| columnist
July began with a colossal boom for college athletes who can now benefit from their name, image and likeness: NIL.
NIL is a massive game changer that has destroyed the NCAA’s amateurism model as we will now see athletes from our favorite colleges and universities promoting brands and products on their Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok platforms. For those like me who have been watching college football for a few decades, I’m sure many of us immediately think of former Gridiron stars who would have made big bucks after the NIL passed.
My mind flashed back to the early 1980s when I was in awe of the University of Georgia, which Herschel Walker brought back. I met Walker when I was 11 at the Eckerd drugstore that used to be on Baxter Street in Athens and shyly asked for his autograph. If there had been NIL back then, my mom would probably have paid at least $ 20 for his precious signature, and maybe another $ 5 if we’d had a Polaroid with us and snapped a photo. That was two years before Walker won the Heisman Trophy in 1982.
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I also thought about the money Eddie George and Orlando Pace would have made as Buckeye football stars during my senior years at Ohio State in the mid-1990s. George, who owns Eddie George’s Grille 27 at John Glenn Columbus International Airport, could no doubt have struck a deal as the face of a local sports bar, and Pace, the monster offensive tackle, whose trademark “pancake” blocks flattened defensive linemen. would likely have partnered with a resident IHOP.
In a column in October 2019, I expressed my reservations about California’s Fair Pay to Play Act, the piece of legislation that drove NIL, and stressed that doing so could create divisions between teams and encourage athletes to chase money. But since college sports is a multibillion dollar industry, I’m really excited to see student athletes, as the old saying goes, “strike while the iron is hot” in establishing their NIL brands.
However, as a kindergarten teacher, I still have some concerns. According to a 2019 report by the National College Players Association, Division I students spend at least 32 hours per week on their sport, including 42 hours per week for soccer players. Student-athletes need to be able to manage their time spent on team exercises as well as their academics in order to remain competitive.
The Overall Success Rate of the NCAA Degree (GSR) shows that most athletes can balance their extremely busy schedules well. The GSR measures the percentage of athletes who complete their degrees within six years of enrolling in college, with no promotions. Last year, the overall GSRs reported by the NCAA were 90% for Division I, 74% for Division II, and 87% for Division III. Monitoring NIL opportunities will shorten the very tight window of time student athletes have to study, and for those struggling academically, despite the tutoring support, this could be a major challenge.
I am also concerned that there are no universal rules for NIL. There is not yet a federal directive governing NIL activities, so student athletes are subject to the laws of the states in which their schools are located. As an Ohio state faculty member on the Lima campus, I am delighted that students in our state must obtain approval from their college or university before closing a NIL deal and that they are not allowed to use marijuana, alcohol and casinos in addition to casinos To support tobacco products. These rules will help protect students from lurking and unscrupulous promoters.
As the floodgates for NIL sponsorship open wide, student athletes must be careful with their new business deals. And when I think about diligence, one piece of advice I would give them comes from Proverbs 22:29, which explains that someone who is “diligent in his business” will “stand before kings,” which means that he is favor with those who do it wins influential positions.
Many student athletes who are stars in their respective sports already have the blessings of this type of favor, and I hope that they will continue to seek wise advice as they venture into this new terrain.
Jessica A. Johnson, a native of Athens, is an English professor at Ohio State Lima. smojc.jj@gmail.com, @JjSmojc
source https://collegeeducationnewsllc.com/nil-allows-college-athletes-to-profit-from-name-image-and-likeness/
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