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 II: 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’s commitment to be more flexible regarding student-athlete NIL, a summary of current NCAA rules on NIL, and Part I 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.
Back to Ringo. On the way to class, Ringo is stopped by a couple of students for a selfie. These days, every college student has their smart phone in hand, if not in their back pocket. After some clutch second-half shooting and a thunderous dunk in Saturday night’s game that made ESPN’s SportsCenter Top Plays, Ringo is the talk of campus, the town and the college basketball stratosphere.
Ringo was named preseason All-America and has been living up to the hype halfway through the year. So when a couple of uber sport-fanatic freshmen see Ringo on campus coming their way, they can’t pass up the chance for a quick high-five and photo op with the star guard. Ringo is happy to oblige; the attention makes him smile. A student posting a picture with Ringo to their social media accounts this week will be viewed, liked and retweeted hundreds, if not thousands, of times. Ringo’s recent play is not just good for his profile and NBA Draft stock, it’s good for everyone’s social media branding, including other students who want a piece of the hype.
Ringo makes it to class a couple minutes before 8:00am. This class is a traditional lecture by a published, tenured professor. As it turns out, through direct contacts made via his Instagram and Twitter accounts during last week’s lecture, Ringo was approached by the management at Shopper’s -- a local grocery store chain near campus. Shopper’s management would like Ringo to appear in some promotional TV and social media spots and make an upcoming in-store appearance. It’s a local grocery store chain with locations near campus where many college students, faculty, and staff shop.
In these communications with Shopper’s management, Ringo was offered $10,000 for a package of promotional activities: one autograph appearance at the store closest to campus, one print ad/photo shoot, one TV ad, and a few social media “influencer” spots over the next 90 days. The social media spots will conveniently overlap with the NCAA men’s basketball tournament (aka March Madness) when interest in college basketball peaks.
At this point, Ringo doesn’t have any brand manager or agent to navigate the inquiries, although they too, have been routinely reaching out to Ringo and his family since last summer. Texts, phone calls, direct messaging via social media -- all sorts of new best friends in the marketing sphere.
Back to Monday’s World History class. The professor wraps up her lecture on the Gaelic culture and Ringo grabs his book bag and strolls out the classroom door. As he heads down the hallway to the exit, Ringo gets a text from the Shopper’s management confirming the first activation in this budding endorsement relationship.
The text from Shopper’s says: “Ringo, looking forward to seeing you this afternoon at 4pm for our in-store autograph appearance....we are getting the word out by social media…we’ll have fans lining up in no time!” Ringo quickly remembers the in-store appearance is the first commitment he made in this agreement with Shopper’s. Shopper’s plans to have Ringo sign autographs for an hour, take pictures with Shopper’s customers, and, if local media show, possibly do some live media affirming the selection and fresh produce, friendly staff, and convenience of Shopper’s locations across the community. On top of the world Ringo thinks. Life is good.
The rest of Monday Morning into early afternoon for Ringo looks like this: practice with the full team from 10am-noon, followed by time with the sports medicine staff for quick rehab session to work on his sore back, then lunch. All of this midday action should be wrapped up by 1:30pm. Here’s the thing, though. Ringo chooses to keep his Shopper’s appearance on the down-low from his coaches and teammates. He’s a humble guy and wants to remain laser-focused on the task at hand -- in this case, using Monday’s team practice to learn the defensive sets of their team’s next opponent.
Ringo runs back to his dorm room after practice. It’s about 2pm and Ringo realizes he has an hour film review session with an assistant coach scheduled today from 4pm-5pm at the basketball facility. This, like the two hours of practice earlier in the day, is part of the NCAA’s permissible 4 hours of daily countable athletically related activity (or CARA) permitted in-season. The NCAA rules limit 20 such CARA hours per week within the championship season. Mondays in January can be so busy.
Ringo gives the situation some thought and knows he’s been a team leader, a coachable athlete, a reliable teammate. He believes he deserves some individual latitude in part because he’s been playing well, working his tail off in practice, and has been a strong performer in the classroom. Long and short, Ringo texts his assistant coach and asks “Hey, can we move our film review to 2:30pm? Have something at 4pm.” The assistant texts back, “Sorry man, I have back to back film sessions with George and John. Let’s keep 4pm. Cant wait!”
This passive inflexibility from the coaching staff is increasingly frustrating to Ringo. The coaching staff has been running some very tough, exhausting practices of late. 'What else do they want?' he thinks.
It’s also no secret to anyone, including Ringo, that the coaching staff landed a lucrative contract extension and pay raise in the offseason as a byproduct of last year’s exciting Elite 8 run in the NCAA Tournament. Ringo averaged 21 points in those games and hit a game-winning jumper in the second round to help the team advance to the Sweet 16.
Ringo heads out the door around 3:45pm, but it’s not to join up with the assistant coach to watch game film at the basketball facility. Ringo is headed to the nearby Shopper’s store where the fans are beginning to line up and the store management eagerly awaits. Ringo ends up signing autographs and taking pictures for over an hour. The Shopper’s management transfer the first $2,000 of the $10,000 via Venmo to Ringo. Boy, that was easy, he thinks. Ringo knows, too, that fans are now pumping this appearance on social media. The assistant coach sent him three texts from 4:05pm to 4:30pm asking him about his whereabouts. Ringo ignores those. He has a good relationship with the assistant coach and can sort it out later.
By the time Ringo leaves the store around 5:30pm, though, his phone is blowing up from friends saying they saw him on the news. He also notices a voicemail from his head coach at 5pm. On the voicemail, the head coach tells him to call him immediately. He senses tension in the air.
With interests in Ringo's marketability increasing from all corners, how does this 'Day in the Life' play out? Tune in next week for Part III of 'Day in the Life' from AV.
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.
