Being an elite athlete capable of earning a college scholarship to play sports was always considered to be a wonderful opportunity. Using your talents on the playing field to garner yourself a free post-secondary education while also getting to keep playing the game that you love was considered a win-win.
Or was it? College sports, especially football and men’s basketball, are massively popular, with huge amounts of money wagered on the games in these sports at the leading online betting sites. The schools also benefit from lucrative television contracts. Coaches garner seven-figure salaries at the top schools.
Through all this, beyond their scholarship, players didn’t see any other benefits from this gravy train that fuels college sports. In fact, suspensions could be in order were a college athlete to be caught using their likenesses to benefit financially in any manner.
That all changed on July 1, 2021. That was when the NCAA approved the name, image, and likeness policy (NIL). This program enables student-athletes to monetize their NIL.
However, there still seems to be an element of the Wild West to the NIL. To what degree a student athlete can benefit from the program tends to vary from state to state. And certainly, the schools that are situated in NIL-favorable states are using that factor to their advantage when recruiting players.
How The NIL Works For College Athletes
In basic terms, the NIL is an agreement or arrangement between a student athlete and a third party. It could be a brand like a shoe company, or perhaps a retailer local to the school’s area which hires the athlete to be a spokesperson endorsing their brand. It can also be as simple as a deal between a booster and a player. Or it could be part of what’s known as a university collective. This is a fund of booster and donor money specifically earmarked for NIL usage.
The task required of the player might be as easy as taking payment to show up and sign autographs in a store, or being offered a stipend in exchange for extolling the virtues of a company through the athlete’s social media channels.
In all of these cases, the bottom line is that the student athlete will be receiving some level of financial compensation in exchange for letting any of these entities use their name, image and likeness in order to promote their product. And what some of these athletes are getting certainly isn’t chump change.
Consider the example of Michigan Wolverines running back Blake Corum. Following a spectacular junior season in 2022 when he rushed for 1,463 yards and scored 19 touchdowns, earning him Big Ten MVP honors and unanimous All-American selection, the thinking was that Corum would declare for the NFL Draft.
Instead, he got paid to go back to Michigan and help the Wolverines win the national title in 2023. Estimates are that Corum was earning $928,000 in NIL money to play one more season for the Wolverines. He might not have made that much money from an NFL signing bonus were he to have entered the draft. You could classify it as the proverbial offer that he couldn’t refuse.
A laundry list of companies were funding Corum’s Michigan stay. They included Next Gen Camps, CLR Academy, the Michigan Army National Guard, The M Den, Wolverine Boots, the BC2 Football Camp, Bon Bon Bon chocolates, Subway, Outback Steakhouse and Yoke.
With that kind of cash being funneled his way, is it any wonder that Corum was opting to put the NFL on hold for another season? And it didn’t hurt him at all to play one more season of college football. After winning the national title, he was selected in the NFL Draft by the Los Angeles Rams.
NIL A Major Recruiting Tool
Schools in NIL-rich states are most definitely employing that factor in recruiting, both in terms of top high-school prospects, as well as with players who are entering the transfer portal.
Some schools aren’t even shy about it. For instance, a school in need of a new point guard for the basketball team might just put out an information package showing potential recruits exactly how much they could make by signing with their school.
When NFL legend Deion Sanders took over as head coach of the Colorado Buffaloes in 2023, the school employed the NIL to convince 14 players to transfer to a team that was coming off a 1-11 season. Among the top recruits to cash in via the NIL were quarterback Shedeur Sanders, who made $3.8 million and wide receiver Jimmy Horn Jr., who scored $1.8 million in NIL funding.
Is The NIL Good For College Sports?
On the surface, you’d have to say the concept of the NIL is fair. For decades, everyone in major college sports was making bags of money off the backs of players who saw none of that cash coming their way. They were certainly more than deserving of their share of his money pie.
At the same time, it does seem that the NIL is benefitting the bigger schools, who can flash the cash and get the best players in the nation to play for them. Iconic Alabama football coach Nick Saban admitted the way the NIL was being used in recruiting was part of what drove him into retirement last year.
He told a story of how he and his wife would invite the recruits and their families into the Saban household to make them feel welcome as part of the Alabama community. However, what they discovered was that the No. 1 question on the minds of all the parents was how much they were willing to pay to get their kid to play for the Crimson Tide.
“When we start using name, image and likeness for a kid to come to our school, that’s where I draw the line,” Saban told reporters. “Because that’s not why we did this.”
