Can athletes make money from televised games under NIL?
I've been trying to figure out if there's a loophole for players to get a portion of TV revenue that's usually dedicated to universities. Clearly the universities can't pay athletes out of their TV revenue, but is there a way to restructure TV offers (especially for programs like ND and Texas) or with B1G/ACC/SEC Networks to include NIL payments from networks to players?
Example:
B1G Network airs a certain number of UM games per season.
B1G Network reaches agreement with the conference so that a % of payouts from televised games go to players for NIL compensation, since they'll be featured on a profit-generating broadcast.
No individual school has made an offer to the players, so it's not "pay for play", but it's built in to the broadcast contract.
Super hypothetical, but I'm curious. Any lawyers/rules wonks care to weigh in?
January 6th, 2022 at 1:52 PM ^
Thank you for bringing these new things to light. That had not occurred to us dude. We were not privy to all the new shit, but I guess this is what we pay you for, amirite?
January 6th, 2022 at 1:55 PM ^
This has been discussed? Can you point me somewhere? I've been looking.
January 6th, 2022 at 3:28 PM ^
Haven't seen such discussion here, either. And it's important. Because pretending that you're 'leveling the playing field,' etc. may be a bit of a joke when you let individual young athletes sell t-shirts or used cars but the television millions keep rolling toward the schools. And if you wanted to avoid all-out class warfare, where your QB drives a Rolls but the third-string linemen drive Yugos, then you could do worse than turn over some of that filthy television lucre to the players.
No one's pretending any of it's fair--we get further from that every day. But it might be a way to level the football field at least a bit when Michigan plays, say, CMU. Or Northwestern.
Now that we're seeing where all of this may be headed, I'm going to be most interested in what this new B1G, ACC, and Pac 12 alliance has to say about it all. So far, crickets. I'm thinking that could be because people like the presidents are appalled, while the Jim Harbaughs of this world are urging that they get on board. If there's behind-the-scenes tension, I'd imagine, especially of the kind that might make Harbaugh decamp, it's likelier between administrators and football than Harbaugh and Manuel.
January 6th, 2022 at 1:58 PM ^
I think there would have to be a second quid pro quo. I think it would be possible for the schools/conference to negotiate a deal with BTN where 90% goes to the schools and 10% gets set aside for NIL deals with players. That 10% would have to be for additional work above and beyond appearing in games and other "normal" duties of being a player (e.g. press appearances, corny BTN features).
Obviously since there is no players' union or other representation, the schools have only taken all revenue for themselves. I think an NIL-forward school could make terms such as I described for not only the relationship with BTN but also all other sponsors (including Nike and Meijer)
January 6th, 2022 at 2:00 PM ^
Why not just let the money come into the school and then give it out from there. The NCAA is not going to stop anything. They do not care, and honestly, if they try to stop it, they will lose in court. There are no rules anymore.
January 6th, 2022 at 3:01 PM ^
That's the extremely sad part, that there are no rules anymore. It might benefit the universities, the coaches, the players, but it will not benefit the fans. Just like every sport, the greed of the owners, coaches, and players always puts the shaft to the fans.
January 6th, 2022 at 3:07 PM ^
I do wonder if the "meaningless bowl games" can entice players leaning towards opting out to play to drive up revenue and demand for the game. I bet Walker and Pickens both play if they were offered $100,000 each to suit up for the game. Does it make financial sense for the bowl, no idea. But they could definitely tie in some obligations to do NIL stuff for the bowl sponsors (e.g., "I am KW3 and I'm Kenny Pickens and we encourage y'all to eat a peach!").
January 6th, 2022 at 3:41 PM ^
It would take ALOT more than $100K.
The difference in the 2021 NFL draft between the #1 pick ($32M/4years) to #32 ($11M/4years)..... An injury that drops a top player in first round just few spots is a loss of several Million dollars. Dropping to Second or lower round really costs them a lot of money.
Maybe $ and a pre-paid insurance policy...
January 6th, 2022 at 1:58 PM ^
Schools can do whatever they want, but these contracts are complicated and made far in advance, between networks and conferences. I think this is very unlikely in the near future. By the time something like this would be in the works, there will be so much different about the sport, it is impossible to speculate on what it would look like.
By then players might be under contract with the schools, who knows.
January 6th, 2022 at 1:59 PM ^
NIL money can only be distributed by reputable business people in the waste management, waste disposal, or tractor-trailer shipping businesses.
January 6th, 2022 at 2:01 PM ^
I hear some of those guys pay in gabagool.
January 6th, 2022 at 7:50 PM ^
Frames Janklin is working the gumar angle for the players.
January 6th, 2022 at 2:39 PM ^
Can school bus drivers teach our children math?
Stay tuned and find out
January 6th, 2022 at 3:07 PM ^
Athletes being paid to play sports (getting a slice of TV revenue): Not allowed.
Athletes being paid for work/advertising that is not directly related to their sport: Allowed.
They literally just created a loophole to bring NIL to college athletics. Get paid by others to do things non-related to their collegiate sports team and you are all good. Even if the TV money was set aside and not disbursed by the schools, they would still be getting paid to play the sport. Not allowed.
Who would actually govern this? Who the hell knows???
January 6th, 2022 at 4:25 PM ^
What about mini-profiles like they did w/ Ojabo and his family? If it's a player who's eligible for NIL, could they get paid to do a profile on the network?
January 6th, 2022 at 4:31 PM ^
FWIW, I think that might be okay, though I think you'd be safer filming something that is explicitly a promotion for the network. That (the promotion) would presumably be okay.
January 6th, 2022 at 3:44 PM ^
Create the Michigan TV network that has exclusive rights to all UM home games for all sports. All TV ads on the network from any brands will require UM player endorsements on their respective Instagram pages.
Every athlete makes a post about that sweet velveeta and rotel dip and velveeta can then get ad time on the Michigan network. And the ad money gets distributed to all players equally.
The TV deal money is just advertising money pass through. Cut out the middle man network.
Bose can be the official exclusive premium audio sponsor of blah blah blah. Ford gets exclusive auto commercials if they give every player a car of their choosing and they post about it on their IG pages. Etc.
The companies pay into a player fund that's distributed and Michigan sells them the airtime for $1.
January 7th, 2022 at 8:08 AM ^
Look how the idea of a dedicated school TV network played out for Texas.
January 7th, 2022 at 10:56 AM ^
Running it as essentially a non-profit and using it as a means to compensate players via ad revenue could be huge for non-revenue sports athletes that never get televised.
January 6th, 2022 at 4:28 PM ^
This is an interesting question. A first issue is that each Big Ten state's NIL laws (if they exist) will come into play, and I don't know off the top of my head what all of them say. I believe that the NCAA's NIL policy does not forbid schools (or by extension conferences, I assume) from facilitating NIL compensation for players. But some state laws apparently do (I'm not sure which ones).
A second issue is whether this would constitute "pay for play." An easy response is that it does, because the players are being compensated for doing nothing other than playing. A possible response is that it does not and that the players are somehow serving as spokespeople for the network, though that seems fairly tortured to me.
Here is an interesting article about uncertainty regarding what the NIL policy means: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/01/04/lack-clear-ncaa-rules-creates-confusion-around-nil