Five Years Later, Have Opinions Changed on NIL?

NIL, Player to Coach

Hoy has gotten to experience NIL now both from a player and coach’s perspective.

NIL’s Impact on Conference Gap According To Hoy

Scott MacDonald San Jose State

Scott MacDonald is the Senior Deputy AD for External Operations (Sport Admin for FB, WGOLF, S&D) at San Jose State University. Similarly to Hoy, MacDonald was a student athlete but long before NIL was a thing.

 “I wish we had NIL when I was a student athlete so I think it’s great. I think it provides an opportunity not just for student athletes to earn money off their name image and likeness but also to learn, like real skills and taxes. One of the things we do know when our Beyond Spartans program which is our life skills program here at San Jose State, we provide that information and that education to our students. Like your earning money and you’ll be paying taxes on it and here we have institutions that come in and talk about Investments and saving and how to prepare for taxes.  I think it’s really added to what we provide for student athletes because taxes isn’t something we would ever have but in a life skills program before.”

Image – San Jose Spartans

Amy Hughes Georgia Southern

Unlike Hoy and MacDonald, Amy Hughes was not a former collegiate athlete. She is currently the Director of Athlete Brand Management and Licensing at Georgia Southern. NIL created her job of where she is today.

“So in 2022, I moved into athletics and assumed, you know, both roles, basically. I didn’t know anything about NIL, you know, but I, had taught on college campuses. So, our athletic director and COO of athletics, they just really thought that I could jump in and, you know, help build this program. It was a quickly built program and it’s been evolving ever since. So, it’s changed in a way that, obviously, I’m more focused on what’s happening in the NIL landscape. I’m very into tune with, you know, all of the NCAA stuff that’s happening, and I work closely with our compliance, folks. Um, but it’s been really fun and exciting. You know, it’s a new way to connect with our student athletes, so I really enjoyed it.”

Hughes Opinion on NIL

Image – Georgia Trend Magazine

Jace Friesen Kansas State

“You know, there was a lot of collectives that originally started up when NIL became a thing and you’d see four or five collectives at one institution. And the only problem with that is is it created a lot of donor confusion. You didn’t know where to give, who to give to. And then also on top of that, there’s really no way to track to see what student athletes were getting paid. You know, you might have had a top student athlete at one institution getting paid from four different collectives, and you’d have the number two on the roster, not be getting, you know, anything in theory because there’s no communication. So you know, NIL has created this ecosystem. groups that have allowed for revenue share for student athletes and institutions to kind of get on the same page and really help your student athletes in a cohesive ecosystem.”

“I think it’s impacted in a lot of ways. and personally, from my experience, I would say from a student athlete’s perspective for the better. you know, there’s. There’s negatives. There’s pros and cons to everything. You know, you see some of the outliers or kids transferring, turning, you know, keeping away from the pay for play. But I think longevity, at least at Kansas State, it’s given kids or student athletes, the opportunity to become financially secure or start learning about the real world. We did financial literacy classes. We did, you know, we helped out with taxes, we provide student athletes with resources for investing.”

Image – 247 Sports

“I think that without NIL, some of those initiatives and programs wouldn’t be in place, at least again at Kansas State. It’s stuff that I wish I would have gotten in a more detailed level while I was at Kansas State. But it’s provided, I think, more literacy and benefits at Kansas State for sure.”

“Now, I’m not sure what the case is with revenue sharing. I wouldn’t be surprised if every institution pretty much every student athlete isn’t getting some cut. Walk-ons you’d be surprised, a lot of businesses will reach out wanting to do work with specific athletes. Or they’ll want to do the doings with like an art case. We have a lot of Kansas student athletes and typically some of those student athletes are walk-ons. Kansas business would like to work with of kids. And so a lot of times you’ll actually see the walk-ons, getting a good amount of deals as well. We help them position themselves through social media training, just how it position themselves in social media, get more followers, more eyes. You know, we don’t trade it any different than a deal for our starting point guard or our starting quarterback. You know, this deal is just kind of trickle in by just naturally, and they all kind of trickle down through throughout that process.”

Summary

There are many strong opinions about NIL. Although most of the opinions are positive, there is a clear need changed need to be  made to the processes within the NIL. Be on the lookout for the next article on this series as we keep exploring the coaches and players that make up the NIL!

The next article will hear from people about how NIL is directly impacting college sports.