With college teams squaring off last weekend and the National Football League's 2015 campaign kicking off Thursday night, September marks the official start of football season. And while teams in the professional and amateur ranks spar in stadia nationwide, litigators representing dueling gridiron interests face off in the courtroom.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association, the Indianapolis-based nonprofit that serves as the governing body for college sports, filed its annual Form 990 with the Internal Revenue Service this summer for its most recent fiscal year. The document, which covers the period between Sept. 1, 2013, and Aug. 31, 2014, shows that Latham & Watkins once again reaped the benefits from its ties to the NCAA, earning nearly $6.5 million for its work on behalf of the organization.

Latham's legal billings are roughly double the $3.2 million that the firm was paid for its NCAA-related work in 2012-13, according to our previous reports. The NCAA has turned to Latham to advise it in a range of litigation matters, including defending sanctions levied by the body against Penn State University over a sex scandal involving a former assistant football coach. (The NCAA's general counsel, former Latham litigation partner Donald Remy, earned $777,652 in total compensation from the organization last year, according to its tax filing.)