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.
Part III: A Day in the Life of
Name, Image & Likeness
The debut of Athletics Veritas (AV) focused on the anticipated deregulation of NCAA rules on student-athletes using their name, image, and likeness (NIL). AV also referenced the NCAA Board of Governors commitment to be more flexible regarding student-athlete NIL, a summary of current NCAA rules on NIL, and Parts I and II of a three-part series capturing a fictional “Day in the Life” of Ringo, a student-athlete living under more flexible NIL rules. See Part 1 here. See Part 2 here. Part III begins below.
Part III
Taking a couple of deep breaths (a technique learned from the sports performance trainer to self-calm), Ringo calls the head coach and gets a full-on 30-second speed lecture over the phone. It feels like a time-out, on the road when the team’s down by double-digits. “What were you thinking? This is selfish! And you just broke team rules -- missing a required film session without any notice. … You’ve gone AWOL! You want to jeopardize your playing time…and maybe your scholarship? Things are getting to your head, Ringo!”
Obviously the appearance by the student-athlete didn’t go over well with the coaching staff. Ringo realizes he should’ve done better in communicating this opportunity to his coaches. At the same time, this opportunity is his. His good play and notoriety were self-made, at least that’s what some of the brand managers and licensing reps are telling him through direct messages on social media.
The coaches always preach to Ringo and his teammates about behaving like an adult in all facets of life. You represent your team, your teammates, your school, your family 24-7. Ringo has that conversation now running through his head. Did coach really hint at taking my playing time away? Wait, my scholarship too? Ringo knows there are more protections around his athletics scholarship these days. He also thinks through the many big, and little, things he’s done for the program the last couple of years.
In the next morning’s practice, his teammates ask him about all the publicity he’s getting with the Shopper’s promotion. Everyone is talking about it on campus. It’s all over social media. Shopper’s scored big in terms of local news coverage and social media traction.
Another week goes by from the store appearance and the promotional relationship marches on. Ringo fits in time for a photo-shoot at a local Shopper’s store. This time he avoids missing any practice or film review. Not ruffling more feathers there!
On this occasion, Shopper’s asks him to take some pictures in the aisle with their line of vaping products. Apparently one of the biggest vendors of vaping products in the area is Shopper’s. Shopper’s knows vaping products are hot sellers among college students despite some of the public backlash regarding dangers vaping presents -- a backlash starting to mirror ‘big tobacco’ from a few years ago as the public health enemy No. 1. Ringo has a few buddies from high school that were in to vaping. It wasn’t his thing, Ringo thought, but he had no issue with his friends vaping. He thought it might be less dangerous than smoking cigarettes anyway. Not a big deal.
Ringo completes the photo-shoot, the ad with Ringo promoting vaping runs in the following Sunday paper and in online spots. Shopper’s foot traffic and vaping sales increase by 28% in the two weeks that follow. Ringo got his second $500 payment transferred to him. Life is good, again.
Others around the men’s basketball program and the Athletics Department are starting to take notice. And not for all the right reasons. The team has played two more games since the autograph appearance and, although nothing to sneeze at, Ringo only scored 10 points and 14 points in the last two games, respectively. He had been averaging 19 points per game for the season. The team also lost the last game by 7 points. A bigger night’s scoring from Ringo might have been a difference maker.
The head athletic trainer for the men's basketball team was contacted by the NCAA’s drug testing agency. Looks like the locals weren’t the only ones catching wind of Ringo’s vaping endorsement. Although NIL may have been deregulated, the NCAA’s banned substance list hasn’t migrated too far from its moorings. Vaping substances can include, among other things, THC, something that continues to be on the NCAA’s banned substance list. Another complication.
And NCAA drug testing isn’t the only new variable entering the story line. The Athletics Department at Ringo’s school has a long-standing agreement with a college athletics marketing company that specializes in landing corporate sponsorships for Division I athletic departments, especially athletics programs with a higher profile like Ringo’s school.
One brewing problem, though. Last year the marketing company landed Mike’s Market Mayhem as a university corporate sponsor. You guessed it, Mike’s Market Mayhem is a regional grocery store chain and direct competitor of Shopper's. The Mayhem grocery chain preaches deep discounts and value for its customers. And its trademark slogan, “There’s so much to like, when you shop with Mike,” has become a dominating promotional presence at the university's basketball arena and football stadium ad boards, as well as in-game announcements during timeouts. Ringo’s cozy new relationship with Shopper’s has the management at Mike’s none too pleased. The day after the Sunday newspaper runs Ringo’s Shopper’s ad, Mike’s management makes a couple of passive-aggressive phone calls to the marketing company’s VP and the university’s Athletic Director. Tensions are rising.
Meanwhile, one of Ringo’s roommates, Paul, is also starting to take issue with Ringo’s growing notoriety. Basketball is a team sport after all. Paul is a coach’s dream: setting picks, grabbing loose balls, boxing out, honor roll student -- a fundamental player doing the dirty work who is the quintessential 'student-athlete'. Paul finds it all too convenient that he’s the one who set the pick in last year’s NCAA tournament to free Ringo up for the game-winning shot, but Paul’s phone isn't ringing with brand managers and potential corporate sponsors seeking his affiliation.
Paul also knows that Ringo likes to jump behind the three-point line when a loose ball bounces around the lane, letting his teammates do the dirty work. The TV announcers covering the team's games gloss over that subtlety, but Paul notices. Instead of diving for the basketball (like Paul’s known to do), Ringo knows his bread is buttered when he can stand behind the three-point line waiting for a scrambling teammate to pass the basketball to him.
As Ringo’s roommate, Paul also sees the constant attention Ringo is getting as he checks his social media all night while the suite mates watch TV. They watch TV in to the wee hours as another Shopper’s spot featuring Ringo airs. This is too much. Paul wonders if he should make a point in the next practice. Maybe that pick to set Ringo free to the three-point line won’t come next time. Maybe Paul opts to make a more difficult outlet pass on the break to another teammate than to look toward an open Ringo. This could get complicated.
And scene. This ‘Day in the Life’ of Ringo certainly has a sprinkling of dramatic, fictional flair; some of which sits at the end of one spectrum of an average Division I student-athlete’s life. The core issues, perceived conflicts, and tensions are tangible though, especially for a high-profile student-athlete.
There are many potential scripts for what a high profile Division I student-athlete's NIL-reality will look like in the coming years. It turns out the pervasive time demands and commitments a Division I student-athlete, especially a high-profile one, faces throughout the day, might be exacerbated by the student-athlete’s pursuit of individual promotional opportunities. NCAA Division I rules (at least at the Autonomy conference, or Power 5, level) were revamped in recent years to help protect a student-athlete’s time as well as to require more proactive notice of what the team’s schedule would look like week to week.
The well-intended, strike-while-the-iron’s-hot opportunity for a student-athlete like Ringo to expand their earning potential while in school is a fundamentally fair consideration, too. One of the guiding principles from the NCAA Board of Governors is to treat student-athletes more like students in these entrepreneurial veins.
In this scenario, Ringo is feeling a strained relationship with his coaches, he’s feeling the stern looks and subtle jealousy from teammates (and roommates), he’s heard through the grapevine that the Athletics Director and sales director from the university’s marketing partner spoke to Ringo’s head coach about the disconcerting trend of his star player chumming up to companies who compete with the school’s corporate partners, and the athletic trainer just called Ringo to tell him to come to his office within the next two hours. Not optimal vibes here.
And it’s not just the athletics department stressing Ringo. Ringo is feeling pressure from the outside world at the same volume. He has more outside companies pressing him for his time and attention, generally a real positive, but still a lot coming at a college kid. Ringo is the first to acknowledge that the opportunities and his high demand are good things. The opportunities coming Ringo’s way are wide-ranging, from local t-shirt shops to national businesses calling on him for potential endorsement opportunities. Ringo knows he needs an agent and marketing person to help navigate these waters. And we haven't broached the potential impact these additional opportunities may have on a student-athlete's education and study time.
Ringo’s family, and not just his mom and dad, also catch wind of the money coming his way. In the past two years since Ringo enrolled, Ringo has made it a habit to send the remaining balance from his athletics scholarship (sometimes more than $200/month) back home to help pay his parents’ utility bills. His parents have appreciated that support. Admittedly, his parents want to protect Ringo from exploitation, but the reality is the extra cash flow is nice, so there’s a fine line to walk here. Ringo’s parents and other extended family are starting to ask him more about the next commercial or in-store appearance and not about his team’s last game or his World History class. One of his uncles asked him outright for $400 to help pay for a car repair. It’s dollars and cents time, and Ringo is feeling the pressure of a nascent breadwinner.
To be sure, every student-athlete’s marketability varies -- the visibility by sport, the ebbs and flows of an 18 to 22 year old’s maturity, the potential baggage from a student-athlete’s old social media posts that could sabotage a marketing deal, the role and value to the student-athlete that is provided by the university’s brand -- all pieces intertwined and qualitative.
And, from a fairness in competition standpoint, the vulnerability that could exist in the recruiting realm for elite high school prospects to be wooed by Division I institutions with big-pocket boosters on-deck to grease the future NIL endorsement opportunities of the prospect, once they commit to the school, is a separate Pandora's box unto itself.
In the end, the anticipated changes to NIL policy ultimately have the student-athlete’s NIL opportunities and fairness among schools in mind so long as it fits under the ‘collegiate model’ umbrella. How that 21st century college sports umbrella opens and what it's intended to block out remain to be seen.
Ringo’s drama-filled Monday might be the new day in the life of a high profile Division I student-athlete.
What a day.
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.
