Several speakers Thursday said some student-athletes want to stay in school as long as possible because NIL deals bring more money than they could make as professional athletes.<\/p>\n
Jones said regulations will come from different levels: the schools, the state Board of Governors, legislators, Congress and the courts.<\/p>\n
The courts may have the biggest impact, he said, adding that immediate assistance from Congress won\u2019t likely be forthcoming.<\/p>\n
\u201cCollege athletics, while incredibly important to the economy and to student life in this country, is probably not going to rise to the top of the list of things for the (U.S.) House or the Senate to consider in our lifetime,\u201d Jones said.<\/p>\n
State University System Chancellor Ray Rodrigues said another path forward could be interstate compacts as Florida schools are in conferences that cover multiple states.<\/p>\n
Florida State University Board of Trustees Chairman Peter Collins, a co-founder and managing principal of Forge Capital Partners, said there are things the university system Board of Governors and Legislature can do to keep Florida schools on a more competitive playing field.<\/p>\n
While saying he wasn\u2019t pushing for a change, Collins noted schools in Florida can\u2019t raise student activity fees because state leaders have frozen tuition for more than a decade.<\/p>\n
![\"USF](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/.png\"\/)
<\/p>\n
USF football player Mudia Reuben speaks to the State University System\u2019s Task Force on Intercollegiate Athletics in Tampa on April 30, 2027. <\/p>\n
One student-athlete\u2019s view of NILs<\/p>\n
Among the student-athletes to speak was USF receiver Mudia Reuben, who described how his involvement in NIL during his third year at Stanford became a platform for impact rather than personal spending.<\/p>\n
Mudia, who chose USF for graduate school, said his first use of NIL earnings was to launch a nonprofit <\/a>supporting communities in Nigeria, where his parents are from, leading to the construction of six boreholes providing clean water in underserved villages.<\/p>\nHe framed NIL as something that allowed him to channel resources into long-term community development, especially around basic needs like water access, and emphasized broader youth development and opportunity-building in underserved areas.<\/p>\n
On his transfer decision, Reuben said his move to USF for graduate school was driven primarily by academics, experience and fit rather than money. He noted that USF offered strong graduate program options and a broader range of master\u2019s degrees, and argued that the decision came down to what best supported his academic and personal growth.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe three main points that we saw from this was that players weren\u2019t leaving just because they wanted more money, but it was due to their personal growth. It was due to their brotherhood. It was due to the resilience around staying in the program and the resilience around going to other programs,\u201d Reuben said.<\/p>\n
He stressed that modern college athletics is becoming more \u201cprofessionalized,\u201d but said his own choice reflected values beyond finances \u2014 highlighting experience, brotherhood, and the original spirit of college sports as a game played for enjoyment and development, not just compensation.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Rick Mayer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Student-athletes in Florida could see a portion of their funds from name, image and likeness deals put into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":253379,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-253378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}