Alabama shutting down top collective

In a move that industry experts tell FootballScoop is likely just the start of myriad more, the University of Alabama's top Name, Image and Likeness collective, the Walk of Champions, is shutting down.

AL.com's Hannah Denham first reported the news of the collective's demise, which sources told FootballScoop had largely operated with full, unfettered access on the Crimson Tide campus.

Alabama's Yea Alabama collective is still in operations and also houses itself primarily on campus, FootballScoop was told. 

The group, spearheaded by former Tide championship quarterback John Parker Wilson, had obtained non-profit status as it sought to fill the pockets of Alabama student-athletes with marketing deals and other opportunities ushered in following the NCAA's move to allow NIL monetary ventures just a few years ago.

"Out of an abundance of caution for our donors and charitable partners, Walk of Champions ceased accepting donations and implemented a plan to dissolve," Wilson told AL.com in a statement.

The entity is fizzling to its end less than two years since its formal arrival as a public, not-for-profit unofficial charitable arm of the University of Alabama in March 2023.

Mit Winter, an attorney recognized for his expertise on collegiate NIL matters, posted on X (formerly Twitter) that the move was not at all surprising.

"This will happen more," Winter posted. "Post-House, donors can give to schools and receive their tax deduction, and schools then fund NIL payments."

The Post-House reference from Winter is in regards to the impending finalization of the NCAA-House settlement that is going to allow for revenue distribution -- up to $22 million in its first year and climbing each year by a minimum of 4% -- in collegiate athletics.

Sources told FootballScoop that Notre Dame athletics director Pete Bevacqua has talked openly in recent weeks amidst campus meetings about the Fighting Irish opening an in-house NIL collective that could act as an CAA-type of agency to broke deals -- with full transparency -- for Irish student-athletes.

Additional sources at the University of Tennessee told FootballScoop that athletics director Danny White, a business innovator, also is interested in bringing NIL operations inside the halls of Rocky Top -- a move that could imperil the Spyre Collective which first garnered national notoriety when it negotiated what sources told FootballScoop was an unprecedented seven-figure deal to secure the services of then-prep prospect and now first-year starting Vols quarterback Nico Iamaleava.

Additional sources told FootballScoop that some SEC programs already are devoting current members of their off-the-field football staffs -- think assistant directors of football operations -- into daily fundraising efforts to fill the NIL coffers.