NCAA Rule Changes: NIL Oversight, Expanded Tournament?

With the 2025-26 college basketball season fast approaching, the NCAA’s D1 Board of Directors made a pair of important rule changes regarding Name, Image and Likeness deal sourcing for athletes.

Per a report from ESPN staff writer Dan Murphy, “schools can no longer guarantee a player any money from a third-party NIL deal (verbally or in writing)” in case said collective was unable to raise the promised funds.

Additionally, “all collective/booster deals must include a specific ‘direct activation.’” That addresses “‘Warehousing,’ where a collective pays for a player’s NIL rights with a promise to use them later but no specific endorsement in mind. That makes it hard for CSC [the College Sports Commission] to assess the market value of the deal” and monitor it accordingly.

The landmark House settlement paved the way for schools to pay their athletes directly up to a cap of roughly $20 million per year, and these rule changes will crack down on loopholes for schools to circumvent the cap.

Per a report from Strategy & Analytics Consultant Tony Altimore, Villanova Athletics had a total operating budget of $61 million during FY2024, which could make it difficult to meet the $20.5 million salary cap and compete with Power Four programs like Ohio State or Oregon, who have quite a bit more money to spare: their operating budgets clock in upwards of $200 million.

In another expected rule change, the NCAA continues to mull over the idea of increasing the men’s basketball tournament to a 76-team field, expanding the “First Four” round to 12 games held at two separate neutral sites. According to Ross Dellinger of On3, the writing is on the wall for tournament expansion, expected to begin during the 2026-27 season.

The NCAA Tournament expanded to its current 68-team field in 2011.