Howard University is a private historically Black research university in Washington, D.C., known informally as “The Mecca.” Athletically, Howard sponsors 21 NCAA Division I varsity sports competing primarily in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC), with several programs (men’s and women’s golf, soccer, swimming and diving, women’s lacrosse) competing in the Northeast Conference (NEC) as associate members. Football competes in the NCAA Division I FCS. The Bison are led by Vice President and Director of Athletics Kery Davis, with Interim President Dr. Wayne A. I. Frederick (also Howard’s president emeritus) providing institutional oversight. The official athletics site is hubison.com.
Howard occupies a unique position in college sports NIL: a globally recognized HBCU brand, fiercely loyal alumni network, strategic location in the nation’s capital, and basketball and football programs with genuine national visibility. In 2022, Howard signed a 20-year partnership with the Michael Jordan Brand (Nike) — becoming only the second HBCU to do so. In February 2025, Howard became the first HBCU to achieve R1 Carnegie Classification for research activity. The combined institutional momentum has made Howard NIL meaningfully more substantial than national headlines about Power 4 collectives typically suggest.
The Mecca Society Collective: Howard’s marquee NIL partner
Howard’s flagship NIL collective is The Mecca Society (themeccasociety.org), launched in fall 2023. Grounded in Howard’s official motto — Veritas et Utilitas, “Truth and Service” — The Mecca Society describes its mission as empowering “Howard University scholar-athletes by bridging the gap between collegiate excellence, social justice and professional opportunity.”
Eric Grant serves as a Board Member of The Mecca Society NIL Collective. The collective operates sport-specific sub-collectives for men’s basketball, women’s basketball, women’s lacrosse, track & field, swimming & diving, volleyball, and softball — including the Bison Volleyball NIL Collective and the Mecca Made NIL Collective for women’s basketball.
Howard football operates its own separate NIL collective: the 1867 Flight Club (1867flightclubcollective.com) — named for Howard’s 1867 founding year. This independent structure reflects how Howard’s NIL ecosystem has organized around individual sport priorities while maintaining institutional alignment with the broader Mecca Society mission.
Notable Mecca Society deal: in summer 2024, the collective announced a partnership with Last Shot, a Black-owned energy drink company headquartered in Las Vegas. The deal compensated Howard athletes in company stock, introducing them to equity ownership and investing — an unusually forward-looking NIL structure that drew national attention.
Howard fans can follow Bison athletes and the broader MEAC conference page on RallyFuel to track Howard NIL stories alongside the wider HBCU and Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference landscape.
How NCAA NIL works in the House v. NCAA era
NIL deals at Howard, like every NCAA program, operate under the House v. NCAA settlement framework effective in mid-2025. The rules:
- All third-party NIL deals worth $600 or more must be submitted to the College Sports Commission (CSC) through the NIL Go portal.
- Deals must have a “valid business purpose” — promoting goods or services sold to the public — not just be a passthrough payment.
- Disclosure must happen within 14 days of starting full-time classes or before the first game, whichever comes first.
- NCAA programs can now share revenue with athletes directly under the House settlement’s revenue-sharing framework, in addition to third-party NIL.
Howard’s athletics compliance office reviews disclosed deals against NCAA, MEAC, and university policies. Washington, D.C. has a permissive NIL environment — D.C. doesn’t restrict student-athlete NIL earnings beyond NCAA and university policy — but the federal-district legal nuance does mean Howard athletes have slightly different administrative considerations than athletes in states with codified NIL statutes.
For international athletes on F-1 visas: active paid NIL work (filming commercials, sponsored appearances) inside the U.S. is heavily restricted, while passive income (licensing for jersey sales, deals executed while physically abroad) is generally permissible. Howard’s compliance office helps athletes navigate this nuance.
The 2026 MEAC championship season — both basketball programs
For the first time in school history, both Howard’s men’s and women’s basketball programs celebrated MEAC championships and NCAA Tournament appearances in the same year (March 2026).
Men’s basketball — led by head coach Kenny Blakeney (7th season) — defeated North Carolina Central 70-63 at Norfolk Scope Arena on March 14, 2026, to capture the 2026 MEAC Championship. It was Howard’s third MEAC title in four years (2023, 2024, 2026) and the sixth conference tournament title in program history. Blakeney earned 2022-23 MEAC Coach of the Year honors and is a Duke alum who played on the 1991 and 1992 NCAA Championship teams under Mike Krzyzewski. Blakeney’s program slogan is #TheDreamFactory.
In the 2026 NCAA Tournament First Four in Dayton, OH, Howard beat UMBC 86-83 — the program’s first-ever NCAA Tournament victory — before falling to #1 seed Michigan 80-101 in the Round of 64. Key contributors during the championship run included Bryce Harris (graduate student guard), Cedric Taylor (MEAC Newcomer and Defensive Player of the Year), Ose Okojie (guard), Cam Gillus (guard), and Danas Kazakevicius (center).
Major NIL development: In May 2026, Howard MBB announced that DC native and former #1 overall NBA Draft pick John Wall has joined the program as President of Basketball Operations. The hire — Wall passed on a return to Kentucky to accept the Howard role — sent shockwaves through college basketball. According to Athletiverse data shared by the program, the Wall announcement alone generated 59 million impressions, 1.2 million engagements, and $262,378 in earned media value in the first two weeks. Wall also wore custom Howard x Jumpman 14 sneakers during the Washington Wizards’ securing of the #1 overall pick in the 2026 NBA Draft, further tying his personal brand to the Howard basketball identity. The hire signals serious institutional ambition for Howard MBB in the NIL era.
The MBB coaching infrastructure includes Daniel G. Marks as General Manager & NIL Strategist — Marks’s role explicitly covers roster building, contract negotiation, and revenue sharing management. Recognition: Congressman Gregory Meeks (a Howard Law alum) presented Coach Blakeney with a Congressional Certificate of Merit in 2026, with intent to place the 2025-26 Bison in the Congressional Record.
Women’s basketball — led by head coach Ty Grace — defeated Norfolk State 53-46 on March 14, 2026, capturing the 2026 MEAC Women’s Basketball Championship. It was the 12th MEAC title in program history — a Howard record — and the program’s first since 2022. The team earned a No. 14 seed in the NCAA Tournament, the highest seed in Lady Bison history. Standout players included Zoe Stewart (redshirt junior guard) and Emma Nuquay (freshman guard).
Home court for both programs is Burr Gymnasium in Washington, D.C.
Beyond basketball: a department-wide breakout 2025-26
Howard athletics extended its championship culture well beyond basketball in 2025-26:
- Women’s Swimming and Diving became the first HBCU women’s swimming and diving team to win a Northeast Conference championship in February 2026. Howard remains the only HBCU sponsoring competitive swimming and diving.
- Men’s Golf captured its third consecutive NEC Championship in April 2026. The golf program was launched in 2020-21 with six years of funding guaranteed by NBA superstar Stephen Curry, who attended Howard graduate programs.
- Howard celebrated standout student-athletes at the annual Bison Blue Carpet Awards on April 16, 2026, hosted at Howard with Vice President and Director of Athletics Kery Davis noting an 82% department graduation rate. Top honors:
- Female Athlete of the Year: Temi Banwo (Track and Field)
- Male Athlete of the Year: Bryce Harris (Men’s Basketball)
- Women’s Team of the Year: Women’s Basketball
- Men’s Team of the Year: Men’s Basketball
- Women’s Coach of the Year: Ty Grace
- Men’s Coach of the Year: Kenny Blakeney
- Athletics Director’s Award: Nile Miller
- Sydney Satchell Award for Perseverance: Sophia Lima (lacrosse, sports medicine major from Altadena, CA, whose family lost everything in the 2025 LA wildfires; first Bison to earn NEC Rookie of the Week honors; also named to the Mexican national lacrosse team)
- Highest male GPA (4.0): Ian Campbell (soccer) and DJ Norris (football), tied
- Highest female GPA: Zuilda “Zuzu” Nwaeze (swimming and diving)
- Highest team GPA (3.66): Women’s golf
The award ceremony was emceed by Angela “Angie Ange” Hailstorks (B.A. ’06), director of content at WHUT-TV. Howard’s broader corporate partnership network now includes Wells Fargo, represented at the awards by Daniel Shannon (B.A. ’07, former Howard track athlete), head of Enterprise HBCU Strategy for Wells Fargo, and Georgette “Gigi” Dixon, Wells Fargo’s head of External Engagement.
Football: Ted White era begins after Larry Scott departure
Howard football completed the 2025 season 5-7 (2-3 MEAC) under sixth-year head coach Larry Scott at William H. Greene Stadium. The 2025 season’s signature moment was a 10-9 win over Florida A&M in the Orange Blossom Classic, anchored by running back Eden James.
In early 2026, Scott departed Howard to accept an opportunity at Auburn University, capping a tenure that produced:
- Co-MEAC championship in 2023
- Outright MEAC championship in 2024
- 2024 Celebration Bowl appearance
- 2025 Orange Blossom Classic win over Florida A&M
On January 14, 2026, Howard introduced Ted White (B.A. ’98) as its new head football coach. White is a Howard alumnus and one of the most decorated student-athletes in Howard and MEAC history, mentored throughout his career by NFL legend Doug Williams — the first Black quarterback to win a Super Bowl (1987). White’s introduction was attended by Williams, who has known White since childhood.
The 2026 Howard football schedule reflects Howard’s national ambitions:
- August 29, 2026 vs. Alabama A&M in the Cricket MEAC/SWAC Challenge at Center Parc Stadium, Atlanta — nationally televised on ABC
- October 3 vs. Hampton at Audi Field — the Truth and Service Classic (“Battle for the Real HU”)
- October 17 vs. Morehouse — Homecoming
- Road trip to Indiana University (Big Ten, reigning national champions)
- Road trip to Rutgers (Big Ten)
For an FCS HBCU program, scheduling Indiana and Rutgers in the same season is genuinely ambitious — the kind of national-visibility programming that creates real NIL deal flow for Bison football players.
Why HBCU NIL matters at Howard specifically
The HBCU NIL story has a Howard chapter dating back to the original wave. In July 2020, when 5-star center Makur Maker committed to Howard over UCLA, Kentucky, USC, and Memphis, it was the top-rated recruit in Howard basketball history — a landmark moment for HBCU NIL recruitment that drew national attention well before The Mecca Society was even formally launched.
That broader history matters for understanding modern Howard NIL: a recognizable global brand backed by alumni of unmatched cultural and political weight:
- Kamala Harris — 49th Vice President of the United States
- Thurgood Marshall — first African-American U.S. Supreme Court Justice
- Toni Morrison — Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist
- Chadwick Boseman — actor; the College of Fine Arts now bears his name
- Phylicia Rashad — actress; Dean of the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts
- Taraji P. Henson — actress
- Anthony Anderson — actor
- Nick Cannon — comedian, rapper, television host
- Ta-Nehisi Coates — journalist and author (also Howard faculty)
- Zora Neale Hurston — author and anthropologist
- Mike Espy — 25th U.S. Secretary of Agriculture
- Andrew Young — U.S. Ambassador to the UN
- Edward Brooke — first African-American elected to the U.S. Senate
- David Dinkins — 106th Mayor of New York City
- Elijah Cummings — U.S. Representative
- Ras Baraka — Mayor of Newark, NJ
- Gregory Meeks — U.S. Representative for New York’s 5th congressional district
In November 2025, philanthropist MacKenzie Scott donated an $80 million gift to Howard — bringing her total Howard giving to $132 million across multiple years. NIL deals that align with Howard’s cultural capital have a different value proposition than typical Power 4 deals — particularly for brands aiming to authentically connect with Black audiences, HBCU community, and D.C.-area markets.
In 2024, the men’s basketball program was recognized as one of the most innovative in college NIL. The combination of GM Marks’s role, Blakeney’s Duke pedigree, the newly added John Wall as President of Basketball Operations, and the school’s cultural visibility creates real recruiting leverage in an era when financial conversations are part of every prospect’s decision.
What HBCU NIL realistically looks like financially
HBCU NIL economics differ from Power 4 NIL in scale but not in structure. At Howard, marquee basketball players (starting guards, leading scorers) typically earn five-figure annual NIL income through The Mecca Society plus direct deals, with rare standout athletes potentially earning more. Football skill-position players and defensive captains earn meaningfully, though typically below basketball given Howard’s FCS classification.
Typical Howard NIL deal structures:
- National brand partnerships with companies seeking authentic HBCU and Black community alignment
- D.C.-area local sponsorships — restaurants, retail, fitness, healthcare practices, and small-business partnerships in the District and surrounding metro
- Black-owned brand deals — Howard’s cultural positioning makes these particularly natural fits
- Equity/stock compensation structures — pioneered with the Mecca Society/Last Shot deal
- Social media partnerships on TikTok, Instagram, and emerging platforms
- Appearance and clinic deals — autograph sessions, youth clinics, charity events in D.C.
NIL income is independent contractor income — Howard athletes receive 1099-NEC forms, not W-2s, and are responsible for self-employment tax in addition to federal income tax. D.C. also has its own income tax structure (top marginal rate currently 10.75%, among the highest in the U.S.). Standard practice: set aside 25-30% of every NIL payment immediately for tax obligations, track every agreement with written records, and work with a tax preparer experienced with 1099 income.
How fans plug in
Three practical paths for supporting Howard athletes:
- Attend home events. Burr Gymnasium hosts men’s and women’s basketball, both fresh off MEAC championship seasons. Football plays at William H. Greene Stadium, with the 2026 season opening on national TV in Atlanta and including marquee games at Indiana, Rutgers, plus home rivalries against Hampton and Morehouse.
- Follow @HUBisonSports and individual athletes on social media. Engagement directly affects athletes’ negotiating leverage with sponsors. Athletes with engaged followings — across HBCU community, D.C.-area fans, and the broader Howard alumni network — have more value to brands targeting those audiences.
- Back the Bison through RallyFuel’s Howard page. RallyFuel is a fan-powered NIL platform where supporters can contribute toward specific athletes’ NIL deals. The mechanic is straightforward: fans pledge support to an athlete, and the funds convert to an NIL agreement only if the athlete stays enrolled at Howard through a designated period. If the athlete transfers, funds auto-refund to the original contributor. This is particularly useful for Bison supporters because it matches the realistic mobility pattern of modern college athletes: fans can back players they want to see develop in the Howard system without risking money on athletes who might transfer to Power 4 programs. Contributions can be made in any amount, allowing alumni, D.C.-area fans, and HBCU community supporters to participate at whatever scale fits their budget.
Q&A
Who runs Howard athletics? Kery Davis serves as Vice President and Director of Athletics. The current Interim President of Howard University is Dr. Wayne A. I. Frederick, president emeritus.
Is Howard a Power 4 program? No. Howard competes in NCAA Division I as a member of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC). Howard football is classified as FCS (Football Championship Subdivision), while basketball and other sports compete in Division I.
What is The Mecca Society Collective? Howard’s official NIL collective, launched in fall 2023. The Mecca Society pools fan, alumni, and business resources to support Bison student-athletes through compliant NIL opportunities. It operates sport-specific sub-collectives including the Bison Volleyball NIL Collective and Mecca Made NIL Collective for women’s basketball.
Who’s Howard’s football head coach? Ted White (B.A. ’98), hired January 14, 2026. White is a Howard alumnus and one of the most decorated student-athletes in Howard and MEAC history. He replaced Larry Scott, who departed for Auburn after leading Howard to back-to-back MEAC championships in 2023-2024 and a 2024 Celebration Bowl appearance.
Who’s Howard’s men’s basketball head coach? Kenny Blakeney, in his 7th season. Blakeney is a Duke alum who played on the 1991 and 1992 NCAA Championship teams under Mike Krzyzewski. He led Howard to back-to-back MEAC titles in 2023-24 and won the 2026 MEAC Championship as well. His program slogan is #TheDreamFactory.
Who’s Howard’s women’s basketball head coach? Ty Grace, who led the Lady Bison to the 2026 MEAC Championship and a No. 14 NCAA Tournament seed (the program’s highest ever).
What just happened with Howard basketball? Both men’s and women’s basketball programs won 2026 MEAC Championships in the same year for the first time in school history. The men beat UMBC 86-83 in the First Four — Howard’s first-ever NCAA Tournament victory — before falling to #1 Michigan 80-101 in the Round of 64. The women’s No. 14 seed was their highest in program history. In a major NIL development, Howard MBB then announced in May 2026 that John Wall, the former #1 NBA Draft pick and DC native, would join the program as President of Basketball Operations — passing on a Kentucky return to take the Howard role.
Who is John Wall and why does he matter to Howard NIL? John Wall is a DC-born former #1 overall NBA Draft pick (2010) and five-time NBA All-Star who joined Howard MBB as President of Basketball Operations in May 2026. Wall’s hire — passing on Kentucky — was a national story that generated 59 million impressions in two weeks per Athletiverse data. Wall also wore custom Howard x Jumpman 14 sneakers during the Wizards’ 2026 NBA Draft selection, tying his personal brand to Howard’s identity. The hire signals serious institutional ambition for Howard’s NIL future.
Did Howard women’s swimming and diving really win an HBCU first? Yes. In February 2026, Howard’s women’s swimming and diving team became the first HBCU women’s swimming and diving team to win a Northeast Conference (NEC) championship. Howard is also the only HBCU that sponsors competitive swimming and diving.
What is the 1867 Flight Club? It’s the separate NIL collective specifically supporting Howard football, named for Howard’s 1867 founding year (1867flightclubcollective.com). Most of Howard’s other sports operate through The Mecca Society NIL Collective; football has its own dedicated structure.
Did Stephen Curry really fund Howard’s golf program? Yes. NBA superstar Stephen Curry guaranteed six years of funding to launch Howard men’s and women’s golf as new varsity sports starting in the 2020-21 school year. The investment has produced results — Howard men’s golf won its third consecutive NEC Championship in April 2026.
What was Makur Maker’s significance? In July 2020, Maker became the highest-rated recruit ever to commit to an HBCU when he chose Howard over UCLA, Kentucky, USC, and Memphis. The commitment is widely regarded as the landmark moment for HBCU NIL-era recruitment, predating both The Mecca Society and the 2023 Travis Hunter/Jackson State commitment as the original signal that HBCUs could compete for elite talent.
Where does Howard play football? William H. Greene Stadium on the Howard University campus in Washington, D.C.
Where do Howard basketball teams play? Burr Gymnasium on campus.
Will Howard play any Big Ten teams in 2026? Yes. Howard’s 2026 football schedule includes road games at Indiana (the reigning college football national champions) and Rutgers — ambitious scheduling for any FCS program and a major national-visibility opportunity for Bison athletes.
What categories are off-limits for Howard NIL deals? Alcohol promotion, tobacco, gambling and sports wagering, controlled substances, and adult entertainment are typically restricted by NCAA and university policy. Howard’s compliance office reviews disclosed agreements against these and other restrictions.
What’s a realistic NIL number for a Howard athlete? Marquee Howard basketball players typically earn five-figure annual NIL income through combined Mecca Society support, direct deals, and personal branding. Football skill-position players and defensive captains earn meaningfully but typically below basketball given FCS classification. Brand value at Howard is meaningfully shaped by alignment with HBCU and Black community audiences — different from but not less than typical Power 4 NIL economics.
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