The NCAA entered into its first NIL licensing deal allowing the use of the March Madness logo to Topps trading cards featuring basketball stars Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, Zach Edey and Tristen Newton. Since NIL was deregulated in 2021, the NCAA has taken a conservative approach in finding deals, turning down a handful of companies.

“There have been cases we’ve had to decline certain NIL opportunities because we weren’t comfortable doing it,” said NCAA managing director of championships, external relations, Chris Termini. Fanatics, which owns Topps and runs the NCAA.com shop, was sensitive to the organization’s interests, specifically gender equity…

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