NIL Newsletter #8 | Thursday, August 5, 2021
Welcome to the NIL Newsletter by Optimum Sports Consulting - providing valuable, actionable NIL resources for athletes, administrators, agencies and other sport professionals.
Welcome to the NIL Newsletter by Optimum Sports Consulting.
Through this newsletter and our additional legal and advisory resources, we aim valuable, actionable NIL resources for athletes, administrators, agencies and other sport professionals.
Every Monday and Thursday (at 8:30am ET), we will catch you up to speed with the latest news surrounding Name/Image/Likeness (NIL) in college athletics- directly to your email inbox. This newsletter is currently FREE.
Follow us @OptimumSportsConsulting on Instagram and @OptimumSportsC on Twitter for daily content.
This Thursday’s Newsletter Includes:
Recapping NIL news this week
Exclusive Interview with Sports Illustrated’s Ross Dellenger
ICYMI: INFLCR July Data
Recapping NIL This Week
Ohio State becomes the latest institution to establish a group licensing program for all 36 of their varsity sports
Ohio State student athletes who voluntarily opt-in to a group licensing agreement with The Brandr Group (TBG) will be able to use their NIL alongside and in conjunction with Ohio State’s trademarks and logos that have been licensed to Ohio State trademark licensees.
This first Ohio State group licensing program will begin by offering jerseys and then grow to include merchandise such as video games, apparel, trading cards and bobble heads.
The program, run by TBG, will create opportunities for current Ohio State student athletes to join a group licensing program of three-or-more individuals from the same team or one with six-or-more student athletes from any combination of teams.
“This is a unique opportunity for our student-athletes. We are passionate about educating and providing opportunities for student-athletes to take advantage of their NIL, and co-branding them with Ohio State’s official trademarks and logos is going to be an exciting new way for them to monetize on their NIL,” Senior Associate AD Carey Hoyt said.
Uncertainty remains for international NCAA athletes who do not know if they can engage in NIL activities just yet
Drake Group CCO Katie Lever, writing in the Extra Points newsletter, broke down just how complex the immigration issues are for international athletes who want to engage in NIL opportunities.
“Due to U.S. visa laws… 20,000 international college athletes are currently unable to monetize their NILs like other college athletes- not only must international students’ on-campus employment be tied to their field of study, but it must be authorized by their university, which usually happens as a result of an international students’ financial hardship, and they are only allowed to work part-time.”
Nouredin Nouili, an OL for Nebraska, is originally from Germany and is in the US on an F-1 Visa. “At first I didn't even know about it,” he says of his status within new NIL policies and laws. “I guess I assumed that, you know, they included international athletes as well.”
Like many student athletes, Nouili believes that NIL opportunities would enable athletes to cash in without tying them down to the time and location demands of traditional on-campus work, which is especially important for all athletes, who need flexible schedules.
Nation’s #1 football recruit is skipping his senior year of high school to head to Ohio State early and engage in NIL opportunities
QB Quinn Ewers announced on Twitter this week that he will be enrolling at Ohio State early due to Texas’ ban on high school NIL opportunities. His family has said that they would have preferred he stay in HS and earn money through NIL, rather than head to OSU early.
Ewers is expected to join the Ohio State program for summer training camp at some point in August. He is completing his final HS core english class to graduate online.
Yahoo! Sports’ Pete Thamel reported last week that Ewers could be looking at seven-figure NIL deals. “A local company called Holy Kombucha is among those offering a deal to Ewers, and it includes cash and equity in the company. There are several other offers, including national brands.”
Interview: Sports Illustrated’s Ross Dellenger Talks NIL with Optimum Sports Consulting
After a busy two weeks covering SEC Media Days and Texas/Oklahoma’s exit from the Big 12, college football reporter Ross Dellenger took some time to discuss NCAA restructuring, NIL in the SEC, and more with Optimum Sports Consulting.
Interviewed by Austin Meo
1. You heard Mark Emmert's comments about an NCAA restructure- what does that actually look like and when can we see changes start to unfold?
I think we'll start to see changes next calendar year. They'll come from this so-called "constitutional convention" that the NCAA plans to hold in November. Who knows what a new governance model will look like, but I expect the Autonomy 5 conferences to have more legislative authority. I think you'll see that conferences in general will call more shots, basically.
2. What are the chances that we see a federal NIL bill? Does the NCAA have the same sense of urgency it had in the time between Alston and the first wave of state bills going into effect?
I still do believe the chances are fairly high that, eventually, a federal NIL bill is passed to regulate NIL. I'm not sure it comes as quickly as this fall, but I do think it does come. I'm not sure that either the NCAA or Congress has the urgency they had before July 1st. There's no real deadline now to meet. That could pose problems.
3. What was the overall tone around NIL at SEC media day? Has every coach embraced it?
Every coach is publicly embracing it, as you'd expect. They'd be silly not to. It's here and here to stay and it can be a recruiting edge if coaches embrace it. Privately, many of them would probably tell you that they are against NIL and that it's not good for the locker room or the game in general.
4. How big do you think NIL will impact recruiting in the future? Alabama HC Nick Saban seemed to be bragging about QB Bryce Young's deals to date despite Young having just 22 career pass attempts.
I don't know that NIL will completely change the landscape of recruiting. For instance, I don't think Illinois will all of a sudden begin beating out Alabama for recruits. For the most part, the deals will be somewhat small (below $2,000 each). But, hey, that's money athletes didn't have previously.
5. What aspect of NIL isn't being talked about right now, but you think will be big in the future?
I do think some schools will arrange deals or are arranging deals, which is against the law/rules. I wonder if we'll see investigations begin popping up. Institutions are supposed to remove themselves from any arrangement of NIL ventures, but I sense some are, in a round-about way, getting involved.
6. If you were a compliance director at a D1 school right now, what would worry you the most about the current NIL landscape?
Look to answer 5! Ha! Specifically, rogue boosters are a concern for many school compliance staffs. Boosters, with money and influence, could basically set up as many NIL ventures as they wanted with athletes and maybe even recruits too.
Special thanks to Ross for taking the time to discuss the latest developments in NIL with us. To see his latest work for Sports Illustrated, follow him on Twitter. You can find his article archives here.
ICYMI: INFLCR July Data
One month into NIL, INFLCR reported its figures of nearly 170 D1 partner institutions spanning over 100,000 student athletes across the country.
The Birmingham, Alabama company INFLCR (established in 2017) has quickly become the go-to platform for D1 institutions through the first month of NIL activity. With their array of features, including INFLCR Verified and several compliance-centered products for athletic departments, they provide excellent data on the evolving NIL landscape.
As of Thursday, July 29th, there were 1,361 NIL transactions reported by student athletes at INFLCR schools, which include Auburn, Baylor, Duke, Kentucky, Michigan State, Oregon and USC:
1 % of all SAs in INFLCR’s community reported engagement in NIL deals totaling $1.256 million, at an average transaction value of $923.
802 athletes reported transactions themselves through INFLCR, from 64 Division I schools.
34% of all transactions were football players and 13% percent of all transactions were women’s/men’s basketball players.
53% of all transactions were reported by athletes playing sports outside of football or men’s/women’s basketball.
10% of all transactions were by athletes in lacrosse or swimming/diving. Those were the most common sports initially reporting summer camps and lessons transactions.
20% of all transactions were female athletes.
12% of all transactions were from non-Power 5 schools.
“It’s still growing,” INFLCR CEO Jim Cavale said of the NIL space. “I think we’re going to see double (those figures) next month or the month after because it’s starting to ramp up. We’re not the marketplace where they’re getting deals done. We’re just showing them places they can go to make money. And no matter if they use those partners or they do a deal somewhere else, we’re giving them a place to disclose and report everything. That’s where this data comes from.”