Athletics Veritas is a weekly series aimed at helping higher education executives, faculty, and other stakeholders stay tuned in on trending national issues impacting college athletics, especially NCAA Division I. Athletics Veritas is created by senior DI athletic administrators around the nation.
Name, Image & Likeness Part I: A Day in the Life
"Woke up, fell out of bed, dragged a comb across my head…” is the scene-setting line midway through the Beatles’ seminal song, “A Day in the Life.” A relatable, everyday storyline from the Beatles’ Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band album.
In the college athletics realm, it might be revealing to think about what a day in the life of a student-athlete will look like in the 2020s. We are on the cusp of landmark deregulation concerning how student-athletes may use their name, image and likeness (NIL) and, in turn, what and how associated endorsement earnings fit into the NCAA’s “collegiate model,” including the student-athlete’s financial aid (or pay for work performed) and competitive equity considerations. Suffice it to say, the world of college sports in America will look markedly different in the next few years.
Let’s first start with a couple of assumptions and our own scene setting.
The first assumption in the following “day in the life” fictional snapshot is that student-athletes will be permitted to use their NIL in more permissible ways than ever before. This is (or will be) guided by the anticipated change(s) in NCAA legislation and/or change(s) at the state or federal levels (and likely a dose of litigation sprinkled in for good measure), which will usher in a new frontier of economic opportunity for college athletes in America.
Some states (e.g., California) have already adopted legislative protections for college athletes to use their NIL (albeit with delayed effective dates in California’s case). The passage of these laws has created a conflict with NCAA rules. With the drumbeat around student-athlete NIL usage getting louder, the NCAA Board of Governors asked all three NCAA divisions to modernize their respective rules and to implement those updates by no later than January 2021.
In the simplest terms, the Board of Governors mandated that updates to NCAA legislation must be tethered to higher education. The Board also outlined several other points of emphasis to guide future changes, such as treating student-athletes more like any other non-athlete college student when it comes to using NIL for their brand and economic benefit. Time will tell how the modernization will be defined in regulatory terms.
Let’s also assume and recognize there will be several key layers to the new student-athlete NIL landscape that have yet to fully manifest. These anticipated layers will be crucial and inevitable and will likely shake the traditional moorings of the 20th century NCAA amateurism model.
Among these evolving layers and facets to be sketched are:
How group and individual licensing agreements for student-athletes will be procured and administered within newly developed NCAA amateurism rules;
How the involvement of agents, marketing agencies, and/or brand managers will play within the NCAA amateurism sandbox;
What, if any, conditions will be placed on how and when student-athletes’ NIL commercial earnings may be received; and,
How the competitive equity component across the NCAA membership, especially in the recruiting realm, is impacted by promotional opportunities a school, coach, and/or booster might promise a prospect.
With that backdrop, set of assumptions and known unknowns on the table, here’s A Student-Athlete’s Day in the Life for the 2020s...
A Division I men’s basketball student-athlete, let’s call him Ringo, wakes up on a Monday morning at 6am and catches breakfast with three of his teammates. These three teammates also happen to be Ringo’s roommates. Many student-athletes not only practice, train and compete together, they often live together.
Ringo and his roommates join up with the rest of their teammates for breakfast before heading out for morning classes. This breakfast is offered as an incidental meal provided to the men’s basketball team directly by the Athletics Department -- basically a means to support student-athlete nutrition that simultaneously accommodates the ever-demanding schedule of student-athletes. Nutrition, like medical support, is a segment within the NCAA benefits legislation landscape that has been deregulated significantly in recent years. The deregulation equates to granting NCAA schools significant latitude to feed student-athletes above and beyond any standard campus meal plan in an often more convenient and nutrition-sensitive manner (sometimes the mystery meat at the cafeteria isn’t the best option before a big home game). The nutrition end-game ultimately aligns to support the lives of high-performing athletes.
With breakfast in the rearview mirror, Ringo grabs his book bag and makes his 8am World History class across campus. Ringo doesn’t mind the 20-minute walk from the basketball facility to the academic building since he only has to make it two mornings a week. See, World History is Ringo’s only “brick and mortar” class -- one that actually meets in a classroom, is taught by an instructor in the flesh, and has other students sitting side-by-side learning about everything from the Ming Dynasty to the priestly Druids.
All of Ringo’s other classes are online. He takes 15 credits this spring term, but 12 of those 15 credits are online courses. Ringo rarely needs to leave his dorm or the state-of-the-art student-athlete lounge (replete with multimedia study amenities) found adjacent to the basketball practice facility. He can keep up with his books, with his earbuds in, while also being able to get in hundreds of jump shots and free throws outside of practice any day of the week.
Some students and faculty might say the student-athletes are ghosts -- never seen, more mythical -- especially high profile ones. That is, until they appear on a court, field, track, or pool to compete. The proliferation of online courses and online degree programs has been feeding the somewhat slanted and unfair conclusion that student-athletes are not as “academic” as non-athlete students. The reality, meanwhile, is that online course offerings are increasingly common for all college students, not just athletes. Student-athletes happen to be one beneficiary. The embedded flexibility of an online course schedule meshes well with a busy student-athlete’s schedule, especially Ringo’s January which lands in the middle of the Division I basketball season.
To be continued as Ringo's day gets interesting on and off the court...
Athletics Veritas is presented for information purposes only and should not be considered advice or counsel on NCAA compliance matters. For guidance on NCAA rules and processes, always consult your university’s athletics compliance office, conference office, and/or the NCAA.
