Meet the people who run Tennessee’s new NIL operation to pay players

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Meet the people who run Tennessee’s new NIL operation to pay players

Adam Sparks, Knoxville News Sentinel · Knox News | The Knoxville News-Sentinel

Sun, Nov 30, 2025 ·

9 min read

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JB Bowling , the chief of University of Tennessee 's NIL department, sits in an office on the top floor of the Brenda Lawson Athletic Center overlooking the Vols indoor football practice field.

It's just down the hall from where he offers UT players NIL contracts to share in the athletic department's revenue. He's working with $20.5 million under a salary cap of sorts.

"(But) we're doing back-of-house negotiations. We're not a GM making those decisions," Bowling told Knox News as a reminder of the limitations of his role.

On the shelf behind Bowling's desk are a checkerboard picture of Smokey the UT mascot that his sister painted and commemorative College Football Hall of Fame displays of John Henderson and Eric Berry.

Those items are surrounded by books on law, NCAA rules and sports finance.

That personal library is fitting for Bowling. He's an attorney but not currently practicing. He successfully ran the NCAA compliance department at UT before and after the Jeremy Pruitt football recruiting scandal , but notably not during it.

And since September, Bowling has been the head of UT's new NIL operations office, which negotiates and manages pay for student-athletes . Knox News was granted an exclusive behind-the-scenes look into the department's inner workings .

A book on Bowling's shelf titled "College Athletes for Hire," seems to be the timeliest for this stage of the NIL era, when universities are allowed to pay student-athletes directly.

Since July 1, college players have signed revenue-sharing contracts with their university. Under the old system, student-athletes were only paid by third-party NIL collectives, business owners and boosters separate from the university.

During the early signing period on Dec. 3-5, the 2026 recruiting class will be the first to sign and enroll under this new system. UT's NIL staff negotiates contracts, manages player payroll, monitors spending under the salary cap, adjusts to new NIL rules and much more.

Here are the members of UT's NIL team.

INSIDE NIL NEGOTIATIONS Tracking Tennessee 2026 recruits from NIL offer to payment

JB Bowling oversees an extensive, growing NIL staff

UT began diverting and hiring NIL-focused staff early in 2025 to prepare to switch to the new system, which allows colleges to pay revenue to student-athletes.

Bowling, a well-rounded sharp administrator, was promoted to executive associate athletics director and chief NIL officer. He knows the NCAA rulebook inside and out and can safeguard UT amid the ever-changing NIL guidelines.

Bowling was a key resource in the Pruitt investigation. He was UT's football compliance administrator from 2016 to summer 2018 and left for a job at Texas A&M shortly after Pruitt was hired by Tennessee. He returned to UT in August 2021 to oversee compliance as the university wrapped up its internal investigation into Pruitt's malfeasance.

JB Bowling is the executive associate athletics director and chief NIL officer at University of Tennessee.

Now Bowling is over an NIL staff that's among the largest in the SEC and still growing. He must manage and understand every facet of this new system, which was established by the House v. NCAA settlement .

Bowling meets with UT student-athletes and recruits to oversee negotiations of their direct school-to-player pay. And though UT's general counsel looks over the contracts, Bowling is the last to approve them.

"The rev share (contracts) are always going to come across my desk," Bowling said. "I'm signing off (to say), 'Yes, we are paying this individual and this is how much we're paying them.' I'm dotting I's and crossing T's."

Here's who negotiates pay for Tennessee athletes

Will Watkins is UT's associate athletics director for NIL operations. He is an experienced and astute negotiator who honed his craft doing advertising deals for Vol Network (2017-19) and NIL agreements for Spyre Sports Group (2022-25).

Under the old system, Spyre Sports was the primary NIL collective that paid UT athletes, and Watkins served as VP of athlete and brand marketing there. UT hired him in July to do a similar job for the university.

"That's the main reason that we brought him in – his experience having done that previously with Spyre and dealing with agents and attorneys," Bowling said. "Will is the best at (meeting with recruits about NIL). I'll definitely give him credit for that, his salesmanship."

Watkins has a longstanding relationship with brands and sports agents, which helps him expedite negotiations over athletes' pay. He can quickly learn an asking price to land a player, and he understands the range that UT needs to be in to match the competition.

Will Watkins is associate athletics director for student-athlete revenue sharing at University of Tennessee.

Those connections and expertise can't be taken for granted as universities take over player pay from third-party NIL collectives in this new system.

But Watkins still must negotiate with players within the pay range established by the UT football staff and its budget.

UT football coach Josh Heupel has an extensive scouting department, led by executive director of football management Billy High , to strategize and crunch the numbers.

Here's who manages Tennessee's salary cap

Tayloe Locke is UT's director of NIL operations. Like Bowling, she has a background in NCAA compliance, working in that department at the SEC office (2011-15), Auburn (2015-19) and Tennessee (2019-25). And she has overseen UT's financial aid, which is applicable in NIL.

Locke ensures that all UT sports programs work in concert in NIL under a salary cap of sorts. The highest revenue sports have NIL budgets to pay select athletes, and they must work together. If the basketball program overspends, it hurts the football program, and vice versa.

Locke makes sure that never happens. She is UT's primary operator for CAPS, the College Athlete Payment System. It's a database where universities are required to report, monitor, manage and track revenue it pays to student-athletes.

Schools can share revenue with their athletes under a cap of $20.5 million per year. Like most power conference schools, UT counts $2.5 million toward new scholarships to fund increased roster sizes, which drops its player payroll to $18 million.

Athletics director Danny White said he allocates 75% of UT's athlete pay , or $13.5 million, to the football program. The rest includes 15% to men's basketball ($2.7 million); 5% to women's basketball ($900,000); and 5% to other sports ($900,000), including $750,000 of that to baseball.

Those percentages were prescribed in the House v. NCAA settlement that ushered in revenue sharing, but schools can modify them. Athletes earn additional money from third-party NIL deals.

Locke monitors scholarships, roster declarations and NIL pay to athletes to keep every program on the same page. She inputs that data into CAPS.

Here's who makes sure Tennessee athletes are paid

Sarah Harris is UT's assistant athletics director for business strategy and NIL operations.

She worked in football operations and recruiting at Notre Dame (2010-13, 2017-18) and UConn (2014-17). As a student, she served as an equipment manager for the Notre Dame football and women's basketball programs.

Harris came to Tennessee in 2024, first managing team travel and then athletic department business strategy. Her experience in business and football operations and her expertise in logistics made her a perfect fit in the NIL office.

Harris is UT's primary contact with Ramp , the company that facilitates direct deposit NIL payments to student-athletes. She makes sure players are paid on time.

Harris also assists Locke in managing CAPS, aligning player pay to the salary cap.

Here's who gets extra NIL deals for UT athletes

Coleman Barnes was hired in August to be UT's business development manager for NIL operations, meaning he helps get third-party NIL deals for Vol athletes.

He's a veteran athletic administrator with stints at Miami (2004-05), Ole Miss (2005-08), Fresno State (2008-11), UAB (2011-13), Miami (Ohio) University (2013-17), Utah State (2017-19), West Virginia (2019-25) and Louisiana-Monroe (2025).

Barnes' expertise is in fundraising, revenue generation and corporate sponsorships. He works with the Tennessee Fund, the fundraising arm for UT athletics, and collaborates with NIL partners to identify donors and potential business owners who could do third-party NIL deals with UT athletes.

UT pays revenue directly to student-athletes, but they can get additional NIL money for endorsing products and services. A university can't negotiate third-party NIL deals, but it can facilitate them by connecting athletes with businesses.

That's why alignment is important in NIL strategy. Third-party NIL deals can come to athletes from a variety of sources, including their own agents. But all deals of at least $600 must be approved by a clearinghouse called NIL Go and meet rules under the College Sports Commission , an independent regulatory body established by the power conferences.

Barnes and the NIL operations staff connect all those interests.

"You don't want 10 different people asking the same person for the same thing in 10 different ways," Bowling said. "Businesses get filtered back to (NIL) operations so that we make sure everything is meeting the NIL Go requirements and that we're following the CSC rules."

Donde Plowman's son is an NIL partner who helps UT

Kevin Ashmos works in the NIL space on UT's behalf, but as an affiliated partner rather than a university employee. He is an NIL business development associate for the Vol Network, UT's affiliate of Learfield, a company that manages multimedia and sponsorship rights.

That's an important distinction because Ashmos is the son of UT Chancellor Donde Plowman . If he were a UT employee, it could present a nepotism problem.

Instead, Ashmos collaborates with UT but not under the direct purview of the athletic department. He finds NIL endorsement deals for athletes, serving in a role for Learfield similar to Barnes for UT.

Learfield , on its company website, says its NIL staff members like Ashmos are "embedded on campus" and work in "complete collaboration" with contracted universities.

Some of the top NIL-producing schools in college sports have a Learfield partner to facilitate deals for their athletes, including Ohio State, Texas, Oregon, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Michigan, Oklahoma, Texas Tech and Tennessee.

Ashmos has valuable experience working in college athletics on the business and recruiting sides. At Nebraska, he was an athletic department marketing associate (2015-17) and a football recruiting assistant (2017-19). Plowman was a high-level academic administrator there at the same time.

Adam Sparks is the Tennessee football beat reporter. Email adam.sparks@knoxnews.com . X, formerly known as Twitter @AdamSparks . Support strong local journalism by subscribing at knoxnews.com/subscribe .

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This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Meet the people who run Tennessee's new NIL operation to pay players

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