The ABCs of NIL, and its effect on college sports today
Ex-Beaver two-sport athlete Scott Sanders runs the school’s collective, called the “Giant Killers Collective”
College sports fans have heard it used in many conversations. But many of them wonder: What does NIL stand for?
Naked, in Love?
Needle, insult, lie?
Nitwits, idiots, losers?
As NIL becomes more and more a part of the American sports lexicon, the acronym’s meaning (name, image, likeness) will grow more familiar.
Effective July 1, 2021, the NCAA adopted an NIL policy that, together with the transfer portal, has turned college athletics upside down.
The NIL rule suspends amateurism rules related to name, image and likeness of what the NCAA and college coaches and administrators refer to as “student-athletes.” Incoming and current players now can be compensated in the form of cash ostensibly for services rendered through NIL deals. Or, as it turns out, sometimes for nothing at all.
An avalanche followed. After the first year, the total amount spent was about $917 million for football and men’s basketball, according to Fox Sports. Average football deal: $3,400. At Power 5 schools, it was $16,000. Women’s sports average: about $1,000.
Much of the money comes as the result of collectives, groups typically founded by alumni of the school to facilitate methods of fund-raising to be directed to the school’s athletes — and in some cases, prospective athletes — for the rights to use their name, image and likeness. Collectives operate independently from the universities and athletic departments, but make no mistake: Athletic administrators are well-connected to what is happening with their collectives.
This May, the NCAA issued new guidelines, stipulating that collectives are subject to the same NCAA rules as boosters. The Division I Board of Directors issued “guidance” to schools, clarifying that long-standing rules prohibiting contact between boosters and recruits apply to collectives, too. Representatives of collectives are barred from talking with recruits; NIL deals, the board of directors said, must be based on an “independent” analysis of their value. The directive emphasized that the NCAA enforcement staff will investigate potential violations of such rules.
But who will go to the trouble of authorizing an independent value analysis of an athlete? And what exactly are the rules?
The majority of NIL deals are for small amounts of money, four figures or less.
The exceptions — and they’re getting more numerous — are striking.
At Texas, every offensive lineman on scholarship gets $50,000 annually through a program called “The Pancake Factory.” The amount caps at $800,000, which covers 16 scholarship linemen. The collective, “Horns With Heart,” intends to expand to other position groups and Longhorn athletes in the future.
In March, without naming the player or college, “The Athletic” reported that a five-star football recruit has signed an $8-million NIL agreement — before the end of his junior year in high school. The deal was said to pay out $350,000 “almost immediately. Once he begins his college career, he will receive more than $2 million annually,” the report said.
Texas Tech found a way to offer each of its 85 scholarship players plus 20 walk-ons a base salary of $25,000 next season. It is offered by a nonprofit collective created by a group of Texas Tech alums and provides each player a one-year salary if they agree to terms on completing community service and working as a representative for charities in the West Texas area.
Alabama QB Bryce Young is close to the $1 million mark in sponsorships, including “Cash App.”
Coach Nick Saban says Crimson Tide players have made more than $3 million in NIL money.
“The biggest concern is how does this impact and affect recruiting?” Saban told reporters. “There are a lot of people using this as inducements to go to their school by making promises they may or may not be able to keep in terms of what players are doing. This creates a competitive balance issue between the haves and the have-nots — and we are one of the haves.”
Utah coach Kyle Whittingham thinks along the same lines.
"There is going to come a time in the very near future where the top 25 pots of money are going to mirror exactly the top 25 teams in the country,” Whittingham told reporters. “That’s just how it is. That’s where it’s heading, and there’s no debate about it unless they change the rules. I don’t think they can backpedal now with the can of worms they’ve opened.”
Ohio State says its athletes have gotten more than 1,000 NIL deals for a total of $2.98 million.
Travis Hunter, last year’s No. 1 high school recruit, a freshman receiver/DB at Jackson State, just signed an NIL deal with Michael Strahan Brand and also with digital banking platform Greenwood. The initial estimate of his bounty: $570,000.
Miami fan John Ruiz — who owns LifeWallet and the Cigarette Racing team — seems the poster guy for excess on the NIL landscape. The billionaire booster has signed 115 Miami athletes to NIL deals of about $7 million, many of them playing for football coach Mario Cristobal.
Then there are the future Hurricanes. Quarterback recruit Jaden Rashada, a high school senior in Pittsburg, Calif., has declared for Miami for what reports say is a $9.5-million NIL deal with Ruiz. Florida’s collective is rumored to have offered $11 million.
“Jaden left millions on the table,” says NIL lawyer Michael Caspino, who does not work for Rashada.
Rashada denies he has an NIL deal.
Current Hurricanes QB Tyler Van Dyke has one, though. He has a lease to drive a new BMW 750i until he leaves the university.
In June, NCAA investigators spent at least two days in Miami examining the school’s NIL deals, reportedly centered on the one Ruiz made with basketball guard Nijel Pack. The Kansas State transfer signed a two-year, $800,000 contract to endorse Ruiz’s companies. The NCAA has released no results of the investigation.
“I have nothing to hide,” Ruiz told a reporter. “It’s hard to poke holes in what we do because we do it legally.”
(Miami football, it seems, can use the help. The Canes are 2-3, including a 45-31 loss to Middle Tennessee.)
Ruiz has a point. What are the rules? Can they be enforced? Is the path on a slippery slope toward a dark destination, where schools with the richest fan bases can gain an edge over those less fortunate — and organized?
“I don’t like that the NIL is an opportunity for universities to buy students,” says Mikayla Pivec, the former Oregon State basketball star now playing professionally in Puerto Rico.
“It’s a little bit what I would call the ‘Wild, Wild West,’ ” says Nike executive Tinker Hatfield, who does work with an Oregon collective.
I asked Oregon State athletic director Scott Barnes if the NIL is like a runaway train.
“It IS a runaway train,” Barnes says.
Is it an open invitation for cheating?
“The NIL itself is not,” Barnes says. “The fact that the NCAA has not enforced what they said they would enforce creates a culture of cheating.”
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Since the days of Amos Alonzo Stagg, Adolph Rupp and Rod Dedeaux, “student-athletes” have gotten less than their fair share of the college athletics financial pie. In contemporary times, coaches such as Saban and Mike Krzyzewski and Dabo Sweeney and Bill Self have commanded annual salaries exceeding eight figures. The average salary for a head football coach in 2022 is about $1.75 million.
(I’ve written before that those coaches’ salaries that surpass $1 million should be trimmed in half, the other half being divided between lowering game ticket prices and spreading the wealth to the athletes. Imagine what $3 million a year could do for the youngsters at Kansas or Alabama.)
Not all Division I college athletes are on full scholarship, but those who are can be well-compensated.
At Oregon State, an in-state full ride is worth about $30,000 a year; for a non-resident, about $52,000. At Stanford, the cost is a parent-gulping $82,000 a year. Multiply that by four or, if by redshirt or Covid extension, five years and it’s a nice send-off into the real world.
In 2015, a monthly cost-of-living expenses stipend was added at Power 5 conference schools. At Oregon State, for instance, full-ride athletes command about $1,700 a month through the nine months of the 2022-23 academic year (and something less than that for the months in which they attend summer school.). Athletes on equivalency (partial) rides get stipends, too, but at a lesser rate. Walk-ons do not qualify. The stipends, incidentally, increased the average school’s budget by 7.4 percent in the years after they were initiated.
Beginning this academic year, colleges are also allowed to pay athletes a bonus of up to $5,980 as a reward for academic performance. An ESPN report in April said only 22 of 130 FBS schools plan to implement that this year. Oregon, Colorado and Washington are the Pac-12 schools that say they will. (Oregon sports information made no UO officials available for this story.)
These means for remuneration are now augmented by the possibilities that NIL offers. The NIL’s intent was not to make millionaires of the chosen few. It is supposed to provide some help for the masses.
“It is allowing student-athletes to benefit the way other students have for years,” says Kimya Massey, Oregon State’s deputy athletic director and COO. “Others have opportunities to benefit from their skill set. Let’s say you are a music major. You play the drums, and you’re really good at it. You get invited to play at a concert in Portland and you can get paid for it.
“It’s been different for student-athletes. The vast majority of student-athletes are not on full scholarship. Now they have a bit of a level playing field.”
Massey says the benefits extend beyond cash in hand.
“All students should have the opportunity to use their NIL,” he says. “It’s a really good learning experience for them in terms of entrepreneurship, social media promotion and … to learn financial literacy. For the student, it’s a real lesson in how to advance my life in a way I can market myself. And to the economic side of it that will benefit me as I get into life beyond college.”
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Shortly after the NIL plan was announced, collectives — formed to create business opportunities for “student-athletes” — began forming throughout the country. Through the past summer, more than 60 were charted in FBS waters. Many schools had multiple collectives. In a report by On3 recruiting site, Michigan and Texas each had four and Kansas State, Auburn, Florida, Penn State and Virginia Tech had three apiece.
Oregon has two — the Eugene club, which bills itself as a “player-led collective,” and Division Street, launched by Phil Knight and a group of UO alumni. The latter collective operates separately from Nike but uses many of the company’s innovations through branding, marketing, sponsorship, digital and creative support.
Knight, Ed Maletis, Jim Morse and Pat Kilkenny are Division Street co-founders. Rosemary St. Clair is CEO, ex-Duck distance runner Rudy Chapa is chairman of the board and former UO basketball standout Sabrina Ionescu serves as chief athlete officer.
“They are the model,” an NIL expert told On3 in May. “They are built by the smartest sports marketers … everything they are doing is a lesson everyone can learn from.”
In August, On3 rated Oregon fourth behind Tennessee, Miami and Texas A&M in terms of NIL potential. Most of that is due to the firepower of Division Street, which has enlisted the unique talents of Hatfield, the former UO pole vaulter who has had a distinguished career as a shoe designer and architect of the brand at Nike. Among his credits: Design of 17 of the Air Jordan models.
Knight asked Hatfield to be involved early in the process.
“When Phil calls and asks for something,” Hatfield says, “you tend to pay attention. Marketing is like creating design work but also telling stories. I’ve done a lot of that for Oregon, and for Oregon State, too. I’m a story-teller.”
He got started before Division Street had formed with NFT (non-fungible token) artwork of then-Oregon defensive end Kayvon Thibodeaux called “Kayvon’s Trilogy.” The digital art piece showed 2021 Pac-12 Defensive Freshman of the Year in three different poses.
“Kayvon was an experiment of sorts just as the rule was about to be legal — the first NFT done for a college athlete under the NIL rules,” Hatfield says.
Thibodeaux, now a rookie with the New York Giants, entered into an NIL agreement with Hatfield along with the University of Oregon.
“Kayvon had his choice with how he wanted to retail it,” Hatfield says. “His choice was to print posters and sell posters of that artwork.”
The posters sold for about $89 apiece. Hatfield took the minimum percentage or revenue for the design (12.5 percent), Oregon took 10 percent and Kayvon reaped 77.5 percent.
Most recent — and most successful — example is an exclusive collection NFT project called “Ducks of a Feather” for Division Street.
“I came up with a way to celebrate diversity through the UO athletic department,” Hatfield says. “Their student-athletes come in all colors. The idea was to do the Duck in different colors or in multi colors.”
Each of the owners of the 120-piece collection receives a pair of Nike Air Max 1 shoes with multi-colored duck on the tongue. (Tinker was the architect behind the original shoe in 1987).
Under the “Ducks of a Feather” umbrella is art to benefit women’s athletes called “Visions of Flight,” of which they share in 75 percent of the revenue.
“It’s done well (financially),” Hatfield says. “I don’t know the figures, but it has some zeros involved. It’s gotta be north of $600,000 or $700,000.”
Division Street, along with global platform “GOAT,” will soon auction off 400 pairs of Hatfield-designed Air Jordan VIII University of Oregon PEs to benefit UO basketball players — 200 for men and 200 for women.
The Nike Air Max 1 shoe Tinker Hatfield re-designed for use with his “Ducks of a Feather” collection
“Schools from other conferences are writing checks,” Hatfield says. “Phil is much more interested in being innovative and coming up with a program of art and limited edition footwear in order to fund athletes beyond what they make. Some of them are scholarship athletes, and some aren’t, but they all need cash. I remember being a full-ride athlete and never having a dime in my pocket.”
Another Division Street enterprise: A dual-purpose income property in Eugene for rent through AirBnB benefitting a UO athlete’s NIL. The first athlete chosen is linebacker Noah Sewell, which showcases him both as an athlete and an individual. The billing: “Stay at Noah’s.”
The Eugene Air BnB that benefits Oregon linebacker Noah Sewell through an NIL deal
Sewell helped design the living quarters, decked with all sorts of Duck sports memorabilia. He gets the income until Jan. 31; then a new athlete will take over. UO fans, or anyone, really, can book a stay at the two-bedroom, one-bathroom, available for $552 a night.
Then there is Sedona Prince, the Oregon women’s basketball player who became a TikTok star during the 2021 NCAA Tournament while exposing the disparity between men’s and women’s weight rooms. Prince ranks 85th on On3’s top 100 list with a valuation of $529,000 for her 18 business and partnership deals.
When I ask Hatfield about his thoughts on how the NIL is working, he offers a thoughtful response.
Designer supreme Tinker Hatfield is lending his talents to Oregon collective “Division Street”
“There are two things going on,” he says. “One is the notion that athletes are being taken advantage of at all levels by the university system. Some (college) athletes become professional athletes and make millions of dollars. Most do not. You risk injury and you have to compromise somewhat on your studies to be a D-I athlete. It takes a lot of time to be a college athlete at any level. The idea is to supplement that, trying to help these athletes at all levels and in all sports get compensated more fairly. That’s the good side of it.
“On the other side, there are schools that are shoveling cash out the door. ‘Come play football at our place,’ and it’s very specific who gets that money. The NCAA is probably struggling with both sides of that coin. People are trying to help athletes, and some are making a ton. It’s all over the map.
“The rules are fuzzy, and what Phil is trying to do with Division Street is not only create a revenue stream for athletes but also to provide mentoring and legal assistance and other missing components to the equation.”
Does Hatfield worry about it being an open door to cheating?
“Everybody has had that concern,” he says. “Someone just said to me yesterday that the SEC has been doing it for many years. Nobody ever gave it a name before. It’s a minefield. People are going to get in trouble somewhere down the line.”
One of the problems, says Oregon State’s Massey, is that 34 states have bills regarding NIL regulations and others do not.
“The ones that don’t have bills have no restrictions,” Massey says. “Some of the states that have bills are not as restrictive as others. It’s an uneven playing field.”
In Oregon, athletic department staff members cannot negotiate or partner deals for athletes.
“Some schools in other states have employees whose only duty is to help broker deals,” Massey says.
At Oregon State, he says, “You cannot induce a player to come to our school through NIL. You don’t do pay for play. Those are two things we will never do. Other states and other schools are not adhering to that. It’s not fair. Until there is a 50-state overarching NIL bill, there are going to be schools in some states that will benefit.”
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Oregon has partnered with Opendorse as the official licensed on-line marketplace of the Oregon Ducks. The first curated marketplace of its kind in college sports, it will enable UO athletes to connect with individuals and companies to facilitate NIL partnerships. Oregon fans can use Opendorse to book appearances, autograph sessions, video shoutouts, social media content, etc.
Oregon State is using Opendorse, too. The Beavers’ site is called “The Wood Shop.” On the site’s home page are photos of dozens of athletes from all sports with a minimum dollar amount — generally from $10 to $25 — for their various services.
A fan, a business, anyone can go to the registry and make a deal with any athlete, who must disclose to the school’s athletic department any NIL deals they’ve made.
“We have 180 disclosures now,” Barnes says. “We’re reaching toward $450,000 in total. The average might be $2,500.”
That average, however, is elevated by the presence of Olympic gymnast Jade Carey, who has NIL deals with several major companies and has an On3 NIL evaluation of $258,000. That ranks ninth among college female athletes.
Oregon State has one collective, though Massey hints that another one is set to emerge in a manner of weeks.
“The Giant Killers” recently formed under the guidance of Scott Sanders, the former Crescent Valley football coach who played football and baseball at OSU in the late ‘80s. Their website (Giantkillersnil.com) will launch this week.
Sanders put together the collective along with several other ex-Beaver athletes and supporters such as Dave Montagne, Jim Fisher, Todd Baker and Kiefer Nissan.
“I knew we had to get into the game,” Sanders says. “Whether I liked it or our alums liked it or Joe Fan liked it, we had to get involved in it. We won’t go after kids in the transfer portal. I don’t want to chase recruits, don’t want to make it part of a deal to come to Oregon State.
“My whole deal is, I want to help make the locker rooms of our teams stay solid, that we don’t lose a kid to the portal for money, that we don’t get stripped of our best players. Let’s get a pool for a collective, make sure the kids we have on campus know they’re loved. Through alumni, we can offer them something while they’re here.”
Giant Killers has organized autograph nights and other appearances for a group of OSU athletes that so far includes 21 football players and three baseball players.
“We love what Coach (Jonathan) Smith and Mitch Canham are doing,” Sanders says. “We know those guys need help.”
Any athlete who works with Giant Killers must become involved with an anti-bullying program in the middle schools throughout Benton County, Sanders says.
“It’s something we feel strongly about,” he says.
Members of the nonprofit Giant Killers’ board are donating the money for the collective’s funding. Their treasure chest this year is $250,000.
“We’re not getting a tax write-off,” Sanders says. “We’re fine with that. We know we wouldn’t be where we are in our lives without Oregon State.”
Sanders has his first-year budget planned. The three baseball players will each receive $10,000, equivalent to one full scholarship. With the football players, pay is based on time of service.
“Everyone got $5,000 before (training) camp,” Sanders says. “The ones who stay get $2,500 after winter term and $2,500 after spring term. The kids who stay get a total of $10,000 for the year.”
Sanders is simply doing what he believes need be done.
“If you can keep the average NCAA athletes happy at their school with some extra money, even if it’s a little, it will work,” he says. “But I don’t like it. I don’t like how kids can get into the portal and get $1 million and leave the school the next year.”
Sanders coached OSU linebacker Omar Speights — who grew up in Philadelphia — as a senior at Crescent Valley. Speights told Sanders that, after last season, he had offers to transfer from Penn State and Pittsburgh.
“I’ve been offered to go home,” Speights told his old coach.
“I don’t know how much they offered Omar,” Sanders says, “but they said, ‘If you come to our school, we have money waiting for you.’ ”
Sanders heard from one source that OSU tight end Luke Musgrave was offered $100,000 to transfer to Alabama after last season. So is NIL a license to cheat?
“It totally is,” says Sanders, launching into a story about quarterback JT Daniels, who began his career at Southern Cal, transferred to Georgia and is now the starter at West Virginia.
“He was shopping himself around,” Sanders says. “His dad called me and said he’d heard we were starting a collective. He started throwing out numbers. … something like $400,000. I said, ‘Good luck. That is not us. I’m here to make our locker room stronger, not bring in a kid like yours.’ ”
Jarod Lucas says it’s no secret that college programs are buying transfer athletes.
“It’s pretty prominent in college athletics,” says Lucas, the former Oregon State basketball player now at Nevada. “In the next couple years we’re going to see a shift where players go. Schools located in bigger cities have the advantage. You have wealthier donors and, to a lot of kids, it plays a big role.
“Some of the bigger names hit the transfer portal or choose the school for money. With some guys, it might just be the right fit for them. But with other guys, it’s based off money.”
Lucas was one of the first OSU athletes to test NIL waters. He ran a pair of youth basketball camps in Southern California and also was involved with sales of a shooting machine called “Shoot Away.”
“I made $5,000 or $6,000,” Lucas says. “It helps you live more comfortably. I’m not saying a stipend isn’t enough money to cover your expenses, but (NIL money) helps you be able to do other stuff.”
Nevada’s collective is called “Friends of the Pack.”
“We all get our fair share of money,” Lucas says. “I will say this: I’m making a lot more money at Nevada than I was at Oregon State.”
One Beaver football player has his own website — utility sensation Jack Colletto (Jackhammercolletto.com). The 6-3, 240-pound senior sells T-shirts and other JackHammer paraphernalia, offers his services in various ways (autographs, meet-and-greets) and donates 25 percent to the Wounded Warrior Project.
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OSU athletic director Scott Barnes calls on the NCAA to do its duty in terms of enforcing NIL regulations
Barnes, nearing completion of his sixth year as Oregon State’s AD, has mixed emotions about NIL.
“We’re excited for the opportunity it provides our student-athletes,” he says. “We’re making some really good progress there. At the same time, I have great concerns about what’s happening on a national level, particularly about recruiting inducement and pre-enrollment. The NCAA has clearly defined that is illegal, yet it is happening. With the lack of enforcement, that continues to be a problem.
“There is a lot that’s right about NIL. Done the right way, following state legislation and using it appropriately — not as a recruitment tool but rather a retention tool and making compensation commensurate to the activity — those things are good. The premise is right. It’s lack of any enforcement that is the problem.”
Barnes was encouraged with the NCAA’s May announcement that it would begin investigating potential violations and enforce its NIL regulations.
“And we’ve seen nothing about it since then,” he says. “I simply call on the NCAA to do their job. If they can put teeth in their enforcement arm, we can slow that train down.
“There is some interest in legislation on the federal level for senators to carry the water on a potential proposal. With elections coming up, I don’t see anything happening until after mid-terms. We’re a long way from the finish line.”
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Former Oregon State basketball great Mikayla Pivec sees more negatives than positives with the advent of NIL
Mikayla Pivec was a member of the Oregon State Student Advisory Committee during her time as an All-Pac-12 basketball player from 2016-20.
“It’s a whole new era,” says Pivec, 24. “Seeing how quickly the atmosphere in college athletics has changed was shocking.”
Pivec and her fellow members of SAC covered a lot of ground in attempting to advocate for student-athletes as a whole.
“We talked about far down the line, 15 to 20 years from now, what NIL would look like,” she says. “All the talks we had were putting different rules and regulations surrounding NIL. We worried about Pandora’s box, with no guidelines, no structure, no caps.
“Now it has exploded so fast, it’s tainting the purity of college athletics — changing how student-athletes act, or how they interact with the team.”
Pivec has mixed emotions on the merits of NIL.
“I’m torn,” she says. “I would love to have had some extra cash for what I was able to bring to Beaver Nation and the attention I brought to the school as a female basketball player. NCAA basketball is more popular than the WNBA, so the height of an athlete’s fandom is in college. Some of the college athletes are more marketable because of who they are and their talent and personalities. So my timing wasn’t great.”
Pivec isn’t your average student-athlete. An Academic All-American, she graduated with a 3.95 GPA and a degree in bio-health sciences, following that with a Master’s in biochem and biophysics.
After her basketball eligibility had expired, she teamed with other OSU students to create a nonprofit and raised $16,000 to feed health-care workers on the front line in and around the Corvallis area.
“That was the first time I was able to use my likeness to raise money,” Pivec says.
She takes a holistic view on the subject.
“The positive side of my thinking brings me to the feeling that I’m glad I wasn’t there for NIL,” Pivec says. “It would have tainted my interaction with my teammates. The team culture might not have been as good. I might not have focused as much on school. (NIL is) taking the focus away from drawing on the student experience and team environment.”
In a recent conversation with friends who had talked to an assistant coach, the coach confided that the recruiting pitch is suddenly different.
“In the past, the recruits would ask about academics, the town, the team environment and life and college experience,” Pivec says. “Now kids are like, ‘What can you give me?’ I don’t like that. Certain schools are offering $20,000 to $40,000. That’s going to impact the decision of a high school senior. You don’t think about the long-term as much as what they can initially do for you.”
Shaylee Gonzalez is a 5-10 guard from Chandler, Ariz., who played four seasons at Brigham Young. As a grad transfer last spring, she was coveted by North Carolina State, Oregon State and Texas. She wound up with the Longhorns.
“They offered six figures for her to go to their school,” Pivec says. “She wants to play pro, and Texas had four guards ahead of her. She’s a West Coast kid. If not for NIL, she probably would have wound up at Oregon State.
“It’s hard seeing that. It’s like (pro women’s ball) in Europe. There is no salary cap; the owner pays the most and they just steamroll everybody. It’s not as fun to be a part of when it’s like that.”
If there are sour grapes about losing Gonzalez, OSU women’s coach Scott Rueck doesn’t show it. He’s all for NIL.
“When it is in the true form that it’s meant to be, if it’s used for its proper intention, it’s great,” Rueck says. “It is there for a student-athlete to pursue a business opportunity that they have earned that will teach them life lessons. If it’s used for inducement of a recruit, then that’s a problem and not going to work out great. But I like the intent of it. If kids wants to run a basketball camp, they should be able to run a camp and make money.”
Some athletes are making big moves to enhance their NIL opportunities. For three years, twin guards Haley and Hanna Cavinder combined to average 34.2 points a game and won All-Mountain West honors at Fresno State. During the offseason, they transferred to — you guessed it — Miami. Some estimates have their deals worth in excess of $1 million.
“It went from a donor not being able to buy me coffee at Dutch Bros to now somebody paying me enough to convince me to go to school there,” Pivec says. “It moved too fast. I like the opportunity it brings for female athletes to earn money through their sport, but I’m concerned what long-term effects it will have on team camaraderie and academics, what priorities should be in college.
“And I’m not sure how it will impact student mental health. When you pay people, some of the joy is gone. If somebody’s paying you, you feel obligated. If you don’t produce, what will happen with the relationship? There are expectations. I like sponsorship, but enticing recruits with contract offers? The lines get a little fuzzy. What are the boundaries there?”
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Former Central Catholic hoop star Matt Santangelo is co-founder and sponsor of Gonzaga’s “Friends of Spike” collective
Matt Santangelo is familiar to Oregon sports fans as the star guard for Central Catholic’s state championship basketball team of 1994. Santangelo was a four-year starter at Gonzaga, as a senior playing on Mark Few’s first Bulldog team of 1999-2000. Matt later played seven years professionally in Europe.
Now Santangelo is co-founder and general manager of Gonzaga’s “Friends of Spike” collective (Spike is the Zags’ mascot bulldog). Santangelo’s day job is in medical device sales. His avocation takes a good deal of his time, too. The collective is an LLC, but with a foundation side (Blueprint Sports).
“Everybody is trying to figure out what the new world looks like with NIL,” says Santangelo, who lives in Spokane. “Gonzaga has grown to the stature and the level that necessitates having a good NIL program in place.”
Soon after NIL became reality, Santangelo had conversations with the Gonzaga coaching staff and members of the athletics department.
“They wanted to keep it somewhat close to home with people familiar with the program, the standard of excellence and the history. With the context I have being a former player and still tied to the community and university, it was, ‘Let’s take a swing at it.’ ”
Funding comes from three sources:
• Traditional corporate sponsors that want to utilize the athletes’ NIL, featuring Spokane-area businesses such as Gee Automotive, Dealers Auto Auction, Washington Trust Bank and The Wolff Company.
• A donor base.
“It’s people and families who understand the importance of having competitive, solid consistent NIL program in place,” Santangelo says.
• Subscription base. “Friends of Spike” is about to launch a program creating exclusive behind-the-scenes content for customers to purchase.
“It would warrant the greater fan base of Zag Nation to be able to participate in it at maybe $10 to $20, a recurring subscription model,” Santangelo says.
Santangelo admits that, in a way, NIL is about keeping up with the Krzyzewskis.
“This is our way to continue competing at the highest level of college basketball,” he says. “The university has done a great job of developing relations corporately and philanthropically, but there are only so many times you can go back to the same companies and families. This makes athletes more accessible to their fans.
“I liken it to when I came in as an athlete. The questions then were, ‘What shoe company do you have? How many games on TV?’ We’ve seen that evolve. Now it’s other things, like strength of schedule, how you travel, facilities. Gonzaga has done awesome job with those. Now (NIL) is its next asset.”
“Friends of Spike” is open to members of all teams at Gonzaga.
“So far it’s mostly men’s basketball, a little women’s basketball and baseball, but hopefully we’ll do more in the future,” Santangelo says.
The collective has done close to $350,000 in NIL deals for 40 engagements. The biggest one is $18,500, though basketball star Drew Timme is a case unto himself.
Timme has a website (gimmetimme.com) that sells featured products at not-cheap prices ($28 for a signature logo water bottle, for instance). In On3’s NIL valuations — a ranking of top college athletes and athletes-to-be, projecting as far as 12 months in the future, based on potential “performance, influence and exposure” — Timme is ranked 26th and is valued at $912,000.
“Drew made good money last year through his agency and his endeavors,” Santangelo says.
Santangelo is bullish on NIL.
“I think it will work,” he says. “You only see the headlines, the astronomical deals. Eventually that will come back to earth. The market can only bear so much. I think culture still wins out. Elite programs have to have an NIL program in place, but don’t have to be the biggest house on the block. Just create consistent opportunities year after year.”
Santangelo points out that athletes don’t work exclusively with a school’s collective.
“They may have agents,” he says. “They can work through an attorney. Some use a parent. We’re like a market major. We work in contingency with the agency on potential deals. We’re working on behalf of them and with them. Almost every athlete who has participated with us has had NIL opportunities outside of ‘Friends of Spike.’ ”
Santangelo disputes the idea that NIL will allow the rich schools to grow richer.
“Doesn’t Oregon already have an advantage?” he asks. “Does it change Texas’ approach? (Well, yes it has). The cynic in me would say it legitimizes what they’ve already been doing.
“But I think culture beats all. There are still more offensive linemen than they can cover. It will influence where some athletes go, but (in basketball) Duke is still Duke and Gonzaga is Gonzaga.”
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The On3 NIL evaluations, based on potential influence the athlete has as an individual, are telling.
Bronny James, a senior at Sierra Canyon High in Ohio and the son of LeBron James, is No. 1 at $7.3 million. Nike signed him to an NIL deal this week.
No. 2 is quarterback Arch Manning, the son of Cooper Manning, nephew of Payton and Eli Manning and grandson of Archie Manning. Arch, a senior at Isidore Newman High in LA, is valued at $3.4 million.
Following those two are Alabama QB Bryce Young ($2.9 million), Ohio State QB C.J. Stroud ($2.6 million), Olympic and LSU gymnast Olivia Dunne ($2.3 million) and Southern Cal QB Caleb Williams ($2.1 million).
Big names get the big bucks. But really, that rankings of such things are available is in itself disturbing.
NIL is not only here to stay, it’s here to expand.
Says Opendorse CEO Blake Lawrence: “NIL collectives will soon be a standard across all of D1 athletics, not just the Power 5.”
During her time with the Oregon State Student Advisory Committee, Pivec was privy to many ideas about how things should be handled if and when NIL arrived.
“We talked about numbers,” she says. “Such as, an athlete can keep a maximum amount to spend — say $50,000 or $100,000 — and the rest has to be placed in investments that can’t be withdrawn until after graduation. And there must be transparency in regards to who is paying who, what and where. Anything to help keep schools honest.”
A cap for NIL deals has been proposed by many. Many of those interviewed for this story would go for it.
“Selfishly, yes, because I know (Gonzaga) will never be at the top,” Santangelo says. “But if people are willing to pay that money, who am I to stop somebody earning what they can earn?”
“There definitely should be one,” Scott Sanders says. “No 20-year-old kid should get a $2 million bonus if he has never taken a snap at a school, and a senior already there is getting only his scholarship check. But it’s a crazy world in college sports right now.”
As a wiseacre once said, there is no putting the toothpaste back into the tube.
“It will be very hard to reign it back in,” Pivec says. “They opened Pandora’s Box. It’s like, ‘Uh oh, what can we do now?’ "
And now, Oregon youths have a chance to get in on the act. This week, the OSAA ruled that high school athletes can profit from their NIL.
NIL is not only here to stay, it’s here to expand.
“We’ll see how it plays out,” Tinker Hatfield says. "It’s a topic that a lot of people have on their mind.”
Now let’s all go out and make the best of it.
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