The night of June 6, and staff members expected to have a casual Friday evening. Some of them relaxed at their homes. Another was on vacation, celebrating his dad’s birthday. Taylor Jacobs, who oversees name, image and likeness within the department, had gone to dinner with her family at Modesto.
Luckily for Jacobs, they were already paying the bill when the House settlement was approved a little after 8 p.m. She headed home to take calls. NIL deals did not have to be approved by a new clearinghouse if they were finalized by midnight, so the rest of the night was spent checking on contracts with .
“We did work up until midnight that night to just make sure everything was completely buttoned up,” LSU executive deputy athletic director said. “It was a late night for our folks, but really pleased where everything ended up for us.”
That night marked a monumental shift in college sports. Under the settlement, Division I schools now can pay players for the first time starting July 1. Similar to other major programs, LSU plans to pay its athletes the maximum $20.5 million during the upcoming school year, $2.5 million of which will come from the creation of 65 new scholarships.
As a result, LSU officials projected a usually profitable athletic department to have an $8 million deficit during the upcoming fiscal year. Zinn said LSU “will work aggressively to mitigate that” and could balance its budget by the 2027 fiscal year. According to the most recently available figures, LSU reported a $1.73 million surplus during the 2024 fiscal year.
“We've really had to identify — and we're continuing to identify — new revenue streams that could potentially come to the athletic department to make up for that,” deputy athletic director for revenue generation Clay Harris said.
In addition to schools directly paying players, the settlement led to several significant changes. The College Sports Commission was created to oversee the system, and new rules are designed to limit spending by boosters. Different roster sizes also replaced scholarship limits.
Zinn and several others involved in LSU’s operations spoke to The Advocate about the school's plans. They discussed paying players, the murky future of LSU’s collective, how third-party NIL could let them exceed the cap, their search for more money and why they feel confident in the future.
“I think what you'll find,” Zinn said, “is the House settlement being really, really favorable to LSU.”
How LSU will pay players
Over the first half of the year, booster collectives nationwide front-loaded lucrative NIL deals. They understood their agreements could be denied by the clearinghouse, so they pushed out millions of dollars before the House settlement took effect. LSU’s collective, Bayou Traditions, planned to spend at least .
Those deals rolled into revenue sharing, and once the settlement was approved, LSU began issuing contracts to players. The deals, which vary in length and compensation, pay athletes for the non-exclusive right to use their NIL instead of making them employees. Players have to participate in social media posts, autograph signings and other promotional materials in exchange.
“You've got a combination of agreements out there now,” Zinn said. “Some that have come from Bayou Traditions, some that have come from us.”
The cap was calculated by taking 22% of the annual ticket sales, media rights and sponsorship revenue among the power conference schools and Notre Dame. The cap will increase annually by 4% and be reevaluated every three years. LSU plans to meet the cap as it rises throughout the 10-year settlement.
When determining how to distribute the money, LSU followed the formula the NCAA used to pay $2.8 billion in back damages, which gave the majority of the money to football and men’s basketball players because they generated the most revenue.
LSU will allocate 75% to football, which equals $13.5 million in the first year; 15% to men’s basketball ($2.7 million); 5% to women’s basketball ($900,000); and 5% to the rest of its sports ($900,000). Zinn said schools could be hit with fines, coaching suspensions and a reduction in transfers for violating the cap.
Every LSU team will receive some money, Zinn said. She believes the ones that aren’t getting as much still will have what they need financially to compete. LSU is not cutting any sports.
“There is enough,” Zinn said. “Our ability to do this and also to support that decision, in big part, is our fan base and how much they have embraced and celebrated sports beyond basketball and football. And as long as they continue to do that, they're going to see us work aggressively to make sure those sports are well-positioned for the highest of success.”
Schools can lower their cap by spending up to $2.5 million per year on Alston payments, which previously allowed them to give individual athletes up to $5,980 per year. But LSU has not taken that route. The one exception, Zinn said, could be for international players if they are not able to earn revenue-sharing dollars, which is a lingering question.
The settlement also replaced team-specific scholarship limits with roster limits. LSU plans to create 65 new scholarships, a number that Zinn said could increase. Most of them (42) will go to women’s sports.
Zinn said LSU baseball has a “significant increase” now that it can offer 34 scholarships instead of 11.7, but she declined to specify how many, saying “herein lies the competitiveness of things.”
As LSU prepares for revenue sharing to begin, it is in the process of finalizing deals with athletes. Agents have been reviewing the contracts and negotiating certain terms. However, with college athletes still not considered employees, there are questions about how a buyout could be enforced if someone transfers to another school.
“Instead, what you'll see us do is work through it in a way where student-athletes are expected to meet their obligations of those agreements,” Zinn said. “And in the event that they don't, there's some opportunity there to react while they're here at LSU versus trying to seek money after the fact if they transfer or leave the institution.”
What now for Bayou Traditions?
During a speech at the Baton Rouge Rotary Club last week, Zinn mentioned Bryce Underwood. Not by name, but she described a quarterback who decommitted from LSU last fall “to get a very high dollar from another institution.”
Later, when an attendee referenced “the guy who went to Michigan for $6 (million) or $8 million” during their question, Zinn interjected.
“10,” Zinn said.
Zinn used the example to illustrate what the settlement is trying to stop. After booster collectives paid for rosters in recent years under the guise of endorsements, especially in football and basketball, every NIL deal over $600 must be reviewed by a Deloitte-run clearinghouse called NIL Go.
The commission said it will judge deals on whether or not they serve "a valid business purpose and do not exceed a reasonable range of compensation." If the deals are rejected, athletes can revise the contract, cancel it or appeal to neutral arbitration. They face potential penalties if they continue anyway.
“These bidding wars that schools have found themselves in will no longer be the case,” Zinn told the crowd, later adding her belief that the biggest question mark in college sports over the next year will be how to define a reasonable range of compensation.
LSU officials think this system could be an advantage for the school instead of relying on donors to support Bayou Traditions. The collective fell behind other major programs financially until a fundraising push took place over the past year, which gave the football and men’s basketball teams money to be aggressive in the transfer portal.
What happens next with the collective is unclear. The Tiger Athletic Foundation, LSU’s third-party fundraising arm, is not expected to extend its partnership with Bayou Traditions, which began last summer. However, Zinn said Bayou Traditions would serve a purpose if collectives can strike deals with high school players.
“I believe what you'll see now,” Zinn said, “is an opportunity for us to work with those donors in the future, with Bayou Traditions specifically, to come up with an opportunity for high school funding in a way that we can be really competitive out the gate, not find ourselves in a place where we're playing catch up.”
Way to exceed the cap
Five days after the settlement was approved, the NIL clearinghouse launched. Jacobs and her staff met with the football, men’s basketball, volleyball and part of the women’s basketball teams that day for a previously planned educational talk. Because of the timing, they also took players through the new NIL process.
Athletes or a designated representative must submit their deal for review. Once that happens, Jacobs has to answer questions about the payer or the deal. As of June 18, LSU athletes had one deal cleared and several in review. The one that was approved happened within minutes.
Though athletes can still find sponsorships on their own, LSU has shifted its focus toward finding third-party NIL for them. LSU believes its brand value will make a difference. Not only for football and basketball players but also for Olympic sports athletes who won’t make as much from revenue sharing. Outside NIL deals don't count against the cap.
“When you look at the amount of resources that'll go directly to our student-athletes starting in the upcoming year and thereafter, we expect that to be pretty well beyond $20.5 million,” Zinn said.
Earlier this year, through Playfly Sports, its longtime multimedia rights partner, designed to find endorsement deals for athletes. Two Playfly employees now work within NILSU Max. Along with Jacobs, they have spent the past few months lining up deals, which will be submitted to the clearinghouse July 1.
“There is an ever increasing need for third-party NIL,” said Mary Claire Logue, the executive director of NILSU Max. “That's our main prerogative. We do already have several businesses that we've contracted with to work on their behalf to contract student-athletes to fulfill those obligations.”
LSU's search for money
This fall, there will be advertisements on the 25-yard lines in Tiger Stadium.
Schools were allowed to sell space on playing surfaces for the first time last year, and Cox had a logo on the floor at LSU basketball games. Now, sponsorships are coming to the football field.
LSU officials declined to identify the company that will appear in Tiger Stadium. Harris said the ads produce “multiple millions of dollars a year.” There will not be any advertisements at midfield or on the back line of the end zone, which are both permissible under NCAA rules. Harris added the design will incorporate LSU’s colors.
At the same time, LSU hopes the NCAA will allow schools to sell patches on their jerseys, something Harris said also generates “multiple millions of dollars a year.” LSU has identified a partner, which officials declined to name, if the rule changes.
LSU has mapped out where the patches would go on every jersey, from cross country to football. Most of them would appear on the chest in purple and gold.
“We don't want to have this as some crazy, NASCAR-like situation,” Harris said.
The advertisements have come at a time when major schools like LSU are trying to come up with more money. LSU cut $3 million in expenses, Zinn said, but officials emphasized the need to bring in additional revenue instead of slashing spending.
“We are very careful not to put ourselves in a competitive or recruiting disadvantage compared to our peer institutions and those that we compete against,” Zinn said. “And so you have to be really careful about trying to cut your way out of an issue because if you get behind in that, then you've got some real significant challenges that then ultimately do impact your revenue.”
Other than the sponsor logos, there are other ways to make up the deficit. A billion-dollar rights deal between ESPN and the College Football Playoff will generate more money, and LSU can renegotiate its Nike contract. Former head football coach Ed Orgeron’s buyout also comes off the books at the end of the year, and TAF can continue to assist. Zinn said LSU is not considering private equity.
Still, there will be some adjustments. Zinn said LSU is going to make more regional schedules to reduce the cost of travel, especially for Olympic sports. It may not refill certain positions when people leave the department.
Entering this new era, LSU officials projected confidence about what the school can accomplish as it begins to pay players. The Tigers will meet the revenue-sharing cap, and they think they can arrange lucrative NIL deals that will pass through the clearinghouse, helping their athletes earn even more.
“I don't just like where we're at,” Zinn said. "I love where we're at."
