Missouri's Journalism Experiment, Olympic Swimming, and NIL

Hey there,

We’ve got a loaded edition for you today: updates on the Congressional Hearing, Missouri’s NIL Journalism experiment, and a player-turned-NIL-collective head all in one year. It’s all coming up right ahead!

ALSO: Do you want to put your brand or product in front of the fastest growing NIL audience in the country?  We currently reach over 20,000 people daily. Reply to this email today and we can send you more information.

— Cole, Justin and Collin

KICK-OFF

Olympic Swimming and NIL

The life cycle of a swimmer’s NIL is very different than other sports because of the Olympics. Katie Ledecky, Missy Franklin, Simone Manuel, and Lilly King all won gold medals as teenagers, meaning their brand’s monetary peak happened at a point when they couldn’t legally profit off of it.  

Now, NIL allows elite athletes to stay in school while also scoring sponsorships from their success in international competitions. The Tokyo Olympics were the first event to see this policy enacted, and to great success. 

It’s a good reminder that NIL is beneficial for more than just college football and basketball – a common criticism levied against it. (More)

Missouri Journalism’s NIL Experiment

The University of Missouri’s famed journalism school just stitched together one of the coolest NIL education opportunities to date, matching journalism students with student-athletes to explore their personal NIL brand potential.

The process was simple: The journalism students got to know their athlete, as well as performed an audit on their social media to see the type of content and frequency of their posting.

From there, they created a literal NIL playbook for the athlete, with recommendations on how to maximize their NIL on social media. Finally, the athletes were given potential future NIL partners that would fit with their brand. (More)

Congressional Hearing on NIL

Yesterday, lawmakers and NIL stakeholders met in Washington D.C. to discuss NIL, college sports amateurism, and whether or not collegiate athletes should be considered employees. The full hearing can be found here.

The event was marked by spirited debates about what college sports “should” look like. Rep. Rick Allen of Georgia, suggested that college football needs to return to ‘some normalcy,’ which, according to him, is an amateurism model. Others called for athletes to be officially recognized as employees.

One of the most interesting perspectives came from UCLA quarterback Chase Griffin, who has been championed by many as one of the most “successful” cases of NIL in the country. He spurned NIL discussions more or less, opting instead to talk about employment models.

“The fact that we’re hung up on NIL shows how far ahead the courts, college athletes and public opinion are compared to Congress,” he said, “That’s where a large source of the distrust in Congress comes from.” (More)

BEST PRACTICES

Three Rules of Signing an NIL Contract

Signing an NIL contract is a big, legally binding deal. Considering the lack of uniformity in NIL contracts (although that’s changing soon), athletes need to be extra careful on what they’re signing up for — no one wants to end up like Gervon Dexter. According to SwimSwam, there’s three things for athletes to keep in mind when signing a deal.

• Don’t Feel Pressured: Working out the details of a contract can take time, so don’t ever rush into a deal. An extremely tight decision deadline can be a red flag on the company you’re signing with.

• Read the Whole Agreement: It may seem obvious, but many people don’t read an entire deal before signing the dotted line. Be sure you know exactly what you’re agreeing to by reading every inch of the contract — especially the fine print.

• Research for Conflicting Interest: Some schools have pre-existing deals in place with certain companies, which could restrict an athlete’s ability to make a deal. For example, at a school like Penn State, no one can sign a footwear deal with any company other than Nike. Research your school’s commitments to make sure you’re good to go! (More)

DOWN TO BUSINESS

Utes Upset about Altruistic Efforts

“One of the gaps that they saw is that a lot of donors wanted to get booster credit for the donations that they were making to the collectives,” said Rep. Jordan Teuscher, the bill’s sponsor, “[Donors want] some sort of personal benefit beyond just altruistically wanting the teams to perform better and being able to pull in better athletes.”

Translation: legal “rewards programs” could be coming down the line for Utah collectives to keep the money coming in. (More)

NIL is Keeping Kids in School, Objectively

As Executive Director of the Senior Bowl, Jim Nagy knows more about the NFL Draft than just about anyone. Recently, the longtime draft insider pointed out a trend in college football: draft-eligible underclassmen staying in school longer.

When NIL was first pitched, many college sports enthusiasts pointed to this exact phenomenon as a potential advantage of the policy, and they’ve been proven right. Since 2019 there’s been a steady decline every year in how many underclassmen leave college for the NFL. (More)

COLLECTIVE 101

Are NIL Collectives Employers?

The National Labor Relations Board is currently in court to determine whether USC, the Pac-12 conference, and the NCAA are joint employers of the school’s football team… but maybe they’re looking in the wrong places. Michael LeRoy of Illinois University suggests that perhaps athletes are employees of NIL collectives themselves.

“NIL pay indicates an employment relationship between a collective and a school for football and men’s basketball,” he said, “The compressed timing and base-level NIL pay for these athletes are small-scale versions of contracts in the NFL and NBA.”

A key piece of his argument is that the value of a player’s social media post – one of the most common ways that players receive money for their NIL – is absolutely tied to their athletic production. Because that money is tied to their talent, not necessarily NIL, it would make the collective itself an employer of the player. (More)

Road-Running It Back

UTSA QB Frank Harris retired from football after the Roadrunners’ victory in the Miami Beach Bowl, but he still wanted to stay with the program. After turning down coaching jobs on UTSA’s staff, he eventually opted to become the executive director of the school’s NIL collective.

Before the 2023 season, Harris rejected seven-figure NIL offers from bigger schools to stay at UTSA. (More)

ATHLETE SPOTLIGHT

Shaqir O’Neal

Meet Shaqir O'Neal, the rising basketball star at Texas Southern and son of NBA legend Shaquille O'Neal. With an impressive NIL valuation of $812,000, Shaqir is also in the business world. From partnerships with Silk and Capital One to a stylish collaboration with brother Shareef O'Neal for BooHooMan, Shaqir is making good use of his last name.

NIL BLITZ

♦️ Michigan RB says his NIL deal was a “signal from God”

♦️ Coastal Carolina finally has a baseball-focused NIL collective

♦️ UNC may bring their collectives under one umbrella

♦️ How one NC State runner is becoming an NIL star

♦️ Caleb Williams visits Nike HQ

♦️ Maryland lacrosse stud is using NIL for good

BATTER UP

Today’s Poll Question:

Last Edition’s Poll Results:

Which non-football program has the best NIL pitch?

• Duke Basketball - 35%

• LSU Women’s Basketball - 26%

• LSU Gymnastics - 14%

• Kentucky Basketball - 15%

• Other - 10%