The announcements came in a flurry as soon as the calendar flipped to July one year ago.
Miami quarterback D’Eriq King was among the first college athletes to capitalize on the use of his name, image and likeness, signing a deal with a moving company worth about $20,000. Wisconsin quarterback Graham Mertz and Oklahoma quarterback Spencer Rattler tweeted out their new personal logos, showing they were open for business. Hanna and Haley Cavinder, twin basketball players from Fresno State who were mostly unknown to the sports world aside from their massive social media following, suddenly found themselves posing in New York City promoting a mobile technology company and a whey protein brand.
It was all so … fun and seemingly innocent — and long overdue. When college sports’ NIL era began, businesses were paying current athletes either to reap the benefits from their fame or to create a buzz within the industry as a bold entrant into the new advertising space.
Then boosters started making their moves. Nearly a year later, Ohio State coach Ryan Day had to tell the local business leaders that the Buckeyes would need around $13 million yearly to compensate his five-star-studded roster. “Collectives” of donors across the country have tossed their riches together into funds, and the more brazen among them have reportedly offered six- and seven-figure agreements to high school players and college athletes who have entered the transfer portal. This alleged assault on the NCAA’s long-held rule that recruits could not be induced to attend a school by the promise of financial gain forced the association to threaten punishment in the coming year.
How did we get here? And where are we going? The upcoming one-year anniversary of this momentous change feels like a good time to explore.
What was NIL supposed to be and what is it today?
I have been writing about college athletes and the NIL since before the 2014 Ed O’Bannon v. NCAA trial. As Americans, we all have rights to use our NIL to make money, but college athletes did not due to the NCAA’s amateurism rules that were meant to differentiate between college and pro sports — and keep money in the pockets of the schools. O’Bannon did not appreciate the NCAA being able to use his NIL in classic broadcasts or video games without him seeing a cut of the profits. He was right to step forward.
This year, thousands of athletes have made varying amounts of money off legitimate use of NIL. The confusion has come when collectives are throwing large sums of money at football and men’s basketball players under the guise of NIL, when it is hard to imagine an exchange of services that could possibly equate to an amount like the reported $8 million deal a Tennessee collective gave to quarterback Nico Iamaleava of Long Beach Poly to secure his commitment.
In these cases, “NIL” is functioning as pay for play. I have no problem with college athletes being paid by schools or donors for immense gifts on the field, as long as all competing schools are playing by the same rules, which certainly does not appear to be the case across the Power Five.
“There is athlete-driven NIL, and there is athletics-driven NIL,” says Blake Lawrence, the founder of Opendorse, an app that connects athletes with brands, donors and fans. “Athlete-driven is student-athletes getting paid for social media promotions, merchandise sales, camps, clinics, appearances, where athletes are acting entrepreneurially. Athletics-driven is really the sponsors and donors in a certain market that are already supporting [the athletic department] in that market compensating student-athletes that happen to play their favorite sport at their favorite school.
“July was purely athlete-driven NIL. Brands compensating athletes at generally market rate. In August, we saw the first donor payment. It was the same outcome — this individual is paying an athlete for NIL activity — but maybe there’s an extra zero on the payment.”
It would be very hard for NCAA enforcement to find an issue with such a payment made through Opendorse, which requires evidence of the athlete completing the job before they can be compensated and has not processed a payment to a high school or transfer athlete.
“Illegitimate agreements are still handshake deals or off-platform transactions,” Lawrence says.
Can the NCAA actually enforce its new rules that focus on booster activity?
To me, it’s pretty easy to tell when something is NIL or “NIL,” but the NCAA is going to have its hands full finding evidence to differentiate.
“There’s no justification for the rule if it’s not going to be enforced, and sitting here a year in we haven’t seen a single enforcement, and we may never,” says Darren Heitner, a sports attorney who has advised many athletes, schools and collectives.
On July 1, 2021, Florida donor Eddie Rojas reached out to Heitner about helping to start the first known booster fund, which they named the “Gator Collective.” The term stuck as similar groups popped up nationwide. Heitner says Rojas wanted to comply with both Florida’s state law and the NCAA’s interim NIL policy.
“It’s a lot more than simply feeding athletes money, and there’s some true deliverables that the athletes are providing,” Heitner says. “We started to see larger donations being made over time to the collective and then not so long ago a creation of a separate organization with ‘Gator Guard,’ very powerful individuals pooling their resources with a minimum contribution of a million dollars. So we saw the model change over time, and that happened across the country.”
