NIL - And Some Unanticipated Effects
Mates,
Came across this on ESPN. It's a pretty convoluted tale, the essence of which is a star Georgia high school footballer was lured to California by a Sports Marketing/NIL firm (an alleged firm) with promises:
"The Levels Team promised that the Cunningham family would have a home, transportation and meals in California," the filing states. "A promise was even made that the Levels Team would provide a separate home in Georgia for [Cunningham's] mother."
None of that apparently came true. The kid and his younger brother ended up staying at the house of the 'founder' of Levels who got arrested last month for sexual assault of a minor. Meanwhile, the CIF (That's California's version of MHSAA) barred the kid from playing and said he wasn't 'homeless' even though they have no home?
Link to the story here: https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/34595264/top-california-football-prospect-ta-cunningham-asks-injunction-play-being-deemed-ineligible
The case goes before a judge later today to see if s/he will issue an order permitting the young man to play.
Many things about NIL are very good and its cool that the players can make some well-deserved income. However, stories like this are cringeworthy but hopefully extremely rare.
XM
September 15th, 2022 at 10:04 AM ^
Too much money involved and too little regulation. While there's the potential for a significant benefit to some players, there is also a lot of opportunity for those players to be exploited. Sadly, I expect stories like this, and even worse, to continue.
September 15th, 2022 at 11:13 AM ^
I assume you first sentence is talking about American politics in general?
September 15th, 2022 at 1:03 PM ^
While I can't believe anyone believes there's a politician interested in anything other than lining their pockets at the public's expense, this was an actually serious topic
September 15th, 2022 at 11:47 AM ^
The NI Likeness Monster strikes again.
September 15th, 2022 at 11:56 AM ^
Yes, regulation is always the answer...
Like the regulations that are keeping him and his family from moving on after getting jobbed.
September 15th, 2022 at 12:45 PM ^
In this case, even minimal regulation would be a benefit. Imagine if persons seeking to offer NIL to prospective athletes had to hold themselves to a certain minimal standard so that the athletes knew that the persons with whom they were dealing were legit. Transparency is what is needed.
September 15th, 2022 at 11:57 AM ^
NCAA only has themselves to blame. They could have developed a legitimate regulated NIL strategy over the past couple of decades in preparation for the inevitable, but they sat on their dicks instead.
September 15th, 2022 at 12:04 PM ^
Monocle - though I usually have a “glass half full” perspective, Mark Emmert epitomized ineptness and lack of leadership, insight, or objectivity.
He capitulated to specific interests with far too great a frequency - such as North Carolina academics, or recruiting / holding camps in SEC / ACC country.
September 15th, 2022 at 10:05 AM ^
Is it really that unanticipated? Like betting doesn't influence sports? New angle though. Maybe Reggie Bush's family will put him up!
September 15th, 2022 at 10:07 AM ^
That sucks for this kid and his family. I feel for them.
This is certainly an side effect of NIL. The world of agents and big money was already hard enough to navigate for professional athletes and their families, when the young men are 4+ years older than these kids.
Any new market with big money at stake will always attract it’s fair share of grifters and people will get burned.
Just look at all the kids who committed to Notre Dame before the season.
September 15th, 2022 at 11:36 AM ^
What college was he supposed to play for? Trump University?
(No politics. Just acknowledging that fraud seeks out fraud.)
September 15th, 2022 at 10:10 AM ^
Something tells me this won’t be the last story of NIL not meeting the expectations of the prospect and their friends / family that we will hear and read about.
September 15th, 2022 at 10:22 AM ^
To the extent that this could be a good thing in the long run (though obviously not for this person), there were endless tales exactly like this that were not told because accepting compensation was taboo, and it could not even come to light because obviously a player could not accuse off the books donors of not following up on their end of breaking the rules.
Players are simply going to have to become more sophisticated in terms of their understanding of the dynamic, and they will, because now at least people can discuss the dynamic out in the open so they can learn. What sounds to-good-to-be-true usually is.
September 15th, 2022 at 10:39 AM ^
330 - great points. And, though many wish Michigan would “move faster” with the NIL program, situations like this may shed light on the benefits of (hopefully) a fair, comprehensive, and well thought out NIL approach that Michigan develops and offers.
There are legal and tax implications which could be significant, and as others have pointed out - the agreement(s) initially reached - may, in fact, be with a 17 year old minor. In that case, if would seem - that a legal guardian or parent would be involved in signing any agreement.
Respectfully, I wonder how much knowledge and experience the player and their representatives have in matters of this kind. My initial perspective is that it would be limited, at best. And, that limited knowledge results in a situation where they can be taken advantage of.
September 15th, 2022 at 10:42 AM ^
Yes. And I have not minded Michigan's "contemplative" approach to NIL. Does anybody really think what say Texas A&M is doing is going to work out well? Count me out on that.
September 15th, 2022 at 10:59 AM ^
330 - this is an interesting topic, for a number of reasons - and, IMO, what I have seen from the approach more visible Michigan student athletes have taken, reflects the values of both the football program - the Athletic Department - and, University.
Three examples of Michigan player NIL fund “usage”, that - again, IMO, reflect that character are: Blake Corum - providing and distributing Thanksgiving meals to those in need, and purchasing / distributing school supplies to those who needed them. JJ McCarthy donating some NIL to Mott’s. And, Jake Moody reaching an agreement to have monies donated to Mott’s for each FG he makes.
These players and their actions reflect the character and principles Harbaugh - and leadership both in Academics and Athletics - seem to be driving toward, and reflect well on Michigan.
Go Blue!
September 15th, 2022 at 11:09 AM ^
Agree with all.
September 15th, 2022 at 3:59 PM ^
Well there is one way that Michigan and Texas A&M are on the same level...
September 15th, 2022 at 10:15 AM ^
He's still in HS. I thought it was pretty common knowledge HS athletes couldn't receive NIL benefits, that's why Ewers left HS early.
September 15th, 2022 at 11:38 AM ^
Some states do allow NIL for high school athletes. Ewers left HS early because Texas is not one of those states (a great decision on his part btw, I’m not sure if he’d have started and played so well vs. Bama last week had he arrived straight out of high school). The athlete in this story left because Georgia is also not one of those states. The states that do allow NIL:
- Alaska
- California
- Colorado
- Connecticut
- DC
- Idaho
- Iowa
- Kansas
- Louisiana
- Maine
- Massachusetts
- Minnesota
- Nebraska
- North Dakota
- New Jersey
- New York
- Utah
September 15th, 2022 at 11:42 AM ^
Some states actually do allow high school athletes to receive NIL. I'm not sure, but California may be one of them.
However, the state of Texas specifically put into law that high school athletes could not receive NIL, which is why Ewers left early to OSU. He left, collected his check to redshirt for 1 season, then transferred to Texas.
September 15th, 2022 at 10:18 AM ^
Not sure any of the effects of NIL are "unanticipated" by anyone who gave it more than a day or two of actual thought. Trying to make a free market of de facto free agents in an environment of non-profit, (predominantly) publicly supported academic student institutions - heavily biased towards a very small subset of those students that are in "power" programs in "revenue" sports - not to mention that it also includes many that are still legally minors, was always going to be a joke.
September 15th, 2022 at 10:24 AM ^
Next people will say the CFP have altered the bowl interest and talent playing in them. Balderdash!
September 15th, 2022 at 10:32 AM ^
Bowls were always about private parties trying to increase their own profits by providing an exhibition game of college teams to attract visitors. The first Rose Bowl was simply the city of Pasadena trying to increase tourism.
The same is not true about college sports themselves - they were not created at schools with the intent to drive revenue by attracting viewers. A *very small* selection of college sports overall (mainly just the "revenue" sports at the larger schools) have been perverted by various monied interests (with the largest being corporate marketers, which drive the network revenue, which drives so much else). People may argue about whether or not this us a "good" thing, but the base principle of what has happened is true.
September 15th, 2022 at 10:27 AM ^
For the profit sports, the myth of amateurism had collapsed under its own weight, and coaching pay created too much of an obvious discrepancy in value v. benefit between player and coach. It had to happen. This is not it in it's best form yet but it will evolve to something that makes more sense.
And we all get to play college football video games again, and really that was always the most important thing.
September 15th, 2022 at 1:52 PM ^
These kinds of outcomes became inevitable the moment someone decided that everyone except the players can profit from their labor.
If the NCAA had wised up decades ago and created a regulated way for players to share in the profits generated by big-time collegiate athletics, the landscape wouldn't have devolved into the Wild West-like free-for-all that we find ourselves in today. Instead, they died on the hill of a hypocritical and unsustainable model of "amateurism" built on mental gymnastics that blatantly violated antitrust law.
September 17th, 2022 at 9:07 AM ^
The take that football playing student-athletes are somehow not major and significant bwneficiaries of the existing arrangement is hypocritical. How do you believe their massive benefits (tuition, room, board, stipends, training, promotions, marketing & networking, tutoring, books, etc... with equivalent value of $100s/year for someone just out of high school and no credentials or experience) are actually covered? The view that someone everyone else is profiting but the players is a biased mischaracterization, mostly driven by marketers and sports agents trying to enrich themselves off of the pool of college athletes that they were not allowed to tap. Has the amount of money involved in the sport become ridiculous? Absolutely - but all of the salaries and bloated staff are there mainly for the purpose of supporting those players.
September 22nd, 2022 at 10:04 PM ^
Please explain to me the logic behind completely prohibiting a player from profiting from his own name, image, and likeness in any way--not even so much as a free burrito--while allowing the schools, conferences, TV networks, corporate sponsors, EA Sports, and whoever else wants in on the action to profit from his labor to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. I'll wait.
There's a reason why the NCAA lost at the Supreme Court 9-0.
September 15th, 2022 at 10:28 AM ^
For every rule/law that’s out there, there will always be a person that tries to use it in a bad way.
September 15th, 2022 at 10:29 AM ^
I feel bad enough for the kid to be evicted from his home and then lured to California by promises that didn't materialize. But then to be told that he can't play HS football because, first, he wasn't homeless (um, what?) and then, later, because he had contact with the HS coach before going to the school? Just a shitty situation.
It also seems like there's more to the story, like probably an opposing coach working behind the scenes to make sure this kid doesn't play:
As part of the filing, Caspino included the body of an email addressed to Wigod, among others, on Sept. 6, complaining about Cunningham's transfer to Los Alamitos. The unknown author wrote, in part, "In football, building illegal mega teams becomes dangerous for players they face. Our concern is primarily focused on the possibility of exposure to devastating injuries while playing vs players such as TA Cunningham."
September 15th, 2022 at 11:23 AM ^
The biggest issue I have with NIL is an agency issue. If you are getting all or a majority of your compensation from a different source than the organization for whom you are doing your work day in day out, then who is really your boss? Are you out there working for Michigan, who provides you with an education only that we have been repeatedly told should not even be looked at as a thing of real value from the standpoint of the student athlete, or are you primarily representing the interests of party X, who is paying you a large sum of money for……something.
This is honestly the reason why I am really watching a lot more pro ball this year. When I was a student the football players were more or less like me, They had certain privileges sure, but they were students doing student things, not millionaires who are there because somebody offered them more cash than someone somewhere else (I get that at some level a lot of these athletes were already receiving something). I am just having a hard time getting excited at the prospect of watching a team of free agents play for my school.
September 15th, 2022 at 2:55 PM ^
That is kind of the reason why I am glad that I am a Michigan fan. I am under no misperception that Michigan a bastion of amateurism, but there is also no indication that the basics are really changing all that much. That is one of the reasons that I appreciated Harbaugh's "not transactional" comments that he made during the off-season. NIL really hasn't changed much of anything for Michigan.
September 15th, 2022 at 3:10 PM ^
Then he followed that up later in the off-season by saying if Ohio State is going to pay their players $13 million in NIL money, then Michigan needs to double that for their players. Followed that up this week by saying on the Rich Eisen show that the players should pocket some money from the $1Billion dollar new TV deal that the B1G just signed.
Coach Harbaugh like most of America realizes that for far too long people have made a TON of money off the players who were performing on the field. Now it is time that the players be rewarded for their performance.
September 15th, 2022 at 3:01 PM ^
That’s true with any athlete/entertainer, Steph Curry is an employee of the Warriors and gets a check from Under Armor. Charles Barkley works for Turner Broadcasting and gets paid by Subway as well.
A ton of ppl do this with no issue at all. To be fair…the football players on campus were never like you or me. No one is paying top dollar to see us perform every weekend. ESPN is not coming to campus to interview us on how we plan to beat our opponent in the next game. Neither of us were getting flown around the country on chartered flights either while we were in school.
These young men still have to do school things as you say. They still have to maintain academic eligibility to stay on the field as they’ve always had. The only difference is now they can collect money if someone wants them to endorse their product. Why is that such a bad thing?
September 15th, 2022 at 12:12 PM ^
yup, the toothpaste is out of the tube and there were/are few if any rules around it..... its going to be the wild west for another year or so before it gets regulated well beyond reason....
that's the nature of things.
September 15th, 2022 at 1:54 PM ^
Is there a NIL regulatory /investigation body? Or is that supposed to be the NCAA?
September 15th, 2022 at 2:46 PM ^
C - some states have NIL laws. There is no federal / national standard - which is part of the problem.
It seems like the NCAA, with their usual leadership and vision exemplified by Emmert - is staying clear and not touching anything NIL related.