To say that the world of college athletics is unrecognizable from its form even just five years ago would be understatement. A half decade ago, hardly anybody would have recognized the acronym NIL. Today, it’s synonymous with the evolution of the college athletics landscape.
But a decade before Nick Saban “broke the Internet” with a profanity-laced assessment of NIL on Saturday, Arkansas-based sports attorney J.R. Carroll discussed the concept of NIL for student-athletes when he was invited to give a talk on collegiate sports at the UA’s Clinton School of Public School.
“I talked about if you go to the NCAA website and type in ‘Johnny Manziel,’ the first thing that pops up in the search bar is a link to a No. 1 Texas A&M jersey,” Carroll said, referring to the Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback. “You didn’t type in Texas A&M and you didn’t type in football. But if you ask the NCAA, they’re not profiting off someone’s Name, Image and Likeness (NIL). So how did Johnny Manziel’s name get you to a Texas A&M No. 1 Jersey?”
Carroll, who has represented prominent Arkansas football players like KJ Jefferson, told the audience that he expected future antitrust litigation surrounding this issue, as the NCAA’s rationalization at that time contradicted how it was operating in reality. Seven years later, in 2021, state laws appeared allowing college athletes to profit from their NIL.
The Evolution of NIL
Since 2021, the collegiate landscape surrounding NIL has deviated from its original conception. Rather than paying athletes for their participation in commercials or jersey sales, collectives composed of boosters have begun shelling out money to college athletes in order to entice and keep them playing at their respective university.
“You’ve seen a shift from players wanting to do a lot of marketing deals to players not wanting to do them because they don’t have to,” Carroll said. “There’s compensation from collectives. Quite honestly I think it’s been a benefit to the players. The first couple of years you saw players running themselves ragged trying to do small NIL deals (less than $5,000) for the simple reason they needed the compensation.”
Carroll added that in the last couple of the years the NIL collectives have helped ramp up the scale over payments, to the point where the Florida State football program had six players making at least $1 million each last year.
That level of compensation means the student-athletes “don’t have to run around and do every NIL deal that comes across their phone to live,” Carroll said.
While the NIL landscape is still relatively young, collectives have become more sophisticated quickly in order to prevent the misallocation of funds.
“I saw contracts increase quite a bit initially,” said Chris Turnage, another Arkansas-based attorney who has represented around 36 NFL players including 20 former Razorbacks like Deatrich Wise, Drew Morgan, Tevin Mitchell and co-representing Dre Greenlaw. “But since then I think they have been fairly consistent.”
Turnage said that to make sure college athletes fulfill their contractual obligations, many collective contracts now include a point system where players must surpass a point threshold each month to get paid.
Points can be earned through activities the collective facilitates such as volunteering, booster gatherings and marketing events. Moreover, Turnage also mentioned that collectives are beginning to implement clawback provisions, allowing them to recover money that’s already paid out if certain obligations aren’t fulfilled.
Tennessee Takes the Cake
He added that, in his experience, some NIL collectives are easier to work with than others. For instance, Tennessee’s NIL collective was chosen by On3 as the nation’s “most ambitious” after negotiating a reported annual $2 million deal for Vols quarterback Nico Iamaleava. At times, according to Turnage, it may be the most overreaching, too.
“Tennessee was the worst collective I’ve ever had to deal with,” Turnage said. He recalled unpleasant experiences working on deals between his student-athletes and the collective run by the Spyre Sports Group. In at least one instance, representatives of the collective sent a contract draft not accurately reflecting what they had discussed directly to his client instead of him and his client. He recalled his client was told “Hey, we’re good to go,” before Turnage found out and intervened.
It appears the Tennessee Volunteers may be looking to cut out some if not all of the work Spyre Sports Group does as a third-party. Football Scoop’s John Brice reported that Vols athletics director Danny White, a business innovator, “is interested in bringing NIL operations inside the halls of Rocky Top — a move that could imperil the Spyre Collective.”
Alabama has already decided to shut down its donor-led NIL collective, the Walk of Champions, which served as an unofficial fundraising arm for the Crimson Tide.
NIL’s Impact on Coaches
Given the trend to more in-house management, it’s no surprise that coaches have become increasingly involved in working with collectives in order to suggest how money should be distributed to their roster.
“Coaches figure out what players they want and they’ll give a list to the collectives in a priority order,” Turnage said. “The collectives will then decide how much money they can give to each player.”
However, some coaches are more involved than others in determining the allocation of funds. According to Turnage, a Big 10 head coach is heavily involved in terms of reaching out to transfer portal players and figuring out the distribution of NIL money.
Both Carroll and Turnage mentioned that collectives will also incentivize players to play in bowl games by triggering a heavier weighted payment after the game is done.
“You’re seeing a lot of players opt-out of bowl games,” Carroll said. “You’re starting to see universities hold back some of the NIL compensation based on whether a player plays in a bowl game. I think that’s completely fair if negotiated on the front-end.”
While more money has been going to student-athletes the past few years, it appears that hundreds of millions more will be heading their way starting next summer. The House vs. NCAA case, submitted by plaintiff – and former Arizona State swimmer – Grant House, was filed in 2020 and sought name, image, likeness damages and an injunction to force the NCAA to lift restrictions on revenue-sharing.
The NCAA and Power Five conferences decided to settle the lawsuit in court, agreeing to pay back $2.75 billion in NIL and to allow a revenue-sharing arrangement where schools can pay around $21.5 million per year to student-athletes. With these new rule changes, Turnage believes that donors may start donating directly to the athletic department rather than a collective in order to pay players.
Others agree:
Meanwhile, Carroll forecasts that collectives will still remain in place and be another tool to recruit athletes by providing extra compensation. It’s important to note that many collectives are not 501(c)(3) organizations, and therefore donations to them will not count as tax-write offs. This could result in collectives seeing their donations decrease in the future, even without the university providing payments to players.
More Looming Changes in the NCAA
Many fans and administrators have derided the changes in collegiate athletics, believing that pay-for-play undermines the essence of college sports. However, both Carroll and Turnage noted that the majority of players receiving NIL compensation use it to reduce the financial burdens their families have.
“Honestly, I would say around 80% of the kids that receive NIL funds send the majority of it back to their families,” Carroll said. “That never gets talked about.”
According to a study the NCAA undertook in 2016, 25% of college football players at each Division level are first-generation college students, the most out of any sport.
While the pros and cons of NIL and revenue-sharing can be debated at length, it remains clear that those who don’t adapt will be left by the wayside.
“[Those who] figure out the rules and how to compete in this [environment] will be the winners,” UA trustee Ed Fryar told WholeHogSports.
And with the recent announcements that Arkansas will be attempting to pay the maximum $21.5 million to its student-athletes starting in the 2025-26 season, it appears the Hogs will be jumping with two feet into the pay-for-play world.
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It appears a couple of Tennessee football players refused to be strong-armed by Spire Sports Group. More on that at 6:40:
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After smoking UAPB 70-0, Arkansas has risen to No. 7 in this Week 2 power ranking:
More coverage of Arkansas athletics and NIL from BoAS…
