CBI offers NIL-related payments to tournament semifinalists

The players on the winning teams in Monday’s quarterfinal matchups in the College Basketball Invitational have the opportunity to benefit financially from their on-court success this postseason through potential name, image and likeness agreements with third-party NIL collectives.

A semifinal appearance in the CBI will lead to a contribution to the four schools, with the money going to a “collective or however they want to sort of channel the NIL distribution,” Rick Giles, the president of the sports and entertainment events company Gazelle Group, which owns and operates the CBI, told On3.

The winning school gets $25,000, the runner-up receives $10,000 and each team that loses in the semifinals receives $2,500. Giles said he’s unsure how many schools in the 16-team tournament are supported by a collective, but he says he thinks each has a “mechanism” for NIL opportunities.

“The CBI is different and always has been, and we just felt this was an interesting twist or difference to distinguish us from what else is happening out there,” Giles said. “We also think it’s a worthwhile reward, if you will, for teams that advance.”

Giles described the reception to the financial contributions as generally positive. He said the CBI hasn’t received any negative feedback from the NIL initiative so far.

The 16 participating programs are from mid- or low-major conferences, with the Mountain West (with San Jose State) the most prominent league represented.

“I’m not sure it was a difference-maker in motivating teams to want to participate or not, but I do think everybody recognizes it as a valuable benefit,” Giles said.

NIL is ‘more and more a part of any commercial discussion’

The Gazelle Group previously agreed to contribute to NIL collectives that support a given school through the company’s non-conference multi-time event contracts.

“NIL is a discussion that we have on our early-season events, as well as the CBI, and I think it’s becoming more and more a part of any commercial discussion with schools,” Giles said.

For instance, Colorado’s contract with the Gazelle Group regarding its men’s basketball team’s upcoming participation in the 2023 Sunshine Slam says, “Gazelle shall pay $5,000 to Participant’s NIL Collective (or other mutually agreed upon destination) no later than December 1, 2023.”

The Buffs4Life NIL Collective will “likely that will be the one it goes to,” Colorado Director of Player Development Zach Ruebesam told On3.

“It varies from school to school,” Giles said, “but I think those amounts are only going to increase in terms of how teams can use events to generate NIL funding. I think the largest increases will be more at the lower end – you know, the bottom half of the Division I-resourced teams versus the top. So for the largest schools that already have fairly sizable NIL monies flowing to their players, it’s going to be hard for an event to make a difference. … For some of the schools that have lesser NIL monies flowing to their players, utilizing an event to generate funding can make an impact.”

Unlike the Gazelle Group’s contract with Colorado, the NIL-related contributions associated with the CBI aren’t spelled out in the tournament’s contracts. On3 obtained top-seeded Indiana State’s three-page contract and one-page addendum through a public records request. The contract outlines the $27,500 appearance fee the university paid the Gazelle Group and the potential $55,000 termination fee, but it doesn’t include any NIL-related clauses.

“The reason it’s not in any of the team contracts is that it’s really not a deal between us and the university,” Giles said. “As you probably know, the university sort of cannot enter into such a deal, so it’ll be us distributing that money to the university’s collective or whatever sort of NIL distribution mechanism that they have.”

While the university’s athletic department is responsible for paying the CBI’s appearance fee, as well as the additional costs related to transportation, hotel stays and meals at the tourney site in Daytona Beach, Fla., the collective that supports the winning school could receive a similar amount to what the school paid to enter the tournament – $25,000 compared to $27,500, respectively.

The college basketball transfer portal window opened March 13, and players, their families and advisers, coaches and leaders of collectives will navigate another offseason where the financial opportunities provided through NIL agreements will play a role in what level, collegiately or professionally, players choose to play.

A collective that supports a low- or mid-major program might raise, or even set a goal, of roughly $100,000. An appearance in the CBI championship could theoretically raise a significant percentage of a collective’s financial goal.

“The teams that are less-resourced or maybe have less funding resources, this could be a real benefit and make up a majority or a very large chunk of what players on those teams could receive in terms of NIL funding,” Giles said.

Antoine Davis’ chase of history was ‘one of many factors’ in potential invitation

In early March, the CBI’s Twitter account posted a photo of the driving directions from the campus of Detroit Mercy to Daytona Beach. Detroit Mercy fifth-year senior guard Antoine Davis seemingly had finished his college career with 3,664 points, three shy of the NCAA record owned by LSU’s Pete Maravich.

Davis is an illustration of the potential value of a new source of NIL-related funding for low- and mid-major programs and their donor base. Last offseason, Davis considered transferring, but he elected to return to play for the Titans and his father, Mike Davis, who told On3 last fall, “There was one place that he could’ve got like a million dollars to go. You know, one place got $700,000. One place, $4[00,000], $500,000, so the money was great. That money was right there. Really, really crazy.”

A postseason tournament bid for Detroit Mercy (14-19) would have provided Davis with the opportunity to set the career scoring record.

For what it’s worth, the Gazelle Group’s contract with Indiana State, which the parties entered into on Feb. 16, includes a clause that says in part, “Gazelle shall have the option to terminate this Agreement without cause if Participant’s win-loss record as of March 13, 2023, does not include a winning percentage of at least 50% of its total number of games.”

“We weighed a lot of factors throughout the week,” Giles said when asked about the tweet from the CBI’s account and the potential invitation to Detroit Mercy. “Our post of the map, which drew a lot of attention, was really in response to a lot of the discussions that were already going on in social media that night. I think that probably helped drive more discussion throughout the week.

“Certainly we got a lot of input lobbed our way by social media and also emails and phone calls, so we didn’t really make the decision based upon whether or not we wanted him to break the record. The record was a factor, but it was one of many factors that we considered when we finally and ultimately made the decision to go with the field that we have.”