Who Owns the No. 7 Jersey? Group Licensing Is College Sports’ Unfinished IP Business

Five years into the name, image and likeness (NIL) era, the college sports debate has centered on pay: revenue-sharing caps, third-party deals and the Protect College Sports Act of 2026, which passed the Senate on Sept. 28, 2026, and is expected to come before the House after Nov. 9. But college sports’ most valuable products, including replica jerseys, video games, trading cards and co-branded merchandise, require two sets of rights that have never been cleanly combined: the school’s trademarks and the NIL of many athletes at once. The bill touches both but never says how they fit together. We expect the next major value fight to be over how licensing deals are structured, not over paychecks.

In this Sports Business Journal article, Douglas Masters, managing partner of Loeb’s Chicago office, and Advanced Media & Technology partner Seth Rose walk through how the bill gives every athlete in a group a veto over the use of their likeness while letting schools protect their marks in only one direction. They also explain how co-branded deals can trigger collective status, revenue-cap and certification issues, and what schools, licensees and athletes should do now to structure these deals before Congress acts.

To read the full article, please visit Sports Business Journal’s website.