The NCAA’s new name, image and likeness rules are more than a year old, but college administrators and football coaches are still seeking more guardrails and regulations to deal with the dramatic change upending decades of amateurism rules.
Careful to not dismiss opportunities for their players to make money from name, image and likeness (NIL), which are very popular with players, those in charge lamented that payments have quickly become a recruiting tool. ACC commissioner Jim Phillips used part of his opening address at the league’s annual football preview event this week to press for national regulation from Congress.
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“The lack of a single enforceable standard for NIL across the schools and all states has created an environment where inducements inaccurately labeled as NIL are disrupting recruiting,” Phillips said Wednesday. “Fair regulation of recruiting is essential for fair competition. We all know NIL has upended recruiting, a result no one desired when it came into effect last July. How did it happen? NIL rules differ from state to state. Regulation is nonexistent. Enforcement of the rules is incredibly challenging.”
Last summer, the NCAA released interim guidance suspending their previous rules that prohibited athletes from profiting from their athletic status. Under the new rules, players were free to start making money. They could accept payments for autograph sessions, work as instructors at camps, sponsor products and use their social media platforms as influencers. The NCAA deferred to a patchwork of state laws.
But, in a development that should hardly have qualified as shocking, NIL became a catch-all for giving players money, including to get them to pick a certain school — though such inducements are not allowed by the NCAA. In updated guidance released in May, the NCAA highlighted that boosters — defined as anyone that promotes an athletic department or assists with recruiting — were prohibited “from recruiting and/or providing benefits to prospective student-athletes.”
It promised enforcement, not of the players, but of the outside actors.
“It has rocked our college athletics world,” Phillips said. “We all have kind of vowed to stay within certain boundaries as it relates to rules and regulations. This is one that doesn't have any right now. So that's where the bumpiness has come into, and that's where the uneasiness that I certainly feel within our conference and I know other commissioners feel in their conferences. We really, really need some help in Washington. That's a tough place to be.”
Few expect a bitterly divided Congress to act on the issue. Getting 50 states to move in unison would seem impossible as well. That leaves the NCAA.
“Before cheaters were cheating, but we could at least threaten them some with the NCAA,” North Carolina football coach Mack Brown said. “So, to me, it's going to take the NCAA to step up and stop some of these people that are throwing around cash so readily before that will slow down.”
Brown said athletes should be no different than a musician or artist on campus, who is allowed to make money playing shows or selling their products. He said NIL is teaching players valuable lessons about entrepreneurship, giving back, paying taxes and working with marketing agents.
Wide receiver Tylee Craft, who was diagnosed with lung cancer, has made money from selling t-shirts and hosting a golf tournament and his helping to support his mom who has taken time off work to be alongside her son.
“There are so many positive things with name, image, and likeness,” Brown said. “Where we missed it as a group is that we didn't have any guardrails. Then that starts affecting recruiting, and you don't want to ever get to a position where you can't keep recruiting competitive.”
But programs cannot stand still. Brown had the CEO of Booster, a social media company that allows fans to pay to boost your posts, present to the Tar Heel football team recently. It followed another presentation on group licensing. Linebacker Cedric Gray said he has signed with the Heels 4 Life collective.
“I want our collective to be good. I want our boosters to step up and have that money and that collective,” Brown said. “Whether we like it or not, we all know that the better you do, the more money you make, the better the players do, the more we win, the more people are willing to give to the collective.”
Brown said he did not know how many of his players had NIL deals nor did he know how much money they’d made. N.C. State football coach Dave Doeren said the same this week. The Pack of Wolves NIL collective formed at N.C. State earlier this summer.
“To me, it’s about the guys that are on your team that are earning it on the field or in the classroom or in the community,” Doeren said. “And that’s what it was created for. It was created because you’ve got quarterbacks signing autographs for eight hours and getting no money out of it, and they deserve an opportunity to generate income. It shouldn’t be a part of recruiting and hopefully the NCAA can get their arms around that.”
Miami boosters have been aggressive with their use of NIL deals, notably billionaire John Ruiz who has signed 115 athletes to deals. Ruiz, an attorney and businessman, founded MSP Recovery, a healthcare reimbursement recovery company, which owns LifeWallet. Athletes endorse LifeWallet and Ruiz’s powerboat company. Ruiz, a Miami graduate, told Sports Illustrated he’s spent $7 million on NIL deals.
“It seems pretty obvious that as a university, as an athletics program, that our student-athletes have done really well with NIL,” first-year Miami coach Mario Cristobal said. “Since it is part of the changes in college football, and it is a constitutional right, we have a positive mindset towards that.”
Cristobal said Miami’s location and its international profile “along with prominent alumni that could be supportive” have helped the Hurricanes.
“What everybody really desires is just a little bit more clarity so that from a direction standpoint we can all understand it better to maximize it, but at the same time make sure that the educational aspect is real, that we're providing a better path for a better future,” said Cristobal, who said he would have loved to have NIL around when he played at Miami.
Players and companies have not waited for more direction. They are moving forward. North Carolina State linebacker Isaiah Moore has a clothing company, For the Culture Clothing that sells personalized Moore t-shirts, sweatshirts, sweatpants and hats. He has signed with the Pack of Wolves collective.
Georgia coach Kirby Smart, whose team won the national championship in 2021, said 95 of his players have NIL deals. He said the Bulldogs had the highest-paid defensive lineman, tight end and cornerback in the NIL market. Alabama coach Nick Saban, whose team is a perennial title contender, said Crimson Tide players have made $3 million in NIL deals.
“They say comparison is the thief of joy. What we get as far as NIL at NC State and the platform that we have individually as student-athletes, that's kind of just who we are,” Moore said. “We can't sit around and compare what other schools or what other players are doing. We're taking away from it all the things that we've accomplished and all the things that we have put forth to make our platform the way they are. NIL provides us with a great opportunity to continue to grow that platform. It's up to us to really take action and do stuff.”
Clemson quarterback D.J. Uiagalelei signed a deal with Dr. Pepper in August for a national television campaign. He also signed with Bojangles last year. Former North Carolina quarterback Sam Howell also had a deal with Bojangles.
“For us, as a Clemson program, everyone that does make money on our team, everyone is happy for each other, and I feel like in our locker room that everyone supports people if you do make some money from NIL,” Uiagalelei said. “As long as you keep football the main thing in your life and that you don't let NIL become the main focus, I feel like NIL can be perfectly fine in a college football setting.
Once you make NIL the main topic and it's more important than football, then I feel like someone has to come and step in and make an issue for that.”