Philip Sheng recently joined the SportsEpreneur podcast to discuss name, image, and likeness (NIL) agreements, athlete ownership rights, and the evolving landscape of college sports. His insights were featured in the article and podcast episode, “An NIL Attorney on Contracts and Athlete Ownership | Philip Sheng of Venable LLP.” The following is an excerpt:
What an attorney who reviews NIL deals sees in the contracts, and what college athletes may be signing away.
Philip Sheng is an attorney at Venable LLP, a national firm of roughly 900 lawyers, where he works in the intellectual property group and the sports law practice. His focus is college NIL, the right of publicity, and college eligibility.
This is the on-the-ground legal view of NIL. For the full breakdown of how the system works, start with The NIL Hub, NIL Rules in 2026, and NIL Pros and Cons. This episode is narrower. It is what a practicing attorney sees inside the deals themselves.
Eric Kasimov talks with Sheng about NIL as both a legal and an athlete-centered issue. They get into whether NIL is really athlete compensation, intellectual property, or both, and why the issue was known as the right of publicity long before college sports made it a household term. Sheng has lived the landscape from several sides. He played tennis at Stanford, competed as an ATP-ranked professional, and now has children navigating college athletics, including Division I basketball and tennis.
What Philip Sheng and Eric Get Into
- NIL as intellectual property and the right of publicity
- The College Sports Commission and how it reviews NIL deals
- The Nebraska and PlayFly case, and why the contracts were the problem
- Why even a small NIL deal needs its rights language reviewed
- How brands can work with role players, not only star athletes
- Roster cuts in non-revenue sports like tennis and swimming
- High school NIL, state-by-state rules, and protecting minors
- Sports betting, college students, and the value of staying in school
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