How name, image and likeness laws have changed college sports

The NIL market is expected to be worth around $1.7 billion season 2024-2025 according to Opendorse. Of that, $1.1 billion goes to college football. Men’s basketball players earned about 389 million dollars. Basketball players received about 75 million dollars. Olympic athletes earned about 134 million dollars.

The monetization began back in July 2021, when the Supreme Court ruled that the NCAA could not prevent student-athletes from profiting from their name, likeness and likeness. Since the decision, legal battles have continued between the NCAA and state legislatures.

“It was very interesting to watch the balance of competition between states,” said Rob Sine, CEO of Blueprint Sports. “Tennessee is more aggressive, Florida wants to get more aggressive, and then Texas wants to get more aggressive. More state laws are passed and repealed and then passed again.”

Blueprint Sports oversees several high-profile teams across the country. Promoters, individual donors and companies often choose to fund teams that then pay athletes for performances or support. It is estimated that groups control about 80% NIL market.

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“The schools are already so thin. So for the professional services unit, they’re happy to know that, hey, we’re going to put staff on campus, to represent them and the student-athletes,” Sine said. “Collective as a marketing agency, we will handle all operations, we will provide a third party for athletic departments where we can negotiate with agents, we can negotiate with athletes that we can manage if the athlete enters the transfer portal, contract termination or similar things.”

Blueprint Sports oversees teams from across the country, including NC State’s One Pack NIL, Colorado’s 5430 Alliance, Happy Valley of Pennsylvania United and Arkansas’s Arkansas Edge.

“Pennsylvania has different rules than Arkansas or North Carolina,” Sine said. “The NCAA guidelines are there to be exactly what they are, to set guidelines. Then you have to follow state law in certain areas.”

The NCAA’s first guidelines of 2021 align with the Decision of the Supreme Court. Athletes could be paid if state law allowed. The rules tried to prevent schools from using NIL money to recruit athletes.

“It was a lot easier,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala. he said while talking about how the NIL laws have changed the recruitment process in recent years. “There’s really no recruiting now. It’s shopping. It’s completely different.”

Before Tuberville was elected to the Senate, he coached at Ole Miss, Auburn, Texas Tech and Cincinnati. He has since co-sponsored NIL legislation with Senator Joe Manchin IW.V. He plans to reintroduce or modify the Protecting Athletes, Schools and Sports Act (PASS Act) with a Democrat in the next Congress.

“In football and basketball, whoever has the most money,” Tuberville said.

In 2019, California signed the first statewide NIL law. Several others began to follow suit. Eventually, legislatures began passing laws that bypassed the NCAA guidelines, to allow NOTHING money to be used for recruiting.

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“Over the years, the money has gotten bigger and bigger and the student athletes are going, wait a minute, you know, why don’t we get some of that money? Why don’t we share the revenue?” said Tuberville.

Tuberville says collectives have too much influence and legislation like the PASS Act would help level the playing field. But the collectives do not agree.

“I don’t think the federal government is the way to do it. I think it creates a lot more complications,” Sine said. “I’ve watched those hearings before and there wasn’t a lot of guidance and bright ideas that came out of it. There was a lot of draft legislation. I think it’s going to be difficult for them to get anything passed.”

Not all university officials believe the federal government should stay out of the NIL debate.

“This is a free market economy. We live in the greatest country in the world. And I think it’s great that our student-athletes can now finally get compensated for what they’re worth. But we need national standards in college sports. Every coach must know that when that ball bounces, we all play by the same rules. And right now we’re not,” Auburn men’s basketball coach Bruce Pearl said.

The initial laws in Alabama and South Carolina mirrored NCAA guidelines that prevented the use of NIL money for recruiting. Other states began passing laws that deviated from those guidelines and allowed loopholes for third-party donors to pledge money to potential student-athletes. That prompted the NCAA to change its stance. In 2022, the Division 1 Board of Directors clarified that schools can ask donors to provide funds for teams, as long as they are not focused on a specific sport or athlete.

“It used to be on graduation ratesor was it about, can you help me get into the nba? Will we win the championship? What is the culture of the program? Those things were more important to parents,” Pearl said. “Now it’s become a lot more transactional. What is my market value? How much will I get if I go to that school? And of course, everyone is playing with a different budget right now. And that’s what makes it somewhat unfair.”

Updated NCAA guidelines prompted Alabama and South Carolina to repeal their original NIL laws. Both states found that other schools had more opportunities to recruit better players.

“It gave us a little more freedom,” Pearl sad. “We would like the conferences and the people who run our programs to be empowered. Right now everything is going to court. They are losing every lawsuit.”

Texas passed its own laws in 2023 that deviated from NCAA guidelines in allowing donations for certain sports. The law also allows perks and benefits for fans who donate to NIL collectives. The clause also prohibited the NCAA from penalizing a school for taking full advantage of the NIL.

“A lot of people started to find a gray area. And so donors or other organizations around the country were looking at how this was going to go, okay, we’re going to raise, instead of $100,000, we’re going to raise $2 million or we’re going to raise $20 million and we’re really going to start it build and create a very competitive advantage because no one is telling us we can’t,” said Sine.

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New transfer portal rules have increased competition to find better players and pay more money. A few months before the Supreme Court issued its NIL decision, the NCAA updated its transfer portal policy, allowing Division I athletes a timely opportunity to transfer and compete immediately.

Originally, an athlete could transfer school, but had to sit out a year before playing unless granted a waiver by the NCAA. In 2024, the federation updated its guidelines to allow unlimited transfers as long as athletes meet certain academic eligibility requirements.

“The Marshall University football team, almost every one of them transferred. They had to give up a bowl game,” Tuberville said. – Their coach left, and they followed.

Marshall was scheduled to face Army in the Radiance Technologies Independence Bowl. Instead, dozens of Marshall athletes entered the transfer portal. Army will now face Louisiana Tech.

“I understand that families are in a situation where they may never make more than they are making right now. And that’s what drives them. We teach kids to run, not fight.”

UNLV Quarterback Matthew Sluka announced in September that he would enter the transfer portal for the second time in his college career. Sluka’s agent said the $100,000 payment was never made after he agreed to transfer to UNLV.

“Graduate rates are destroyed because the combination of NIL and transfer portals work together, these guys are free agents,” Pearl sad. “In some cases the money can be significant.”

State laws also differ on who can represent student-athletes. In 2019, the Uniform Law Commission recommended that states adopt the Uniform Agents for Athletes Act. It allowed student-athletes to hire agents with the intention of protecting them from unfair practices. At least 39 states have passed legislation, but it says NOTHING. Some legislatures have added agency clauses to state laws.

“Players have agents, they have lawyers, they have accountants. That’s what we’ve fought against for many, many years. Don’t sign with agents. Keep them out of your life. But college football, college sports has grown.”

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The The NCAA will now allow universities to pay players directly, in addition to what they already receive through scholarships and third-party payments. Each school has a limit of up to $20.5 million for all sports. Schools are already channeling most of that into soccer programs.

“We’re going to lose a lot of football programs, basketball programs and women’s sports if we don’t come up with some solution. The NCAA has to work with us,” Tuberville said. “There really aren’t many answers when you have so many hands in the pie and everyone wants their own way.”