Many Division I student-athletes have the opportunity to enter into multiple contracts during their collegiate athletic career. There is the athletic scholarship, which is an agreement with the school to pay for some or all of the student’s education. Increasingly, student-athletes also enter into name, image, and likeness (NIL) deals with outside brands or organizations, in which the student-athletes receive payment and/or product in exchange for marketing or letting the company use the student-athlete’s name, image, and likeness in advertising. For a smaller number of student-athletes, there is now the opportunity to sign a revenue-sharing or NIL contracts directly with the university. And with all this money flowing around, many student-athletes are now signing with agents who will help them to find even more NIL deals.
Each one of these contracts is binding, but many contain terms that most athletes and their families are never told about or don’t fully understand.
Schools, coaches, and agents often rely on that information gap. A coach tells an athlete her scholarship is finished at the end of the year and that she should enter the transfer portal, when in reality, she has rights that protect her from her contract being canceled. A university terminates a revenue-sharing agreement before its largest payments come due. An agent presents a contract that takes far more than the market rate.
At Global Sports Advocates, our sports law attorneys represent student-athletes and their families across the country in these disputes. Every case starts with the same question: what does the agreement actually give you, and what does the school, company, or agent owe you before it can take this away?
Table of Contents
What Rights Do Division I Student-Athletes Actually Have?
A student-athlete's rights come from three overlapping sources, and a strong claim often draws on all three.
Contract Rights
An athletic scholarship, a revenue-sharing agreement with a university, an NIL deal with an outside brand, and an agency agreement are all contracts. They are enforceable, and they are interpreted under ordinary state contract law—the same rules that govern any other written promise.
NCAA Rulebook Rights
Particularly when it comes to their athletic scholarships, student-athletes have protections built within the NCAA rules. While many student-athletes and their families are under the mistaken belief that an athletic scholarship can be reduced or canceled for any reason, including failing to perform well, in reality, the NCAA protects student-athletes from having their scholarships pulled for improper reasons. Under Division I bylaws, if a student-athlete has an athletic scholarship at the beginning of their time at a university, that athletic scholarship cannot be reduced, canceled, or non-renewed for anything having to do with the student-athlete’s athletic performance, athletic ability, performance, contribution to the team, injury, illness, or a physical or mental medical condition. This is true no matter whether you’ve been given a one-year, four-year, or five-year scholarship – if your coach is saying they’re going to pull your scholarship or decline to renew it at the end of the year because you’ve been injured or haven’t played well enough, they are violating NCAA rules.
Moreover, if the coach and athletic department decide to reduce, cancel, or not renew an athletic scholarship (for any reason), the school's regular financial aid authority—not the athletics department—must notify the athlete in writing and offer the athlete the opportunity for a hearing to appeal that decision.
Please note that these NCAA protections cover athletically related financial aid. They do not automatically extend to revenue-sharing or NIL money, which generally lives or dies on the contract.
Rights Under the Post-House Settlement Structure
Since direct payments to athletes began in 2025, a separate body, the College Sports Commission, reviews third-party NIL deals and enforces the settlement's terms through a binding arbitration process in which athletes may be represented by counsel.
What Kinds of Student-Athlete Cases Do We Handle?
Student-athlete problems tend to fall into a handful of recognizable patterns—and knowing which one you're facing shapes how quickly you need to act. Here are the cases our attorneys handle most often.
Scholarship Reductions, Cancellations, and Non-Renewals
Most athletes are told their award is a "one-year scholarship" and assume the school can simply walk away at the end of the year. The award renews annually, but it cannot be pulled or left unrenewed for athletics-based reasons, and a school that skips the required written notice or the required hearing has not followed its own process. Our guide to improper scholarship revocation walks through the situations that most often cross the line.
Coaches Who Push Athletes Out Instead of Canceling Their Scholarships
Scholarship cancellation requires and creates a paper trail for coaches. Pressure does not. A coach who wants scholarship money freed up, or simply wants a student-athlete to move on, may cut playing time, invent a "team rules" problem, pressure an athlete to transfer, or repeatedly tell the athlete that they have no future in the program until the athlete voluntarily quits the team or enters the transfer portal (both of which give the university a legitimate reason to cancel the scholarship).
If a coach is pressuring you off the roster, but you want to stay at the school and keep your athletic scholarship, document any and all conversations with the coaching staff, keep following team rules and showing up and doing your best, and hold your ground. Don’t be the one to quit or declare your intent to transfer – force the coach to go through the proper channels and provide a legitimate reason for canceling your scholarship and/or removing you from the team. Often they will be unable to do so.
Revenue-Sharing and NIL Contract Breaches
Schools that opted into the House settlement can now pay athletes directly, and some of those agreements are drafted heavily in the school's favor—back-loaded payment schedules, unequal termination rights, etc. Outside endorsement deals raise their own problems, including deals rejected during review. Our work in sports contract disputes covers both, and our name, image, and likeness protection practice addresses what happens when someone uses an athlete's identity without permission.
Agent and Representation Agreements
The increased opportunities for NCAA student-athletes to make big money during their time in college have meant that agents are flocking to the space, ready to sign young, excited, but unsophisticated athletes and their families.
Agents in professional sports must generally be registered with either the league or the International Federation, and most states register athlete agents under the Uniform Athlete Agents Act. However, the agents negotiating NIL and revenue-sharing deals often fall outside these systems, and some are inexperienced and even opportunistic. We review agency agreements for fee terms that run far above market, obligations that outlast a college career, and clauses that try to write away the agent's fiduciary duty or hide conflicts of interest. We can also litigate when that relationship goes wrong.
Eligibility Threats
Anything that ends eligibility ends the scholarship and the revenue-sharing contract with it. That includes an NCAA anti-doping rule violation, an academic issue, or a conduct allegation. Eligibility is the thread everything else hangs on, so a threat to it is really a threat to every agreement at once—which is why these cases demand fast, careful attention the moment a violation is alleged.
