Newsletter #65 | Maryland HS NIL, Oscar Tshiebwe's International NIL Story, Derrian Gobourne x Black Girl Magic NFTs + ICYMI Ticker
Welcome to the NIL Newsletter by Optimum Sports Consulting - providing valuable, actionable NIL resources for athletes, administrators, agencies and other sport professionals.
Recapping NIL This Week:
Maryland General Assembly will consider codifying HS NIL
The Maryland GA heard the first reading of HB 1431: Public High Schools - Student Athletes - Compensation for Name, Image, and Likeness. The bill was introduced by Delegate Jay Walker (D-26).
Introduced on Tuesday, the bill will head to the Executives and Nominations Committee, chaired by Anne Healey (D-22). Notably, if passed the legislasition will not go into effect till July 1, 2023.
Synopsis: “Providing that certain entities may not establish rules or other limitations to prevent a public high school student athlete from earning compensation for the use of the student athlete's name, image, or likeness or prevent certain public high schools from participating in certain interscholastic athletics under certain circumstances; and authorizing a public high school student athlete to enter into a contract providing compensation for the use of the student athlete's name, image, or likeness if certain conditions are met.
Full text HERE (the entire bill is under 3 full pages).
Kentucky’s Oscar Tshiebwe now eligible to capitalize on NIL
Kentucky basketball's most marketable star is now open for business.
National player of the year candidate Oscar Tshiebwe has resolved the issues with his student visa and is now eligible to capitalize on his NIL.
Tshiebwe announced via Twitter Sunday he had signed with The Familie for representation. Within 45 minutes, his agent, Nate Conley at The Familie, had 36 email inquiries. By the time Conley woke up Monday, there were 192 more. During a 25-minute conversation with The Athletic around lunchtime the same day, another 22 messages flooded Conley’s inbox, all with similar subject lines.
Tshiebwe’s agent, immigration lawyer and the Kentucky coaching and compliance staffs have helped him navigate the legal complexities of earning NIL income while attending an American university on an F1 student visa. Tshiebwe still does not have a ruling on the financial hardship waiver he applied for months ago, so there are still limitations on what he can do, but “we’ve found some work-arounds to allow Oscar to benefit,” his agent said. There are already six-figure offers rolling in, plus a giant pile of smaller deals that add up to a significant number. Tshiebwe is about to get a free Porsche, like teammates TyTy Washington and Shaedon Sharpe, and launch a merchandise and apparel deal. Oddly in Conley’s interview with The Athletic, he announced a possibly pay-for-play violation- “I’m looking at an email right now. If he comes back to school [next year], there will be a multimillion-dollar deal on the table” he told Kyle Tucker.
"Just remember when people say NIL hurts the locker room that the best player in America couldn’t make money most of the year and he never complained once and no one is happier today than his teammates," tweeted Kentucky Director of PD TJ Beisner. "Bad culture and bad coaches kill the locker room, not kids with some money."
Tshiebwe leads the Wildcats in scoring (16.4), rebounding (15.2), steals (1.9), and blocks (1.4) per game, free throws made (85) and free throws attempted (121) while starting all 27 games this season. In Saturday's 90-81 win over Alabama, Tshiebwe recorded 21 points and 14 rebounds, his team-leading ninth 20-point game and eighth 20-10 game of the season.
Auburn Gymnast Derrian Gobourne launching ‘Black Girl Magic’ NFTs
Derrian Gobourne, the 2019 NCAA national champion, 1st Team All-American and 3-time All-SEC gymnast, has inked an NIL deal with Legacy League to launch her "Black Girl Magic" NFT collection.
Legacy League's roster of student athletes includes athletes from every Power 5 conference and 50 universities, including HBCUs. In total, Legacy League's athletes compete in 15 different sports from football to gymnastics, with female athletes accounting for more than 25% of its lineup. The “Black Girl Magic” NFT collection will launch with Legacy League in the coming months, a specific date TBD.
Her series will also feature other black female gymnasts, including Ananda Brown, Jada Glen and Aria Brusch from Auburn, Hannah Joyner from Rutgers, Amari Celestine from Missouri, Sekai Wright from UCLA and Kyla Bryant from Stanford. “I reached out to a couple of girls that I know in college - black athletes - like some of my teammates, and then I know that I'm friends with some people in Florida, and just different SEC teams and other teams as well,” said Gobourne. “And we kind of just came together because we all have like similar stories, and it was just a great opportunity for all of us. I also wanted to give other black athletes an opportunity to do NIL deals and just give them opportunity to spread their light and their story.”
Full story from BCS’s Kristi Dosh HERE.
ICYMI Ticker
Duke Men’s Basketball star and projected NBA lottery pick Paolo Banchero has signed a deal with JD Sports, a British sportswear and fashion company. The 19-year-old Seattle native inked deals with 2K and Panini last September. Announcement video on Instagram HERE.
Notre Dame AD Jack Swarbrick: “Unfortunately, through an unpredictable set of circumstances involving outcomes of legal challenges, the NCAA decided that it should reinvent itself and go into business in the interim to make the one-time transfer rule wind up with a form of unregulated free agency like has never existed before anywhere in the world. In every other sport, you talk about Little League baseball, the geographic limits, or high school sports with age and school participation limits, everybody regulates how that happens and how players get to where they get and when they can move. Because we are fundamentally about the player institution, they should have that opportunity. But when you add in NIL without guardrails, you create a remarkable circumstance where my fundamental challenge today is, most of what is being identified as NIL has nothing to do with that. There are talent acquisition fees described as NIL. That’s awful for us. That’s bad for the lack of integrity associated with it. In the long-term, it’s not going to be very good for the students." More HERE.
Cameron Ward, Washington State football's touted new quarterback, is coming to the pages of Cougfan.com. With the way paved by the NCAA’s NIL rules that allow college athletes to be paid for endorsements and more, Ward will conduct exclusive interviews, host IG Live sessions with WSU fans, and more via a newly signed agreement with CF.C. “My alliance with Cougfan is about sharing insights with Cougar Nation relative to our program and players, but also about helping me gain practical working-world experiences, like writing occasional columns and conducting on-camera interviews with teammates and former WSU players,” Ward said. “To me, this what NIL is all about and I’m excited to get started.”
At an OSU Board of Trustees meeting, Ohio State RB TreVeyon Henderson said, "[NIL] completely changed my life." Henderson has NIL deals with Columbus-based Ricart Automotive, as well as a cryptocurrency exchange company called FTX which was founded in Hong Kong and is now headquartered in Nassau, Bahamas. Per the Dispatch, Henderson told the Board of Trustees that the deals are lucrative enough that he is now able to support his mother who lives in his hometown of Hopewell, Va. Also according to the report, Ohio State football players have signed a total of 173 NIL deals, with an average value of $15,537 per deal (which is a total of $2.68 million).
Great story about LSU Tight End Jack Bech donating portions of his NIL income to “Dream Come True OF Louisiana.” Read it HERE.
USC QB Caleb Williams has entered into a long-term agreement with Hawkins Way Capital, a Beverly Hills-based real estate private equity fund, whose partners said they plan to show USC’s quarterback the ropes of the real estate world with the possibility of partnering on future investment opportunities.