Former college football stars Johnny Manziel (Texas A&M) and Reggie Bush (University of Southern California) got into some trouble in college by selling their name, image and likeness (NIL) to top companies to use in advertisements before it was legal in college.
Now, it’s completely legal for college athletes to use their NIL to get paid while competing in college (LSU gymnast Olivia Dunne has a net-worth of $6 million).
The NCAA’s idea behind allowing athletes to sell their NIL was for players to sign brand deals to make some money, seeing college athletes are not paid employees and some NCAA sports are more popular than the professional counterparts.
One of the more clever brand deals with the new rule involved Louisiana Tech wide receiver Decoldest Crawford selling his NIL to an air conditioning company.
College players, however, are now using the transfer portal to transfer to schools that have better brand recognition, as opposed to a college where they would actually play.
The University of Colorado head coach, and former NFL and MLB superstar, Deion “Coach Prime” Sanders has really taken advantage of this. From the jump, Sanders took the selling of NIL and branding to a new level, convincing players (including both of his sons) at other schools to transfer to Colorado, who were 1-11 the previous season, “we coming”.
In a surprise to everyone, except me, the U. of Colorado team only won four games this season, yet a smaller school, such as Liberty University in Virginia, went undefeated, demonstrating that chemistry is more important than branding.
While three of the four Heisman Trophy finalists have transferred (Bo Nix from Auburn to the University of Oregon, Jayden Daniels from Arizona State University to LSU, and Michel Penix Jr. from Indiana University to Washington University), they did it to get into a better playing situation, not to make more money selling their NIL.
Are these players getting paid now? Yes. But they earned it by working hard. They’re not simply there to sell themselves.
