Everything You Always Wanted to Know About NIL* (*But Were Afraid to Ask)

It's been nearly a year since the NCAA was forced to change its policy. Let's see how things have gone for athletes and schools.

June 28, 2022

Friday marks one year since NCAA athletes could finally profit off their Name, Image and Likeness. It’s also been a year since the NCAA issued an interim NIL policy, prompting a fair amount of confusion about what’s allowed, enforcement, and a dozen other issues.

Part of that’s understandable. NIL rules vary by state and by the school (this is perhaps the best Q&A out there), so there isn’t a perfect answer. But that hasn’t stopped athletes, programs and others from getting to work.

So we thought we’d dive in with today’s Field of 68 Daily and focus solely on NIL.

STARTING FIVE

1. It’s anything but simple

Not every state has an NIL law. Not every school helps athletes navigate the NIL process. And the laws don’t even “allow NIL.” They prohibit the NCAA from prohibiting NIL. That’s how it used to be, as Amanda Christovich, the Sports Business Reporter for Front Office Sports, reminds me.

“When you joined the NCAA, you signed a contract. You signed away your NIL rights,” she says. “In many ways, giving college athletes NIL rights makes them more similar to their non-athlete peers. Because it’s giving them a right every other student has.”

Even less straightforward? The NIL collectives.

They’re people who pool resources to give athletes NIL opportunities at schools. they could be boosters, alumni, local businesses, donors, or all of them. As Christovich writes in FOS (she’ll be writing about NIL all week), the NCAA isn’t happy about collectives, but they aren’t going anywhere. With more than 60 active collectives, keeping track of how they’re working — and who they’re working with — is no small thing. Especially when they’re not just at Power 5 schools.

2. It’s big deals and lots of smaller deals

Not everything is a Nigel Pack-type deal (or even close to what’s reportedly happening in college football). NIL usually means a small, local deal, but could still be significant for a college kid.

“The vast majority of deals are for $1,000s, if not $100s of dollars,” says Mit Winter, an attorney at Kennyhertz Perry in Kansas City. “What people are calling the ‘real NIL deals’ where it’s a brand and they want the athlete to act as the endorser, to the collective deals, where it’s more of a salary. But a lot of times those aren’t really getting reported, so there isn’t really good data.”

(The money does add up. Christovich says Ohio State athletes have about 1,000 NIL deals worth more than $3 million.)

Winter, who played college hoops at William & Mary before spending much of his time today working around NIL, is one of the best Twitter follows for NIL deals and analysis. His best guess is that most college athletes haven’t even signed an NIL deal, let alone a big one. (This Topps announcement would be my personal favorite. Your own hoops or football card? Amazing.)

Also, as Winter notes, it plays a significant role in recruiting. Prospects often inquire about NIL deals in initial conversations, because the opportunities represent real money.

“It's the number one question that's asked but you can't talk about it,” Kansas coach Bill Self said recently. “You can talk about and tell them what you do. But you can't be specific, which is the way it should be. [...] It's just a different world and we do not have it under control at all right now.”

3. Programs ahead of the curve

Boise State was named “Best Institutional NIL Program” last month, earning praise for an in-house agency that handles representation and individual and group licensing deals. In addition, it assigns a school employee to find potential deals.

But it’s far from the only school trying to maximize NIL.

Duke, Kentucky and Texas all have NIL officers (with various titles). North Carolina churned out gear during its Final Four run. USC recently hired an agency to oversee its athletes exploring NIL deals (one can only imagine how much more Reggie Bush could’ve made. Instead he’ll have to settle for Wendy’s commercials), while Kansas spent the spring on a national title barnstorming tour. Basically, schools are exploring everything.

Perhaps the biggest benefit schools can offer? Legal advice and tax advice. It’s an opportunity to make money and learn about money.

NIL deals aren’t like getting a W-2. They might have a unique structure with specific clauses or a collective might whiff when it comes to reporting compensation. Anything that helps a 20-somethings avoid a mistake would be huge.

4. It’s been incredible for the big men

Oscar Tshiebwe. Armando Bacot. Drew Timme. Hunter Dickinson. Trayce Jackson-Davis. Any of those five names offer a succinct reason why NIL helps college basketball. This isn’t a new take, but one worth reiterating for its impact on college hoops.

The big guys who don’t fit today’s style of NBA play can simply stay in school, make north of $1 million — likely more than they’d see playing professionally — and ensure the college game benefits by having some of its biggest talents and biggest names stick around.

While Tshiebwe could reportedly bank the most money this season ($2 million!), Bacot appears to be the guy having the most fun.

He sells his own shirts, has a Topps card deal, has his own burger (our Chapel Hill correspondent Riley Davis says it’s quite good) and maybe best of all, filmed an appearance on Outer Banks. Without NIL, there’s no way he’s in Chapel Hill for another season. As he told SI.com, it was “a no-brainer. I get a chance to get better, get my degree, be around all my friends and then also make a lot of money.”

The big guys aren’t the only ones raking it in. Beyond the Miami guards, Emoni Bates did just fine at Memphis, and most of the SEC players will benefit nicely. (And that’s to say nothing of what the women’s hoops stars are making.)

5. The looming question

NIL is here to stay. Collectives aren’t going anywhere. The biggest thing to tackle going forward is the other looming paradigm shift.

Are athletes employees?

The NCAA is currently a defendant in Johnson vs. NCAA, a case, brought by current and former athletes, that says athletes should be employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act. A judge refused to dismiss the case last fall and is currently with the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.

The SEC recently filed a brief supporting the NCAA’s position (a no-brainer, considering the stakes). From The Athletic:

it claims that the FLSA and guidance from the Department of Labor do not recognize college athletes as employees. It asks the court to rely on the Labor Department’s field operations handbook, which says “students engaged in ‘intramural and intercollegiate athletics’ are not employees because participation in intercollegiate athletics is not ‘work’ of the kind contemplated by the FLSA and does ‘not result in an employee-employer relationship between the student and the school or institution.’”

If the Third Circuit rules in favor of Johnson, expect this to be another one that lands in the Supreme Court’s lap.

THE FAST BREAK

Links as you wonder how Top Gun: Maverick is Tom Cruise’s first billion-dollar movie.

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