Tulane Green Wave Coach Joins Experts To Discuss NIL Opportunities and Challenges
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The Tulane Green Wave felt the transformative effects of NIL and the transfer portal in college football at a harsh degree this offseason.
However, Tulane football has a leader willing to traverse the new landscape, as head coach Jon Sumrall sees both opportunities and challenges within name, image, and likeness.
Sumrall will share his candid thoughts on NIL with two top industry experts as part of the 2025 New Orleans Book Festival; Chairman of Altius Sports Partners and former West Virginia Mountaineers athletic director Oliver Luck and national sports law expert and director of the Tulane Sports Law Program Gabe Feldman.
The panel, Navigating the NIL Era: Opportunities and Challenges in College Sports, will be held on March 29 at 2 p.m. inside the Book Fest programming tent on the Berger Family Lawn.
After the third session of the Green Wave’s spring practice, Sumrall will join Luck and Feldman to discuss the metamorphic impact of name, image, and likeness policies in college sports.
Luck has extensive experience in collegiate and professional sports, with previous roles including commissioner of the XFL, executive vice president for regulatory affairs and strategic partnerships at the NCAA and leadership roles in Major League Soccer and the National Football League.
The former collegiate quarterback is the father of one of the greatest of all time at the position; Andrew Luck.
Feldman is both the director for the Tulane Sports Law Program and their associate provost for NCAA compliance. He is a leading national voice in sports law with immense experience and expertise.
It’s an impressive panel for Sumrall to join in a discussion with Luck as Feldman moderators, and the inclusion of policy in the conversation is intriguing.
Tulane, as a member of the American conference, will be held to a league minimum of $10 million in cumulative benefits over three years as a part of revenue sharing with the impending House settlement.
It was noted in the announcement that several schools will likely pass that benchmark, and the Green Wave have made several offseason moves that indicate they’ll be one of those programs.
Sumrall brought back Kelly Comarda, co-founder of Tulane’s Fear the Wave NIL Collective, to serve in the first in-house staff role as Director of Roster Management.
Earlier this month, the university announced the expansion of a partnership with Altius Sports Partners to hire an Executive General Manager, an Athlete Marketing Manager and an eventual NIL sales-focused role.
Sumrall has gone on record to support the era of player movement, and his mentality is ultimately to adapt or get left behind in the landscape.
Despite losing star quarterback Darian Mensah and running back Makhi Hughes, in addition to several more starters, Sumrall has refreshingly embraced NIL and the challenges it brings.
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Maddy Hudak is the deputy editor for Tulane on Sports Illustrated and the radio sideline reporter for their football team. Maddy is an alumnus of Tulane University, and graduated in 2016 with a degree in psychology. She went on to obtain a Master of Legal Studies while working as a research coordinator at the VA Hospital, and in jury consulting. During this time, Maddy began covering the New Orleans Saints with SB Nation, and USA Today. She moved to New Orleans in 2021 to pursue a career in sports and became Tulane's sideline reporter that season. She enters her fourth year with the team now covering the program on Sports Illustrated, and will use insights from features and interviews in the live radio broadcast. You can follow her on X at @MaddyHudak_94, or if you have any questions or comments, she can be reached via email at maddy.hudak1@gmail.com