New Technology World

On the field, college football back on Saturday looked the same as ever.

A 2021 Supreme Court ruling paved the way for college athletes to earn money from their names, images and likenesses. Since then, with little guidance from the NCAA, universities, or their athletic departments, a new ecosystem based on student-athlete compensation has emerged on its own.

Ross DelangerCollege Football Reporter for Sports Illustrated spoke to Texas Standard about the new business of college football.

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Texas Standard: When college athletes obtain legal rights (commonly called NILs) to make money from their name, image, and likeness, many take the form of endorsements, sell merchandise, and perform. I envisioned doing it. How close is it to current reality?

Ross Delanger: Well, in some ways that’s the reality for some players. They get paid from endorsement agreements and commercial deals. But over the past 14 months or so, we’ve seen NIL evolve into something else entirely.

Boosters, school donors are pretty actively involved, basically using NIL to distribute payments to players. What’s happening is that most schools these days have something called Collectives. It’s basically a bunch of boosters donating money to the pool. And that money is being distributed to players in exchange for them appearing at events or appearing on podcasts with boosters. There aren’t many artifacts from the player side. But they basically take checks.

A lot of people think it’s one thing to have boosters that basically just give athletes money. On the other hand, what’s the real difference between, say, a booster interested in a college offering this money in exchange for speaking or appearing, and one of these athletes getting a gig putt cans or cereal of Pringles His face in a box or something?

Well, obviously, you know, it’s kind of a normal process when you talk about big brands using athlete names, images, and likenesses to endorse commercial opportunities. I thought. I think the big difference between what the NCAA and university administrators actually expected was the involvement of boosters for recruitment. That’s what makes college sports different from the professional ranks. And what’s happening is that the NIL is being used as a recruitment trigger by boosters. As you know, using NIL to give money to players in this roundabout way makes recruits want to come here and creates a bit of a bidding war between the collectives.

Two schools in Texas, Texas Tech and Southern Methodist, I understand this is really big. I’ve heard they’re going to pay all the football players in the school an amount equivalent to a sort of base salary.

That is correct. Texas Tech probably announced a $25,000 base salary, and SMU announced something similar. And, of course, the University of Texas calculates salaries by position. An offensive lineman, I think, has $50,000 in Texas. And, as you know, A&M has a fund. So while Texas certainly makes a guess as a state, Texas and Florida are probably ahead of everyone else when it comes to this new world.

Can we change the culture of college football at a more fundamental level, such as how players are more widely recruited, or what expectations players have when considering college?

We are changing the way we hire. Everyone will probably say that before this, recruits were paid by their chosen schools, and recruiting existed. So it’s happening. Now it’s obviously happening with a more serious clip and it’s bigger money. , has a larger population. So this is changing the hiring landscape.And I think people at the top of Clemson, Alabama, and Georgia are afraid of other schools that are more ambitious about the NIL..

But there’s a reason the NCAA regulated incentives in the first place. The philosophy behind these regulations has not changed. Now there’s something under the guise of NIL, but by all accounts it sounds like induction in nature. I mean, are you just playing with words at this point?

Well, I think a lot of these are triggers. The problem is finding evidence to prove that it is a trigger. And there is concern that if these boosters, these collectives join the NCAA and crack down, they will eventually sue the NCAA. The NIL Act provides payment to players for the use of their name, image and likeness in their appearance. So while there’s a lot of documented evidence that they do, we know the real reason they’re doing it. and have proof that they did this to recruit this prospect.

Is there any momentum or backlash regarding what we’re seeing in these collectives?

The NCAA is doing research, and I’ve been to campuses in Miami, for example. They looked specifically at boosters there — not collectives, but a single booster that offered Miami athletes $7 million in NIL payments. Is it possible to find good evidence, sufficient evidence? And what will probably happen is that they won’t specifically penalize the players for ineligibility, but they will sanction the school for not cracking down on boosters. Some even force or require the school to put a But if that happens, there will surely be lawsuits, and many believe the NCAA will lose these lawsuits in court.