🏅 Labor Relations & Missouri Donations

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Hey there,

While watching my #13 ranked Baylor Bears inch out a win over Texas Tech last night, I thought to myself… “If I’m an NIL writer, does watching this game count as work?” I decided that yes, it was. We love giving y’all the news day in and day out, and if that means I have to ingest as much college basketball as humanly possible, that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make for you, the NIL Wire readers. I’m such a hero for that, aren’t I?

Enough goofing around, you’re here for the news — and we’re excited to give it to you. But first, you should follow us on Twitter. We’ve got video content, NIL updates and more — check it out!

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KICK-OFF

NLRB names Dartmouth Basketball “Employees”

Early last fall, Dartmouth’s basketball team filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) seeking employment status so they could unionize. This week, the NLRB’s regional director in Boston concluded they are indeed employees of the university.

“Because Dartmouth has the right to control the work performed by the Dartmouth men’s basketball team,” NLRB leader Laura Sacks said, “and the players perform that work in exchange for compensation, I find that the petitioned-for basketball players are employees within the meaning of the [National Labor Relations] Act.”

It’s unclear exactly how this development will change the future of college sports, but we can deduce a few things. For one, it shows us how the employment issue might be legally handled in the future. Secondly, the determination signals some form of an employment model will likely play some role in the future of college athletics. (More)

Stanford: The Sleeping Giant

Stanford is calling on one of the biggest sports stars in the school’s history, Christian McCaffrey, to help inject life into their NIL collective. The 49ers running back partnered with Lifetime Cardinal by voicing over their newest promotional video: 

While Stanford has been reluctant to commit to NIL in the recent past, the video promotion definitively sets a new course for the program. To the delight of Cardinal fans everywhere, the school’s NIL strategy seems to be shifting towards competitive for the first time since NIL’s conception.

They’re not just talk, either. The university recently hired an in-house NIL general manager to oversee the program’s operation. With an extremely wealthy donor base, Stanford could become one of the country’s leading NIL players if they can energize their alumni toward giving to athletics. (More)

Restraining Order Denied in Recent NCAA Lawsuit

The plot thickens in what has swiftly become highest profile legal dispute in the NIL world. A court just denied Tennessee and Virginia their requests for a temporary restraining order against the NCAA, citing no “irreparable harm” as the basis of the decision. Essentially, the ruling means the NCAA can keep its NIL recruitment policies in place… for now.

The NCAA shouldn’t be dancing quite yet, though. Sports law expert Mit Winter sees this as a temporary ruling, and doesn’t think the courts will hold the policies up long-term. “The NCAA is likely to lose the case,” Winter said on Twitter/X, “and the NIL rules will be permanently enjoined at the conclusion of the case.” (More)

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WHAT’S TRENDING

Ups and Downs

• Arizona Wildcats guard Caleb Love saw a $174K valuation drop this week despite the team winning five of their last six games 📉

• Crocs struck gold with their NIL investment in Michigan’s Roman Wilson, who brought the shoe company tons of brand value after his playoff performances📈

• Maryland’s Jayla Bynum inked a deal with Hot Topic as the NIL market for track and field continues to show growth 📈

DOWN TO BUSINESS

Pitino’s Payment Plan

Never one to back down from controversy, St. John’s head coach Rick Pitino recently took to Twitter to vent his frustrations about NIL and the current college basketball landscape. Following up the Dartmouth ruling on employment, the legendary coach put forward his own solution to the athlete compensation problem: 

It’s an interesting idea, to be sure. In the same thread, Pitino also floated the idea of schools signing players to “two-year binding contracts” because they are “professional athletes.” (More)

• Kirk Herbstreit thinks more coaches will head to NFL because of NIL. In a tweet discussing the topic, he said that “This trend will continue until there is a new governing body and it creates a CBA with a players entity or union.”

• In early January, Sportico published their five sports law predictions for 2024. The whole list is interesting, but we’re mainly flagging the fact that they predicted the recent Dartmouth employment decision a month ago, and they also seemed to think that USC’s ruling would follow a similar suit.

COLLECTIVE 101

Collectives Exploring Contract Insurance

Sports risk management and injury firm Players Health is rolling out an artificial intelligence platform that will help a few major industry needs. The platform will include financial analytics tools that account for player movement, as well as insurance policies for both player injury and transfer portal losses.

Collectives will be specifically interested in the contract insurance. CEO Tyrre Burks explained the model as such: “Say a kid is making a half a million dollars and [a collective] really wants to get this kid, so they front-load the cash and then there's a set of deliverables that they have as the season gets closer,” Burks explained.

“[The player] could transfer before the season ends…Now the collective is out of this cash. So we would insure that and make the collective whole, so that they can use the capital that they were going to deploy to go get another [athlete].” (More)

• The University of Missouri just received the biggest gift in school history from an anonymous donor. A whopping $12M of the $62M gift will be going directly to the Tiger Fund, the school’s primary NIL initiative.

• Alumni from St. John’s 1999 Elite Eight basketball team reunited for an event last week to raise funds for the school’s NIL strategy. Head coach Rick Pitino has made it a goal to roster build through NIL since becoming coach.

ATHLETE SPOTLIGHT

Emily Saunders

Meet Emily Saunders, a standout basketball player for the Youngstown State who's not only dominating on the court, but also breaking new ground in the NIL world. Her most recent collaboration was with Crossover Culture, a brand exclusively available at Dick's Sporting Goods. She secured that deal through Instagram DMs, but most of her ventures come through the Opendorse marketplace.

NIL BLITZ

♦️ Notre Dame’s Sam Hartman says NIL doesn’t affect team chemistry

♦️ USC commit Juju Lewis signs a deal with Alo Yoga

♦️ K-State names an official NIL partner

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BATTER UP

Today’s Poll Question:

Last Edition’s Poll Results:

Would you rather your school have an NIL-savvy coach, or an Xs and Os specialist?

• NIL-savvy: acquiring good players are the most important part - 59%

• Xs and Os: better coaching should beat out better talent - 41%