• Athlete marketing has been shaken up since student-athletes gained the right to make money from their name, image, and likeness.
• NIL has created career paths for college athletes and brand-deal managers.
• This article is part of "Trends to Bet Your Career On," a series about trending professional opportunities.

Before ever stepping foot on the court in the WNBA, the rookie and college-basketball phenom Caitlin Clark scored an eight-year shoe deal with Nike worth up to $28 million.

The deal, reported by The Wall Street Journal, is the richest sponsorship contract to date in women's basketball. It came on the heels of other high-profile sponsorships for the leading NCAA Division I scorer, including with State Farm, which made her the first college athlete and female player to sign with the insurer.

Other athletes, like Clark, have leveraged their success in sports to strike brand deals and kick down doors once closed to amateurs.

Athlete marketing was upended in 2021 when the NCAA lifted its long-standing ban on student-athletes getting endorsement deals, which opened the door for them to make money from their name, image, and likeness.

College players — from the University of Southern California freshman basketball player Bronny James to the Louisiana State University gymnast Olivia Dunne — are earning millions a year from licensing and brand deals.

NIL has also created career paths for college athletes, some of whom are building businesses as influencers and content creators or getting jobs in social media and marketing rather than going pro. And it's given rise to a cottage industry of companies helping student-athletes work with brands and managing logistics such as licensing and compliance.

According to the NIL marketplace Opendorse, spending on the NIL market hit an estimated $1 billion in its second year and is forecast to reach $1.17 billion in year three.

While the rules around NIL are still evolving, with recent developments setting the stage for schools to pay athletes directly and get involved with NIL deals, one thing is for sure: NIL isn't going anywhere.

"Everyone needs to embrace it — I think schools, coaches, athletes, families. It is here to stay," Garrett Yaralian, the head of NIL at WME Sports, told Business Insider. "It will continue to shift, and it'll continue to kind of change." It's important for schools that want to be involved in NIL deals to engage in sports marketing and sourcing deals for athletes, he added.

Athletes are building careers as influencers

Dunne, who has 5.2 million followers on Instagram, where she's been creating content since she was a teenager, is one of the top-earning student-athletes, with an annual NIL valuation of $3.9 million, according to On3.

Brands and talent agents are engaging with athletes like Dunne earlier in their careers, said Yaralian, who works with Dunne, TikTok, and the University of Texas at Austin track-and-field star Sam Hurley.

While Dunne and Hurley are still focused on competing, they may have other opportunities if they choose not to go pro after college, such as becoming full-time influencers, building consumer brands or products, or pursuing passions like fitness, Yaralian said.

Dunne already followed one of her passions last year by establishing the Livvy Fund to bring more NIL opportunities to her school's female athletes.

Though Division I athletes seem to be among the highest earners, student-athletes of all levels are making money from NIL. Connor Printz, a former Division III basketball player at Claremont McKenna College, has landed over 100 NIL deals.

NIL has also helped some student-athletes set themselves up for careers outside athletics or content creation. The University of California, Los Angeles, quarterback Chase Griffin is working toward a master's degree in legal studies because he wants to understand the contract side of talent and production work.

"This has just fast-tracked me for opportunities that I think I probably would've had with a lot of hustle at 27, 28, 29," Griffin previously told BI. "Now I'm able to do it at 20, 21, and 22, all while still within the safety of my scholarship, the safety of education, and continuing to play the game I love."

It's not just student-athletes who are benefiting

NIL isn't creating more career opportunities only for college athletes.

Sports marketing and talent agencies are staffing up to support their NIL work. WME Sports, for example, now has a dedicated team that sources NIL deals for student-athlete clients and a small team in Austin that supports the agency's partnership with the Texas One Fund for University of Texas student-athletes.

A crop of companies has emerged around NIL, from platforms such as Opendorse, where brands and student-athletes can connect and access educational and compliance resources, to companies like The Brandr Group and OneTeam Partners that work on group licensing for jerseys, playing cards, and more.

Some of the donor-funded collectives that facilitate some 80% of NIL spending are also run like businesses with full-time staff.

There may be more opportunities on the horizon, too, if more schools bring NIL activities in-house as the University of Georgia Athletic Association has, with it hiring an athletic-marketing manager to lead the department.

Venture capitalists are also eyeing NIL startups as they see opportunities to provide financial resources to athletes, transform the fan experience, and offer tools to manage compliance.

"The future of the NIL will require technology to optimize and operationalize its structure to ensure a better financial future for athletes," Drew Glover of Fiat Ventures wrote in March.

• Following on from "House of the Dragon," there are more "Game of Thrones" spinoffs in the works.
• HBO has released a teaser image for "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms," which is now in production.
• Here's the status of every rumored and confirmed "Game of Thrones" spinoff, sequel, and prequel series. 

HBO has long planned to create a "Game of Thrones" television universe, giving fans of the global fantasy phenomenon more stories based on author George R.R. Martin's various book series that take place in Westeros and beyond.

With the success of the first season of "House of the Dragon," it appears that the network is keen to continue to mine the world George R.R. Martin created with more spinoffs, sequels, and prequels. Some of the series in development (which Martin prefers to call "successor shows") are based on existing stories the fantasy author has written, while others would feature characters and locales he has created in brand new stories.

Here's everything we know about all the "Game of Thrones"-related projects that are in development, are rumored to be in development, or returning.

Kim Renfro contributed reporting to a previous version of this article.

"A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight"

HBO announced in June that production had officially begun on "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms," the six-episode spinoff series based on Martin's "Dunk & Egg" stories, in Belfast, Ireland. The network also provided fans with the first teaser image of Peter Claffey as Ser Duncan the Tall. 

The show — which the author told Entertainment Weekly in 2016 would be the "most natural follow-up" to the much-loved fantasy series — was given a straight-to-series order. The series is written and executive produced by Martin and Ira Parker, with "House of the Dragon" showrunner Ryan Condal, Vince Gerardis, Owen Harris, and Sarah Bradshaw serving as executive producers. HBO announced in June that director Sarah Adina Smith would helm three of the show's six episodes. 

The show stars Peter Claffey as Ser Duncan the Tall ("Dunk") and Dexter Sol Ansell as Aegon V ("Egg"), his markedly less-tall squire. The series is set approximately a century prior to the main events of "Game of Thrones": the Targaryen family still holds the Iron Throne, but the memories of dragons still remain. 

Other cast members include Sam Spruell as Maekar Targaryen, Bertie Carvel as Baelor Targaryen, Finn Bennett as Aerion Targaryen, Tanzyn Crawford as Tanselle, and Daniel Ings as Ser Lyonel Baratheon. 

Ser Duncan and Aegon V's adventures —  which appear across three novellas in the book "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" — are known fondly by fans as the "Dunk and Egg stories," but Martin explained in a blog entry why he and HBO had opted for a different title for the adaptation.

"There are millions of people out there who do not know the stories and the title needs to intrigue them too," he wrote. "If you don't know the characters, Dunk & Egg sounds like a sitcom. Laverne & Shirley. Abbott & Costello. Beavis & Butthead. So, no. We want 'knight' in the title. Knighthood and chivalry are central to the themes of these stories."

The greenlighting of the series may have come as something of a surprise to fans as Martin shared on his blog in 2017 that despite his initial enthusiasm for a "Dunk and Egg" show, he was putting the idea on a back burner since he was not yet done writing for the characters.

He wrote at the time: "Eventually, sure, I'd love that, and so would many of you. But I've only written and published three novellas to date, and there are at least seven or eight or ten more I want to write."

"We all know how slow I am and how fast a television show can move. I don't want to repeat what happened with GAME OF THRONES itself, where the show gets ahead of the books," he continued. "When the day comes that I've finished telling all my tales of Dunk & Egg, then we'll do a TV show about them, but that day is still a long ways off."

Martin was, of course, referencing the way HBO's "Game of Thrones" wound up overtaking his published books in the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series, resulting in a divisive final season that may significantly deviate from Martin's planned (and still unwritten) book ending. 

The Jon Snow spinoff, "Snow"

"Snow," which would have explored what happened to fan favorite Jon Snow (Kit Harington) after the events of "Game of Thrones," was set to be the only spinoff in development that is not based on pre-existing material by Martin.

However, Harington told Screen Rant in April 2024 that the series was no longer in development.

"Currently, it's off the table, because we all couldn't find the right story to tell that we were all excited about enough," Harington said. "So, we decided to lay down tools with it for the time being. There may be a time in the future where we return to it, but at the moment, no. It's firmly on the shelf."

A representative for HBO declined to comment on Harington's remarks.

Writing on his blog in June 2022, Martin said that he was involved in the series, but revealed that the idea for the show had actually come from Harington himself.

He explained that Harington "brought the idea to us" and had assembled a "terrific" group of writers and showrunners, although he declined to share their names.

As audiences will remember, in the eighth and final season of "Game of Thrones," Jon discovered that he was not in fact the bastard son of Eddard "Ned" Stark (Sean Bean), but a potential heir to the Iron Throne as the secret child of Ned's sister Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen. 

He also found himself exiled beyond the Wall to live out his days with the Free Folk after committing regicide by killing the crazed Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke).

According to Entertainment Weekly, speaking during a panel at a "Game of Thrones" convention in 2020, Harington himself said of Jon's future: "The fact he goes to the Wall is the greatest gift and also the greatest curse."

He continued: "He's gotta go back up to the place with all this history and live out his life thinking about how he killed Dany, and live out his life thinking about Ygritte dying in his arms, and live out his life thinking about how he hung Olly, and live out his life thinking about all of this trauma, and that, that's interesting." 

"So I think where we leave him at the end of the show, there's always this feeling of like… I think we wanted some kind of little smile that things are okay. He's not okay."

"Nine Voyages" 

Deadline was the first to report in early 2021 that a spinoff series about the adventures of Corlys Velaryon, also known as "The Sea Snake," was being developed at HBO with a script from "The Mentalist" creator Bruno Heller and support from Martin himself.

Although an older version of the character was introduced in the first season of "House of the Dragon," (played by Steve Toussaint), it's expected he will be recast for the stand-alone series, as it follows a much younger version of the character on his sea-faring journeys to Pentos, Dragonstone and around the bottom of Westeros.

However, speaking to Entertainment Weekly in 2022, Toussaint said he would love to be involved, even if it's just for a brief scene."

"If I'm lucky, I might say to them, 'Let me just be at the beginning [of the show] sitting with a book saying, 'Let me talk about my life,'" he said. "That'll be me petitioning."

However, at the end of 2023, Martin announced that "Nine Voyages" would be moving from live-action to animation, and explained why.

In a blog entry on December 31, he wrote: "Budgetary constraints would likely have made a live action version prohibitively expensive, what with half the show taking place at sea, and the necessity of creating a different port every week, from Driftmark to Lys to the Basilisk Isles to Volantis to Qarth to… well, on and on and on."

"There's a whole world out there.  And we have a lot better chance of showing it all with animation," he added.

"Ten Thousand Ships" and "Flea Bottom"

At the same time that Deadline dropped the news about "Nine Voyages," it was also announced that another spinoff series titled "Ten Thousand Ships" was being considered at HBO too, alongside another project, "Flea Bottom," which would be set in the poorest slum district in King's Landing.

While "Flea Bottom" has since been shelved, it appears that "Ten Thousand Ships" is still going ahead. In an August 2022 interview with The New York Times, Martin stated that the series is set "like a thousand years before" the flagship series and described it as "an 'Odyssey'-like epic." 

Martin gave a progress update on the series in a June 2024 blog post, announcing that Pulitzer-winning playwright Eboni Booth was writing a new pilot for "Ten Thousand Ships." Booth isn't the first writer to reportedly take a stab at the series: Deadline reported in 2021 that Amanda Segel ("Person of Interest") was attached to the project, and screenwriter Brian Helgeland told Inverse that he had pitched a script but the series wasn't picked up at the time. 

"We're all very excited about this one," Martin wrote in the June blog post. "Though we're still trying to figure out how we're going to pay for ten thousand ships, three hundred dragons, and those giant turtles."

If it goes ahead, the series will tell the story of warrior queen Princess Nymeria (the namesake of Arya Stark's direwolf) and the surviving Rhoynars who traveled from Essos to Dorne following their defeat by Valyria and their dragons.

"The Golden Empire"

"The Golden Empire" is the working title for the animated series about Yi-Ti, Martin's own fantasy version of Imperial China, which has only been briefly mentioned in the "A Song of Ice and Fire" books.

Like "Nine Voyages," the series will be animated, and according to the author, the early concept art and script for the series are shaping up quite nicely — but caveated that it could potentially be shelved.

Writing on his blog in March 2022, Martin stated that they had "a great young writer" working on the show and described the art and animation he had seen as "beautiful."

In the same 2022 New York Times interview where he spoke about "10,000 Ships," Martin shared more. "We got a terrific script on that," he said of "The Golden Empire."

However, he added: "Obviously, not all these shows we're developing are going to make it to air, but I hope that several of them do."

Untitled Aegon's Conquest series

Almost a year after Variety reported that a show focusing on Aegon Targaryen and his conquest of Westeros was in early development at HBO, The Hollywood Reporter shared some new details about the series which appears to be actively now heating up.

According to the outlet "The Batman II," screenwriter Mattson Tomlin is working on the treatment for the series, which does not yet have a title. 

Tomlin will adapt the story of Aegon's bloody and brutal conquest of the Seven Kingdoms, which Martin wrote about in the first half of "Fire & Blood," the same book that "House of Dragon" is adapted from.

The story is essentially a prequel to the events of "HoD," as it details how Aegon successfully unified six of the Seven Kingdoms with his sister wives, Rhaenys and Visenya, and their dragons in just two years.

"House of the Dragon"

"House of the Dragon" was the first "Game of Thrones" spinoff series to air, after an untitled prequel series starring Naomi Watts, co-written by Jane Goldman and directed by S.J. Clarkson, was dropped in 2019. 

Its first season hit screens in 2022 and was a huge success. Its premiere episode broke viewership records at HBO and it went on to earn eight Emmy nominations.

Unsurprisingly, a second season was quickly confirmed by the network and will be premiering on June 16, 2024.

In a December 2023 blog entry, Martin stated that while visiting the set of "House of the Dragon" season two, he had discussed the third and fourth seasons of the show with showrunner Ryan Condal and the writing staff. Sure enough, the network ordered a third season before the second had even premiered.

• Season three of "Bridgerton" features Lady Danbury's brother, Lord Marcus Anderson.
• He won't be familiar to fans of the "Bridgerton" book series.
• Lord Anderson was created just for the TV show, but he'll probably be back in season four.

Warning: There are major spoilers ahead for season three of "Bridgerton."

Season three of "Bridgerton" delivers plenty of romance — not just for Colin Bridgerton and Penelope Featherington, but also for other members of the ton.

Season three premiered on Netflix in May and concluded on Thursday. Among the returning faces were a handful of new characters, including Lord Marcus Anderson (Daniel Francis), the brother of Lady Agatha Danbury (Adjoa Andoh).

Here's everything to know about Lord Anderson and his blossoming romance with another "Bridgerton" character, which seems likely to continue into season four.

Lord Marcus Anderson doesn't exist in Julia Quinn's 'Bridgerton' novels

In Quinn's romance novels, Lady Danbury doesn't have a brother. Like newcomer Lord Debling (Sam Phillips), Lord Anderson is an original character created specifically for the TV series.

When filming for season three began in 2022, Lord Anderson was described as "a charismatic presence who lights up any room he enters, attracting the notice of certain matriarchs in the town — and the ire of others."

Some fans suspected that he'd be a potential suitor for Penelope, but when promotional materials for season three were released, it became clear that his storyline would be intertwined with Lady Danbury and Lady Violet Bridgerton (Ruth Gemmell).

In one teaser, Lord Anderson and Lady Bridgerton were seen exchanging glances — with the matriarch biting her lip — as Lady Danbury observed with dissatisfaction.

Fans who watched the "Bridgerton" spinoff series "Queen Charlotte" will recall Violet telling Lady Danbury that she was considering opening herself up to romance again. So, it made sense that Violet's season three storyline would involve the possibility of love.

Lord Anderson and Lady Violet Bridgerton have a slow-burn flirtation in 'Bridgerton' season 3

Marcus and Violet first meet outside the Hawkins' Innovations Ball of 1815 during episode three, as he helps her pick her glove off the ground. Marcus approaches her later that night at the ball and Lady Danbury interrupts to reveal that he's her brother who's just visiting town. Even though Violet and Lady Danbury have been friends for years, Violet isn't aware that she has a brother.

Marcus isn't seen again until episode four, when he dines with Lady Danbury. When asked why he returned to London, Marcus says that his lack of company — and ladies — at his country estate brought him back to town.

Marcus and Violet talk at another ball, where he tells her that he hasn't been to Mayfair since the early days of marriage. When Marcus asks how she passes time in the city, Violet says that she and Lady Danbury enjoy meddling in the lives of the young people. She adds that Lady Danbury "molds society to her will." This is surprising to Marcus, who says that they're becoming "reacquainted," hinting at some tension between him and his sister.

As Marcus and Violet observe Francesca Bridgerton (Hannah Dodd) on the dance floor, they talk about their past relationships. Marcus says that his marriage wasn't a love match or even passionate at the onset, but he became fond of her and they were happy until her death.

Violet then mentions that she had a love match with her late husband, Edmund Bridgerton. In response, Marcus says he's envious, but hopeful of finding a love match in his "second act."

Lady Danbury leaves the party early but is stopped by Marcus, who asks her to put her molding skills to use in his quest for love. Lady Danbury dismisses him, saying that she's not interested in aiding his raking. But he claims he has pure intentions.

Season 3 ends on a promising note for Marcus and Violet

During season three, part two, Marcus pursues Violet as Lady Danbury tries to intervene and set him up with other eligible women in the ton. Lady Danbury's hostility toward her brother isn't explained until episode six, when it's revealed that he prevented her from escaping town and took away her chance at freedom the night before her wedding to Lord Danbury.

Lady Danbury and Marcus hash out their childhood grievance during episode seven, with Marcus explaining that he snitched on her to their father because he thought he was protecting her from the dangers of the outside world.

He said that he was always in awe of Lady Danbury's courage but was also afraid of her — hence why he never told her any of this before. Lady Danbury, in response, explains that her life has been so full of joy lately, and she was concerned that he'd take it away from her.

In the season three finale, Violet asks for Lady Danbury's blessing to see where her feelings for Marcus take her. Lady Danbury tells her that they're adults who are free to do as they please, but if the relationship sours, she's taking Violet's side over her brother's.

Violet and Marcus are then seen having their first dance together at the Dankworth-Finch ball as Lady Danbury smiles at them in support.

With a fourth season already in the works, showrunner Jess Brownell teased that fans haven't seen the last of Violet and Marcus' blossoming romance.

"I love that relationship," she told Entertainment Weekly. "I love what a slow burn it is. For Violet, who hasn't dipped her toes in the dating pool for so long, she needs a very slow burn."

Season three of "Bridgerton" is streaming on Netflix.

• The next US stealth fighter hangs in the balance as the Air Force weighs modernization costs.
• Officials suggest AI-enabled drone wingmen have a clearer future than the next-gen fighter jet.
• The drones could end up flying with the upcoming F-35 fleet and other modernized-but-older jets.

America's next stealth fighter, slated to replace the F-22 Raptor by the close of this decade, may no longer be a sure thing as Air Force officials struggle to balance the ledger amid a long list of high-profile modernization programs.

This new fighter, being developed within the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program, has long been touted as the centerpiece of a new "family of systems" meant to fly alongside a constellation of AI-enabled drone wingmen. Yet recent remarks from Air Force officials suggest those wingmen have a more certain place within America's future airpower apparatus than the NGAD fighter itself.

When asked directly about the future of the NGAD program, which was supposed to have a contract announced this year, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin made it clear that the 6th generation fighter's future may be far from certain.

"The deliberations are still underway, there's been no decision made. We're looking at a lot of very difficult options that we have to consider," Allvin told reporters last week.

In what could mark an even more dramatic shift away from the status quo, Air Force officials have also hinted at a potential return to a fighter development model proposed by Air Force Acquisition Chief Will Roper back in 2019, in which smaller batches of fighters would be designed to operate with shorter lifespans, allowing for rapid design and technology changes as the threat landscape evolves.

This concept was dubbed the "digital century series" approach at the time, thanks to its emphasis on modern all-digital aircraft design and its similarities to the rapidly changing fighter designs of the 1950s and '60s — ranging from the North American F-100 Super Sabre to the Convair F-106 Delta Dart. Most modern fighter designs, like Lockheed Martin's F-35, for example, are meant to fly for a half-century or more, with long service lives seen as justification for their massive developmental budgets. Nevertheless, the F-35's model comes with at least two significant drawbacks.

The first is technological, as purchasing a new fighter today that can remain dominant into the 2070s is all but impossible without adapting to or adopting a variety of new technologies along the way. Being married to a single air superiority fighter design until what could conceivably fly until the close of this century, the Air Force may not be able to rapidly adjust to counter new threats as they emerge.

"We cannot pursue a lot of eggs in one basket and then find that the threat has advanced," Allvin explained.

The second drawback is economic, with lifespan sustainment representing a huge portion of a fighter program's overall cost. To use the F-35 as an example again, its overall program cost is now estimated to exceed $2 trillion over the jet's lifetime, but some $1.6 trillion of that — a whopping 80% of the total cost — comes from maintenance and sustainment over its decadeslong lifespan.

Roper's Digital Century Series model aimed to curtail these costs by instead leaning into agile software development, digital engineering, and open-system modular architecture to allow the Air Force and its prime contractors to rapidly develop and field new fighter designs with enough regularity to limit the lifespan of each to just a decade or two. This would allow the Air Force to continuously field the most advanced airpower assets on the planet while also eliminating the most expensive (later) years of the sustainment cycle.

"'Built to last' is a tremendous 20th-century bumper sticker, and the assumption then was, whatever you had was relevant as long as it lasts," Allvin said. "I'm not sure that's true anymore."

There are indeed several good reasons to transition to a model that could produce a new fighter design every decade or two. Not only would such a model mean cutting out the most expensive decades of a fighter's lifespan, but it would also allow for the rapid adoption of emerging technologies in the steady flow of new fighters maturing toward service. That steady flow of new designs could be a boon unto itself, as it could potentially make fighter designs a truly competitive industry once again.

Today, there are really only three American firms left in the fighter business, all of whom trade largely on other types of military and commercial technologies across their portfolio, as fighter contracts have been few and far between in the modern era. With Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works winning both 1991's Advanced Tactical Fighter competition and 2001's Joint Strike Fighter Competition, it's been 49 years since any company other than Lockheed Martin has won the right to field a new clean-sheet fighter.

But the Digital Century Series model would see new fighter designs being fielded every five to 10 years, which would mean the development cycle for the next new fighter would likely begin almost immediately after a contract is awarded for the current one. This could create the necessary incentive for a wider variety of firms to compete in the fighter design space, and that competition could be made even greater by separating design and production contracts into separate awards. This could allow newer or smaller firms that lack the production infrastructure required to mass produce new stealth fighters to compete in the design space, with production contracts potentially still awarded to long-standing primes like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, or Northrop Grumman.

But, there are also some glaring issues with the Air Force potentially reverting to Roper's concept for fighter production this late in the game for NGAD, which has been in active development since 2014.

"We've already built and flown a full-scale flight demonstrator in the real world, and we broke records in doing it," Roper told Defense News at the Air Force Association's Air, Space and Cyber Conference in 2020. "We are ready to go and build the next-generation aircraft in a way that has never happened before."

These aircraft designs, as well as the more powerful and efficient engines being developed to power them, have continued to mature since, with Northrop Grumman bowing out of the competition in early 2024 and Lockheed Martin and Boeing seemingly competing for the contract award. This could spell a significant cost problem: With this effort maturing for about a decade now, transitioning away from a traditional fighter acquisition model at this stage would force a revision of the designs in testing to embrace lower costs and shorter operational lifespans — which is why Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall described such a change as "far too expensive" in 2022 when the concept of the Digital Century Series lost favor.

The Air Force now appears to be coming around to Roper's way of thinking but now must weigh the costs of changing the requirements of a program that's already seen well over a billion dollars and several years' worth of investment. The stakes of these deliberations are already high, but they're made even higher because of the tight timetable created by what some might call short-sighted decision-making around the branch's last air superiority fighter program, the F-22 Raptor.

Despite first taking flight in 1997, the F-22 Raptor is still broadly considered to be the most capable air superiority fighter on the planet thanks to an awe-inspiring combination of stealth, sensor fusion, and good old-fashioned power. But, because the F-22 entered service after the collapse of the Soviet Union and well before Xi Jinping's rise to power, its production run was cut short after just 186 airframes were produced, only around 150 of which were combat coded (or equipped with all the necessary systems for combat).

With much of its production infrastructure then cannibalized by the F-35 program, it became all but impossible to produce more Raptors. With each F-22 airframe rated for around 6,000 flight hours, these aircraft can undergo expensive service-life extension programs, but eventually, they will simply wear out. And without a new air superiority fighter in production to replace them, the US runs the risk of leaving the air superiority mission gapped for some time as the new Digital Century Series fighters take shape.

However, Allvin's comments may have come with something of an ulterior motive. With competition for the NGAD contract underway and the Air Force clearly recognizing how the future of fighter acquisitions may be in flux, these statements may be a means of placing public pressure on Lockheed and Boeing to revise their proposals, particularly in terms of cost. In other words, the Air Force may intend to transition toward the Digital Century Series acquisition model moving forward but may be using the public groundwork for that transition to create negotiating leverage with Lockheed Martin and Boeing today.

It's also possible that the Air Force has made these announcements to sound the alarm among the lawmaker class, which could potentially bolster the branch's buying power in the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act to ensure NGAD continues unfettered despite the Air Force's pressing need to also fund the production of new B-21 Raider stealth bombers and the already well-over-budget Sentinel ICBM meant to replace America's aging Minuteman III missiles.

Whether or not either of the above two possibilities is the case won't likely be clear until well after the NGAD contract — in whatever form it may ultimately manifest — has been awarded.

But while the future of the NGAD fighter itself may now be in question, the AI-enabled drones meant to fly alongside it, being developed within the Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program, seem to be progressing at full steam ahead, with Allvin pointing to similar 10-year acquisition timelines for new CCA drones as well.

This would similarly allow the branch to rapidly field new technologies and capabilities as they emerge while keeping costs relatively low for each iteration of these drones — with modular systems shared across platforms to keep prices down. These drones are already expected to fly alongside the forthcoming Block 4 F-35 and could certainly end up accompanying other modernized-but-older jets like the F-22 and F-15EX a bit further down the road.

The question, however, will soon become whether it makes more sense to extend the lifespan of the F-22 long enough to compensate for delays in fielding its replacement or fielding a new high-end fighter that might not have what it takes to remain competitive into the 2070s.

Regardless of which path the Air Force ultimately chooses, that choice will only get pricier the longer the branch waits to decide.

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