On September 29th, it was announced that Electronic Arts (known as “EA”) was purchased in a $55 billion leveraged buyout. The buyers? Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, Silver Lake Capital, and Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners.[1]
How does this relate to college sports? Well, EA produces the College Football game, which is released yearly and features the likenesses of current college football players.[2] Prior to NCAA v. Alston, collegiate athletes could not make money off their name, image, or likeness, and companies like EA had to resort to using unnamed players with similar characteristics in their games.[3] However, since Alston, athletes have been signing NIL deals with companies to endorse their products, with some NIL portfolios valued in the millions.[4] EA is one such company offering NIL deals to players, paying $1,500 to players appearing in their latest iteration of the College Football game.[5]
With EA now being partially owned by a sovereign wealth fund, there are questions over whether athletes will be able to sign NIL deals with EA. While currently there are no state or federal laws that restrict a student from entering into an NIL agreement with a sovereign wealth fund or any entity owned by a sovereign wealth fund, considering Saudi Arabia’s human rights record, there is bound to be backlash against athletes, and indirectly the universities they play for, for engaging in such a deal. States and universities have already implemented laws and policies that pertain to the types of deals athletes can engage in. For example, Brigham Young University, the flagship university of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, prohibits its student athletes from engaging in deals that endorse coffee, among other things.[6] Therefore, it is certainly within the realm of possibility that schools could start policing deals with sovereign wealth funds.
This comes more than a year after a former Colorado coach flew to Saudi Arabia to try to convince the PIF to invest in the school’s NIL collective in exchange for advertising for their tourism board. Trevor Reilly, an assistant coach under Deion Sanders, flew to Jordan, Dubai, and Saudi Arabia in December 2023 to negotiate a $10 million deal for the school’s NIL collective in exchange for advertising. According to Reilly, Saudi Arabia is trying to get 500 million more tourists to the country over the next ten years; investing in sports is one way to do that.[7]
As part of the House v. NCAA settlement, Division I schools may directly pay their athletes up to $20 million during the 2025-2026 school year. This cap will increase every year and is based on 22% of the Power Five schools’ average athletic revenues each year. For schools whose athletic budgets are already tight as it is, finding new sources of revenue to retain athletes and remain competitive is a top priority. As evidenced by Trevor Reilly and Colorado, this may mean turning to sovereign wealth to increase the budget for direct payments in order to remain competitive. Therefore, until federal or state laws outright prohibit such deals, we may see a rise in the number of such transactions with foreign entities amidst the sea of uncertainty in college sports.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn4w3jzx807o
[2] https://www.ea.com/games/ea-sports-college-football/college-football-26
[3] O’Bannon v. NCAA.
[4] https://www.on3.com/nil/rankings/player/nil-valuations/
[5] https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6213494/2025/03/18/ea-sports-college-football-26-nil-payments/
[6] https://byucougars.com/news/2021/07/01/byu-institutes-nil-policies
[7] https://frontofficesports.com/former-colorado-football-coach-trevor-reilly-saudi-arabia-money/
Stacy Walker is a third-year law student at the University at Buffalo School of Law. Her areas of interest lie at the intersection of sports and corporate transactions, with prior research done on private equity investments in youth sports and professional stadium development projects.