You’ve heard it many times before. “NIL.” But what does it mean in today’s landscape and how does it affect the current collegiate athlete? Also, from a broader view, how is NIL positively and negatively affecting the sports world overall? In this piece, we take a deeper dive into the true nature of Name, Image, and Likeness.
The Good:
A unanimous Supreme Court ruling in the summer of 2021 made it possible to allow student-athletes to use their own name to earn money and receive compensation through endorsements, sponsorships, merchandising, and collectives. This means athletes can now profit from activities like promoting brands on social media, starring in commercials and ads, selling branded merchandise, and more recently through NIL collectives. Collectives, which are donor specific organizations, gather money to offer sponsorship opportunities to student-athletes at various colleges and universities. These new rules alone are a far cry from the old NCAA model, which for the longest time prohibited and penalized students and their eligibility from making deals or even accepting gifts. Players can now maximize their earning potential and change the course of the life of themselves and their families without needing to go pro. This is significant because less than 2% percent of NCAA student-athletes go on to play professional sports. Instead they can now reap the benefits of their own situations and create a rock solid financial foundation for the present and future.
The Bad:
With as much good that NIL brings to the student-athlete, there are an equal amount of rising issues that have developed due to its nature. It’s important to remember that at the end of the day these are young adults that range from the ages of roughly 17-23 years old and without proper guidance and instruction, students can be exploited by agents and companies into signing bad contracts or taking bad deals. Additionally, top players more specifically in basketball and football tend to receive those massive deals leaving their teammates with less, creating inequity and jealousy right in the locker room itself.
The Ugly:
Due to such poor regulation, we’re starting to see the fabric of the major sports begin to deteriorate. Athletes are now using the transfer portal to jump from school to school at breakneck speed, essentially going to the highest bidder or whichever program is offering the most money. This ends up taking away that beloved junior or senior that you grow accustomed to seeing for years with a certain program and disrupts a team’s entire roster continuity. In the current model, it’s not uncommon to see a player transfer to four schools in four years. In many cases, this ends up harming the player as they are burning bridges from the previous program and building less meaningful relationships and stability at one location. Not to mention pay-for-play corruption. Boosters are now using the same NIL collectives mentioned above to bribe recruits rather than provide actual endorsement opportunities, indirectly turning college sports into a model that mirrors the professionals. The wealthier schools and Power 5 programs have bigger boosters creating a massive advantage on the recruiting trail, creating an even larger competitive imbalance and destroying many of the Cinderella stories that have captured the hearts of a nation.
Final Thoughts:
There’s no denying that NIL has helped many student athletes realize dreams and opportunities that were otherwise previously unavailable for decades. However, if there is no effort to address some of the major flaws, we could see chaos begin to augment itself quickly and threaten our favorite sports we’ve come to know and love.