The impending NIL (name, image, likeness) Catastrophe

Okay, calling it a catastrophe may be a possible overstatement but possibly not. ESPN has an article up that goes through all the ways a player can make money with the new NIL policies and regulations. It covered revenue from social media, apparel contracts, camps and lessons, starting a business and commercials and ads. It was an informative article. As I was reading through it I couldn't help but postulate the myriad of unintended consequences that will emerge out of this brave new world. In my ideal little bubble world I would prefer for this issue of NIL not to exist. But my little bubble world exists only in my dreams. It is about to be a reality so it would be wise to be prepared for the actual reality and not the proposed ideal reality where there are no unintended consequences. Here are just a few of the thoughts I had as I was reading through this article.

1. Once this policy is put in place, I would fully expect every college athlete to fully take advantage of it and spend a fair amount of time on it. I certainly will not begrudge any athlete from trying to use this to make money. I certainly would were I in their shoes. I may not like the policy but once in place, it is only smart to take full legal and legitimate advantage of it.

2. The author points out that many of the most lucrative opportunities are more available and prevalent in larger cities. I fear this will skew recruiting where athletes place a priority on maximizing their income which will lead them to make college choices toward big cities.

3. One thing that seemed to emerge in reading the article is how much time an athlete will likely devote to his NIL issues. It seems that so many of the NCAA rules over the years have been designed to relieve the student athletes from being over worked and overstressed. This NIL issue seems that it will negate all that and add great time stress to the athletes.

4. The misalignment of goals and interests between the athletes and the universities is clearly going to be a HUGE issue. The author spoke to this issue and outlined how the rules and regulations will ultimately be designed to minimize these possible misalignments. Things such as not allowing students to use university logos or facilities or not allowing them to promote certain products such as marijuana or alcohol. But you simply cannot design the policies to be comprehensive enough to cover every possible situation between the athlete and the university or the coaching staff and the team.

5. Jealousy and strife within the team. We have all watched enough movies about military units or sports teams where a huge part of the movie theme was pulling the team together as a cohesive unit. One of my favorite movies is Miracle with Kurt Russell about the miracle on ice US Olympic 1980 hockey team that won the gold medal. Perhaps the most iconic scene is when Mike Eruzione finally shouts out, "My name is Mike Eruzione and I play for the United States of America". I can't help but think this NIL policy is going to have the unintended consequence of harming team unity and chemistry.

I have other thoughts but I will stop here for now. I am not bemoaning the fact of the NIL. I have accepted it as a reality and I am ready to go forward with it as part of the sport I love. I am simply trying to be prepared for the realities that will accompany it.

I think you're right on every count, but I also believe the aircraft carrier has already left the dock.

Pro athletes long ago threw out the concept of team, organization, etc. and are all about maximizing their personal brand and wealth.

Young elite athletes - and the adults that see their kid as a possible ATM machine - are following suit and create their own personas, brands, etc. long before they get to college.

Major college basketball as we once knew it is on the cusp of disappearing completely, and will be replaced by coaches and schools who build programs to appeal to allowing players to capitalize on their images (not unlike Calipari who capitalized on the one and done rule). Elite players may never play college, or if they do, they'll see it as one of many options and opt for college only if it furthers their ability to make money and get to the NBA.

Frankly, I think college basketball and football programs made billions while forcing the "amateur student athlete" concept on the athletes. They made their money, now they have to adapt to the players taking control and taking a chunk of the billions that were made by the institutions - and coaches - on their names and talent.

I would like to see the elite of the elite have options other than college, and leave college to the kids who will play several years while getting their degree. It's what college sports was, and should be about.

AZhawk87 wrote: I would like to see the elite of the elite have options other than college, and leave college to the kids who will play several years while getting their degree. It's what college sports was, and should be about.

WORD!!!

RC

Ditto word squared. I am a big proponent of letting kids go straight from college to the NBA. IMHO, the OAD has been a net negative for college hoops and significantly so. The beauty of college ball is not made of the same stuff that attract people to the NBA. I can live with an ever so slightly diminution of elite talent to see a better brand of team basketball. I have derived far more joy from a lightly used sub like Mitch Lightfoot than I did from Cliff Alexander, Billy Preston, Carlton Bragg and Chieck Diallo combined.

Spot on Corpus. I'll remember Garrett, Graham, Dok, Mitch and other long term guys even more than the postive OADs we've had.

I really feel no connection at all to Oubre, Wiggins or Jackson, and don't follow their careers.

Agree that this will be a bit of a disaster. And let's face it, if you play in a large market, or your school has a bigger fan-base, it will be more lucrative to go there. Take a kid like Mitch Lightfoot...good player, get's decent minutes, but his team gets national coverage every game. Therefore, his image/likeness will get more exposure ($$) than the 6th man on the roster at K-State. This WILL impact recruiting unless they find a way to spread the money around.

The other thing I note is in regard to your #3 and the amount of time a kid will be spending trying to track his exposure. To me this represents a big opportunity for an entrepreneur. A kid trying to track his own NIL impressions by himself with no experience is not only a tall order, but it's likely they won't do a very good job of it. I would expect that if I were an agent, I'd think about launching a side business to do this FOR the kid for a fee. This could either be done as a service that is compensated by a percentage of the profits, OR as a stand-alone software system that could scour the internet and media to find out where exposure has been happening.

Of course that tiptoes pretty closely to "hiring an agent" but if it was an open service that any athlete could purchase and they weren't actively trying to place ads for the athlete, I think they could work within the rules.

NotO, unless I am mistaken, agents for NIL will be allowed. I see the "side business" issue to be perhaps, the most problematic. These young men will now have vultures coming out of the woodwork wanting to use the NIL's of the players while they provide the money and financial and business acumen. I see this path fraught with immense peril, mostly for the student-athletes. I was chatting with my 25 year old son and his girlfriend a couple weeks back. He has a very good job and makes a very nice salary. Yet he was bemoaning all the weight of having to be a responsible adult. Things like paying property taxes and insurance and managing jobs, leisure, relationships, while expected to advance a career on a trajectory. Of course, those of us who have had to "grow up" can feel his pain. Having the responsibilities that are commensurate with the stuff of growing up realize, that while very rewarding for the most part, it is not quite the nirvana of our youthful dreams. The sword of Damocles so to speak. Well, one of the beauties of the way college sports scholarships were originally designed is that the athletes were largely prohibited from entangling responsibilities. This is in large part to protect them from the great stresses that await those who seek to take on more responsibilities. The NIL is reversing that. Most of these young men (and women) are ill-equipped emotionally and experience-wise, to handle multiple entanglements with anything approaching aplomb. In fact, how many times have we seen athletes needing to leave a program precisely because the stuff of life was dishing them more than they were ready to handle. I see this NIL being a benefit to a few (speaking in terms of quality of life and peace of mind), but a net negative to many. And it sure seems to me to add a mountain of stress to a head coach having to deal with all the distractions and ensuing fallout from those distractions.