For better or worse: NIL is changing college sports

Summary

The NCAA's name, image, and likeness (NIL) rule is changing the landscape of college sports, with significant impacts on recruitment, benefits, and challenges. Before this, college athletes and programs would get in serious trouble for making any money off of their own name or image while in college. Not any more. Tangela Cheatham, Deputy Athletic Director at Central Michigan University, discusses how NIL is transforming the student-athlete experience, the role of collectives, and the unique challenges facing mid-major programs. The NIL landscape is rapidly evolving, with ongoing legal battles and a need to balance entrepreneurial opportunities for student-athletes with preserving the core student-athlete experience and amateurism in college sports.

Transcript

Chapters 

• 00:00 Introduction
• 00:24 What is the NCAA's Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) rule and why is it such a significant change for college athletes?
• 02:14 How has the NIL rule changed the landscape of college athletics since its implementation?
• 06:29 What impact has the NIL rule had on the recruitment of student-athletes across the country, and how are schools adapting their strategies in response?
• 08:45 What is a collective?
• 11:40 How are universities keeping up with ever-changing NIL rules?
• 14:08 What’s the difference between “true NIL” and NIL?
• 16:48 What is the impact of NIL on less-prominent sports?
• 25:47 What is the impact of NIL on smaller schools?
• 36:24 What NIL opportunities do CMU athletes have?

Introduction

What is the NCAA's Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) rule and why is it such a significant change for college athletes? 

Adam: I want to go back a little bit and explain what a collective is because it's interesting and it's sometimes foggy. 

Tangela: Yes, great question. So a collective is basically a fund that donors at this point have. They've gone in, they put money together and they decide how they want to provide that to student athletes at a program. Different collectors put different parameters on how they put that funding out. So they can have requirements for the student athletes, they can have it for specific teams. We do have the Chippewa NIL fund through CGA America. You can go to that website, and you can pick a team that you'd like to donate to their collective. And each collective can have parameters on how a student athlete can access those funds. So, there can be specific things. So, they may want to give to a student athlete who is interested in nursing that that student athlete can get a few thousand dollars, and they have to put a post on social media promoting a product or go and do community service. 

So, donors will give to this fund and then they can have requirements for a student athlete to then get those funds. At this point, those are not run by institutions themselves for the most part, they're run by outside groups. It's actively changing by the day what type of involvement institutions can have with that. And it's also on the table of will collectives go away and will institutions be able to pay student athletes directly. So, at this point, again, heavily collective driven, but we could see a future where institutions are looking to directly pay student athletes in some capacity. 

Adam: It's such a weird place and this has moved so quickly and just in the last year, the amount of clarifying information NCAA has tried to provide almost immediately being met by either state laws being changed to challenge the NCAA or by lawsuits being brought up against them about these specific rules. Because like you had mentioned, it seems like not everyone's, some collectives are pretty distant from the university. Some collectives almost feel like they're really adjacent to the university. The NCAA has different thoughts on how that should go, and then courts are kind of sorting that whole thing out. But to your point, does seem to be trending towards the institution having more control over essentially that pot of money that might be used 

Tangela: Or control of more of the process of funding. 

Adam: Funding, getting funding. 

How are universities keeping up with ever-changing NIL rules?

Tangela: ...and what that looks like. We're trying to figure that out. So even within our department, we have kind of created a group that looks at what is actively happening in this space, all things college athletics. But obviously NIL is a big part of what's happening because it has a great impact on the landscape of intercollegiate athletics. We call it our AL loop group, which is like observe, orient, decide, and act. And so instead of this longer strategic plan process, because of the rapidly evolving state of intercollegiate athletics, we're like, okay, we have to pay attention to what's happening, and we have to assess what's happening. We have to figure out how are we going to address that. And so, we have this group of our senior administrators or senior group within the department where we actively look at literally every week what is coming and how do we address it at this level. 

But also again, from a bigger standpoint because there are MAC (Mid-American Conference) implications that are a little different than our friends down the street at the bigger institutions. But we do still have to see “what are the implications from an NIL standpoint” because I'm not sure we'll be able to operate in the same capacity. But we do still have to see what are the implications for when our coaches are going out in recruiting and the conversations that they'll be able to have with students when they're asking, well, what is the collective that you have? And we do have a collective, but are the funds the same? Are they different? Will we be able to bring it? What does it look like if we are able to bring it in-house? We do have open doors, which is a platform where people can go on and they can broker deals directly with our student athletes. 

So if they wanted to have an autograph signing at a local store, they can go on and they can go to athlete one who has their profile set up and they can say, oh, I want to reach out to you and set up an opportunity for you to come to my store and do autograph signings. They can do that directly through Opendorse. So, we do actively monitor that and have provided an opportunity for our student athletes to do that. But within our department, we are actively watching and paying attention to what's happening nationally because it is changing so much. 

What’s the difference between “true NIL” and NIL?

Adam: And there's a lot of implications there too. Even the resources that might be needed to deal with some of this, this is going to scale very differently for different institutions and for different athletic programs. But it feels like there's all sorts of questions and I don't know that you can answer them, but it's like are these students going to become employees? Are there benefits? If a student becomes an employee, how many hours are they allowed to work? What constitutes his work if it goes that route? Or if you're managing it through something like open doors or something similar depending on the program, sorry, depending on the size of the overall athletics program or depending on the program within that college, does the student have representation? Do they understand what they're getting into? How much can the institution step in to advise them when it comes to you don't want to do business with this person or you're not getting a good deal here. There's so much stuff that isn't very clear right now. And part of I think the concern that folks you probably have too is we're trying to protect athletes at all sorts of different levels in terms of what they might be able to make or the attractiveness of them to these potential partners in terms of business, right? 

Tangela: And again, you'll hear a number of people talking about true NIL and then NIL, that's more geared toward a pay for play. And I'll always go back to my interest in working in college athletics has always been who are you without your jersey? And that's that kind of personal development and personal branding and developing who you are. So, when you talk about aligning with the business, that's really important. So, do you want to align? I know this business may come and say, “Hey, we're going to pay you X amount of dollars to represent our organization or represent our product,” but is that a company that you want to be aligned with? And I know the dollars may sound like a great opportunity, especially if you're in need of making some money, which who's not. But you have to be able to assess that. And if those opportunities start coming in at a large amount, how do we make sure that we're in a position as a department to help our student athletes? And I think that's what a lot of departments are trying to assess is how do we ensure that we're still in a space where we're able to help navigate the student athlete experience? Because at its core, that's what the NCAA, that's what our departments are working to do is create a great student athlete experience. So within NIL, 

How are we still making sure we're navigating a great student athlete experience? And that's what we're looking at. How are we doing that?

What is the impact of NIL on athletes in less-prominent sports?

Adam: And I think in the national headlines too, in regards to that, the focus tends to be a little bit more on, well, if I have this athlete who is, they're making national headlines and they're getting offers from these big brands and companies that we know about, they are probably, they have some business installation that's already built into that level of spotlight. There's also student athletes out there who might be getting courted and don't have that kind of representation because it's local dentist, it's a local car dealership where that could be a big deal for them and it could help with some of their comfort and some of their ability to plan for their future, but they're not like that athlete that's selling jerseys to kids seven states over. And that's probably a little bit more difficult to manage for the institutions right now because they're on their own doing that, I imagine. 

Tangela: Well, I mean probably for most students, they'll have the local opportunities because there are more of those available. They probably have more connections to opportunities back home. You'll see those more than your bigger national insurance companies or national food chains. Those are probably geared to those once in a lifetime type athletes. And so most of the student athletes probably do have opportunities for gift in kind type opportunities, and they're excited for those. We have student athletes that have those type of opportunities now, and those still go a long way. I think what we see a lot in media right now are those sensationalized opportunities that again, more lean toward is this a pay for place situation? Is this a recruitment inducement? And I think when people were more hesitant to move toward name, image and likeness, which led to the lawsuits, which were like our hand was forced, that was the type of opportunity that was the hesitancy, not necessarily the local dentist or the local car dealership. Those are great. Sell the car and go to the local Humane Society and help support that organization is more are we using this as an opportunity for an unfair advantage over the next place? I do think those local opportunities are really good because most people, that would be the opportunity that most of them will have, and they're excited about it and we're excited for them, but we want to make sure those are true NIL opportunities. 

Adam: Right. Yeah, the stuff that people are where a lot of that debate right now is, and this is again really at powerful institutions, there's a tremendous amount of money, a tremendous amount of money in these collectives and what you have to do to access that money isn't always that business transaction. We just described it. She's like, oh, you're going to be in a local car commercial. 

Tangela: Well, it's being said, right? I don't see, we don't know. We only know what's being told, right? And so I think that's the thing that I think keeps some people up at night is we don't know. And I'm not opposed, right? I'm not opposed to student athletes being able to benefit from the work that they're putting in as student athletes. It's just what does that look like? One thing I do have, the concern is a lot of the conversation is around your higher profile coach pay your higher profile administrator pay. Because that's where it's like, well, we see all of these folks getting paid and in football, men's basketball athletes, some women's basketball athletes, and I think sometimes in the conversation was lost are some of the folks that are working to support them. And this is not a self for myself as I did start in student athlete services. 

So, I was an academic advisor at one point. I was in on the ground in student athlete life skills. But you do have the folks that are athletic trainers, you do have folks that are facilities and event staff. You do have folks that are academic advisors, development officers on the ground working that aren't these higher paid positions that are the main talking points for why student athletes are losing out on funding that I don't want to be lost in the conversation of who's helping to keep these student athletes going. And so hopefully they don't get lost because they really do help the student athletes go and succeed every day. And so I think it's important to speak up for that group of people again, not only because I was that group of people, but those folks aren't making six figures in most cases, and they aren't making the seven figures that some of your higher profile coaches that are getting large buyouts and getting paid for years that are part of the conversation of, well, why aren't our student athletes getting this that led to these lawsuits and we need our student athletes get a piece of this pie. 

Because I don't think that student athletes shouldn't get a piece of pie. It's just kind of being that true NIL that we're working for. And again, it's kind of a wild, wild west right now, and I do think markets settle, right? So I think once we get a handle on how do we make this work, I think we'll be in a much better spot, but it's going to be painful as we see while we work to get there. And I do not know what that looks like. I have no idea, but maybe I had to look at that glass half full mindset because I think that's the only way I can go to sleep at night. But I'm looking forward to us figuring out, as an industry, how do we make name, image and likeness work? So how do we make this experience one that is positive for the student athlete where we're getting to the core of them getting to experience, again, a benefit from their name, image of likeness, but we're still getting to experience a true connection between athletics and higher education because again, this is the only country where this model exists.

And I think it's something great where even though there is transfer portal, so you may not experience the four five year connection like you did before, there is that tie between athletes and alumni or athletes and the general student population that you don't see in other spaces. That I think is what makes college athletics great and that we don't want to lose in all of this. 

Adam: Yeah, I think to clarify my point too, that is when I was mentioning, and it's this dark, it's not that I'm trying to insinuate that it's some dark money, but I think when a lot of people hear about this, the stuff that's getting argued about, they think about that Johnny Mazel documentary and they go, someone's just going to give this guy a million dollars to sign autographs in a conference room and that's going to recruit him over. And I think we're trying to have guardrails against do we want that? Do we not want that? Versus these things that are more of that pure NIL.

Tangela: That's where we are, and that's what a lot of people believe is happening, and that's what may be happening. 

Adam: Yeah, we don't know and we don't have enough rules for clarity to figure it out yet. I also wanted to, it is just a little bit of an aside, but I think it helps clarify for the American audience. Nobody else in kind of anywhere else in the world ties athletics to not even just higher education institutions, but just high schools even. 

I have an exchange student who lives with me right now, and she couldn't believe how tied athletics were to higher high school when she got here. It's just something that doesn't get done other places too. So we are very unique in that. So if you were even a 16 or 17 or 18-year-old and you're playing tennis or field hockey or something like the opportunity to play that semi-professionally at some sort of a club team in Europe, or it would exist for you and the school would have nothing to do with it at all. So these ments do not exist in other systems, which admittedly, I wasn't that privy to. I had an exchange student and I was like, oh my goodness, 

Tangela: I only know because I did study higher education in intercollegiate athletics. And so we talked about that a lot. 

Adam: Yeah, I mean, you had a proper, 

Tangela: For my grad school. 

Adam: You had a proper education. A German 16-year-old told me about it. 

Tangela: We stress that a lot. 

What is the impact of NIL on smaller schools?

Adam: I want to talk about that size thing about the way this is going to affect the really big power institutions versus the way it's going to affect mid-major schools like us, like Central Michigan University. We're division one school, but we're not like we're not a big 10 school and then even go down the train a little bit. Well, how does a division two or division three school affect it differently than your larger institutions? 

Tangela: I think ultimately there remains to be seen, but I mean even we're seeing it now even with how the transfer portal works. So, you'll have a student that will recruit from high school and they'll come here, we'll train 'em up, they'll do well, then they'll transfer to a bigger institution because they can offer some NIL funding that maybe we don't have access to at this time. But at the same token, maybe we'll get some students from a larger institution that maybe it didn't work out there that can come here. So it can give and take from both an NIL and a transfer portal standpoint, but I think it remains to be seen. I listen to different podcasts. I'm reading articles every day, and I'm hearing outrageous numbers. It seems from, oh, it takes 10 million to build a basketball team at this level now. And if that's for a basketball team, well, we can only imagine what it will take for a football team. 

And so I think it remains to be seen what it means for different levels. But even you look at the recent college football playoff agreement, which again, will fully play a part in name, image, and likeness and how we navigate pieces. But your Big 10 and SEC schools getting a much bigger payout than your ACC and your Big 12 schools. To answer your question or not answer, answer your question, it remains to be seen. But the things that a big 10 or SEC school can offer from a name, image and likeness standpoint kind of doesn't compare. And again, we don't have that answer yet, but like I said, I've been reading different articles and listening to different podcasts, and I actually just was at an event out in Arizona and talking to people who are at Power four institutions about some of the things that they're navigating, and again, hearing these million dollar answers for how much it takes to build a roster. And so again, a non-answer, answer to your question, but it impacts us a lot differently. And again, on the recruiting trail, it's just the difference of way that you have to compete and try to convince the young people that this is the education that they want to get. This is where you'll have a well-rounded experience. This is where you'll actually be able to compete 

And have aspirations for the next level. You'll get reps. So there's still value in that. I know sometimes it's looked at as people just want to go and play at the bigger schools, but I've worked at bigger schools and I have schools, I have student athletes who've transferred to smaller institutions, and they've liked that experience a lot better because they've had an opportunity to compete. And they're still valuing that within all of this. And so there are different implications for bigger schools because there's a lot more money flowing through those institutions that we won't be able to compete with and we haven't competed with. But it remains to be seen we'll still. So we'll still compete with those schools. We'll still go and play a few games against them to start the season that I think that'll still happen. But as far as an all out war from an NIL standpoint, that won't happen in a true form. 

Adam: Yeah, I, and I agree with you, at least from my reading of it, it feels like a, there's too many unanswered questions to know, but also to some extent, mid-major college athletic programs and division two and three athletic college programs, they're still already, money just becomes another factor in some of the things that make them different from programs that are just massive brands. When you talk about University of Michigan or Alabama, I'll just name, it's not going to hurt anything here. Those are huge brands. You might not know one football player that played for National Championship, University of Michigan or for all those national championships in Alabama, but you probably recognize the logo when you see it. And there's just a lot of, most schools don't have that benefit, and it feels like they already have a lot more money. So this is just kind of another little step. 

Tangela: They just renegotiated right there, media rights and the numbers range from an additional 30 million additional. I mean, so again, we're already in a different ballpark, and those are public numbers. That's not a number that I have from a secret meeting or anything. 

Adam: Tell us about your secret meeting. 

Tangela: Yeah, no, so I mean, we're already in a different ballpark, so it is going to stay that way. But I think the key is understanding where you are, who you are, and what is your brand as an institution, what is your brand within intercollegiate athletics? How do you sell the experience to the student athletes? And again, I'll go back to it, student athletes still care about their athletic and competitive experience. They still care about the coaches around them. And again, we do know coaches and administrators move. I've talked about, oh, I've worked at this place, I've worked at that place. Our coaches can do that as well, but student athletes still care. So, while we will have some that will transfer and we'll take advantage of NIL opportunities, we will still have some that will come in because of the experience. So, there will be some give and take. We just have to figure out how do we adapt and how do we make it work for us? And in my conversations with our coaches, that's what I'm hearing because they're actively on the road. I'm not on the road recruiting, thankfully. But my role and my position is to help our coaches do what they need to do out on the road and help get the resources that they need. And so, I'm asking, well, what is happening? What are our students asking? And they do have some, do you have a collective? Do you have what we need? And so, are we going to have the same thing that Michigan or to your point in Alabama has? No, but we'll do everything we can to compete and be the best, be a leader in the MAC. That's what we're going to work to do. 

Adam: And I imagine for, again, folks in positions like yours, there's probably getting some of these lawsuits settled and seeing some of these state laws, it feels like we want, I imagine that you all would want to see schools operating at least a level playing field, not necessarily financially, because as we just discussed, there's going to be different amounts of money, but that we don't have different rules in Connecticut and in Texas than we have here in Michigan, because that's happening a little bit right now too. So, we really are waiting for a lot of dust to settle. It's not the way at the base level schools are able to interface with this is affected by these challenges that are happening at different levels. 

Tangela: And then it gets tricky, right? Because everybody can't do the same thing because that's how we got into this place in the first place, antitrust. And so, you have to be careful so we can work together as a conference, but then now every conference can't do the same thing or we're back where we started, where the lawsuits start coming again. And so, I think we'll be in a unique space until we find the sweet spot. And we do want to be at more at a level of playing field because we'll continue to compete against each other. Again, I'm always a fan, we're competing on the field. We're not competing from the aspect of preparing student athletes to go out and do life. I think that's where we are all on the united front. We want our student athletes to go out and be great contributors but trying to figure out how do we make this makes sense and how do we still preserve some form of amateurism, which I know some people, they laugh. They say, oh, what do you mean amateurism? Because of the money that's being generated from TV. And again, what they see, it's hard to kind of yell amateurism when you see some of the buyouts that some coaches have for years after they work at an institution or some of the pay that you see in some spaces. And that's not the takeaway from the hard work that those folks have done 

To get there. But again, that's how we got to where we are. And so I think once we figure out how to make this settle in the conferences, kind of figure out, well, how do we make this work? I think that's when we'll be in a better place and preserve the student athlete experience. I'll keep going back to that because again, that's the core of why I work in college athletics, is trying to figure out how do we help you use this opportunity to go out and do life? We don't want being a college athlete to be the highlight of life. 

We want this to be a great spot in life, to be a great snapshot, but we don't want this to be the pinnacle. 

Adam: It feels weird saying it now, just given all of the discussion and all the money that constantly gets talked about. But I'm with you. I think it's really important for these young people to come in here and know that this is something that can send them down many, many different roads. To your point, there's a lot of life after 22. There's a lot of life after 22. 

Tangela: Which I mean, they think 30 is old. And... 

Adam: So, oh, stop. Stop it, stop it. 

Tangela: Hey, the jokes on you. So there we are. 

Adam: This has been really interesting. I'm so glad you're able to come and add some clarity to this subject and some. 

Tangela: We'll call it clarity. I don't know have.

Adam: That we've navigated through the fogginess that it is, because like you said, there's just so much happening from so many different directions and I feel like I understand it a little bit better now, and I really appreciate your perspective. 

What NIL opportunities do CMU athletes have?

Tangela: Yes. Well, I'm glad you had me on. Again, I will again share. We do have Opendorse for our student athletes opendorse.com and you can look up CMU Chippewas and find our student athletes there. We also have a charitable Gift America Collective for our student athletes as well as Influxer, which is I-N-F-L-U-X-E-R, where our student athletes can sell personalized merchandise where they get a piece of that because we are working to make opportunities available to our student athletes that we know are safe for them. And those are some things that we have available right now. And I know some of our coaches are also working on opportunities. So if you do have an opportunity to follow some of our coaches on social media and see some of the opportunities that they're working to build from an NIL perspective, please follow that because we may have different thoughts on NIL, but here it is happening and as we once remain competitive and move along in this division one space, we will engage in addition to the maroon and gold bold campaign that we have happening right now, which will help fund greater initiatives from mental health to nutrition initiatives within the department, as well as some things like a softball facility for our program. 

So there's some great things happening within the department that we want to make sure people know about from traditional things like the Maroon and Gold Bold campaign, which is your traditional kind of development campaign within the department to our NIL initiatives, which is kind of the way that college athletics is going. Want to share that we're very grateful for you having me on. 

Adam: No, thank you for coming in and hey, fire up. Support those CMU chip walks. 

Tangela: Yes, thank you. 

Adam: Thanks for stopping by the search bar. Make sure that you like and subscribe so that you never have to search for another episode. 

Tangela: Yes. Well, I'm glad you had me on. Again, I will again share. We do have Opendorse for our student athletes opendorse.com and you can look up CMU Chippewas and find our student athletes there. We also have a charitable Gift America Collective for our student athletes as well as Influxer, which is I-N-F-L-U-X-E-R, where our student athletes can sell personalized merchandise where they get a piece of that because we are working to make opportunities available to our student athletes that we know are safe for them. And those are some things that we have available right now. And I know some of our coaches are also working on opportunities. So if you do have an opportunity to follow some of our coaches on social media and see some of the opportunities that they're working to build from an NIL perspective, please follow that because we may have different thoughts on NIL, but here it is happening and as we once remain competitive and move along in this division one space, we will engage in addition to the maroon and gold bold campaign that we have happening right now, which will help fund greater initiatives from mental health to nutrition initiatives within the department, as well as some things like a softball facility for our program. 

So there's some great things happening within the department that we want to make sure people know about from traditional things like the Maroon and Gold Bold campaign, which is your traditional kind of development campaign within the department to our NIL initiatives, which is kind of the way that college athletics is going. Want to share that we're very grateful for you having me on. 

Adam: No, thank you for coming in and hey, fire up. Support those CMU chip walks. 

Tangela: Yes, thank you. 

Adam: Thanks for stopping by the search bar. Make sure that you like and subscribe so that you never have to search for another episode.