Athletes begin to profit from their name, image or likeness under new NCAA policy

The race is on to cash in for college athletes.

Now that the NCAA has ended its 116-year-old prohibition against student-athletes profiting from their name, image or likeness, some are moving fast — but states and universities will have to establish “guardrails” about what’s in or out of bounds, experts say.

“It’s almost like a blind march to the bank,” said Ivan Parron, Miami-based sports and entertainment lawyer. “A lot of it will be rules made on the fly because of the speed at which the policy occurred. But it’s kind of hard to put the genie back in the bottle.”

At midnight on Thursday, Jackson State defensive end Antwan Owens signed a deal with hair product company 3 Kings Grooming, making history by becoming what’s believed to be the first college athlete to land an endorsement deal, Sports Illustrated reported.

Stand-out athletes and “influencers” — ones with huge social media followings — could make a lot of money by using their name, image or likeness, known as NIL, to endorse products on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok, experts say.

This comes after a somewhat related landmark Supreme Court decision last month that said the NCAA cannot limit education-related benefits that colleges can offer their sports stars.

“Off social media, an all-American athlete could potentially earn between $500,000 and $1 million,” he said. “If they do other things, like give private lessons or participate in a camp, they could earn tens of thousands of dollars.”

Massachusetts proposed NIL legislation earlier this year, Parron said, “but it’s a wait and see how this is going to play out. There are guardrails that need to be set up in each state and school. It’s great to see that (the NCAA) is going to allow student-athletes to profit from NIL. But it could come to the point where it could interfere with the game or practice.”

Some student-athletes likely will carry their phone out onto the field or court to take selfies to post on Instagram, or have someone else photograph or film them because they know they’ll be able to make money off it, he said.

NIL also could be used by universities to recruit athletes, he said. And even though the NCAA policy prohibits it, “Who’s going to police that?” Parron said.

“If it’s used improperly,” he said, “bigger universities — Division I and public universities — would have the advantage over smaller schools, private universities that rely solely on tuition and boosters.”

One way around the rule against using NIL for recruiting is to help athletes build their “brand.”

“They won’t explicitly say, ‘If you come here, you will make more money,’” said Brett Albert, a lecturer in the McCormack Department of Sport Management at UMass Amherst. “Instead, they’re saying we will offer you courses in how to improve your Instagram account. They’re providing programming, so in that way they can use NIL in recruiting.”

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3yiBzm1