Now It’s Legal to Pay College Football Players. But Is NIL Good for the Game?

Paying college football players used to be illegal. Not anymore.

Now it’s legal to pay players through name, image and likeness (NIL), and the game won’t ever be the same again. 

Does NIL make football better or worse? 

As one Stadium Talk Facebook commenter put it: 

“NIL stands for Now It’s Legal. Paying players has gone on under the table for years. Now you’re seeing who’s going to pay the most to stay relevant and who’s going to pay the most to try and be relevant. This is the NFL junior league now. That’s all it will be from here on out.”

Name, image and likeness have opened the floodgates for money grabs. Forget the bag men. Now all you need are savvy and rich boosters. It’s the wild, wild West in college football.

Name, image and likeness (NIL) allow NCAA college student-athletes to profit from their identity in branding deals. The NCAA adopted the policy on July 1, 2021, giving Division 1, Division 2 and Division 3 athletes in any sport the opportunity to be compensated for their NIL. 

The policy provides the following guidance to college athletes, recruits, their families and member schools:

That means over 500,000 athletes across the college sports landscape are eligible to make money while in school, whether their state has a NIL law in place or not. Over 450,000 of those student-athletes have found ways to earn an income with their NIL by partnering with local businesses on promotions. But NIL legislation varies by state, so every athlete needs to do their homework.

The average annual NIL value for athletes is around $1,000-$10,000, but some make much more money than that. College football and men’s basketball players on scholarship in one of the major conferences can expect to earn a minimum of $50,000 each year they play because of the influx of cash from booster collectives brokering name, image and likeness deals.

That prediction, based on market trends, was made in early 2021 by Blake Lawrence, a former Nebraska linebacker and co-founder and CEO of Opendorse, a company that helps athletes and schools navigate the ever-changing NIL landscape “since 99 percent of student-athletes don’t have agents.”

As expected, big-name college football programs have benefited the most with NIL so far. Ohio State football players were among those able to take early advantage of NIL rules with autograph signings. In January 2022, Ohio State got extra serious and assigned one athletic department employee for each of its 36 sports as NIL points of contact for their athletes. As of June, the school said its athletes had inked over 1,000 deals, Sports Illustrated reported.

The schools that don’t keep pace will be at a disadvantage. According to Cleveland.com, Ohio State football coach Ryan Day admits the price tag to keep a championship-level roster is $13 million in NIL money. For an 85-man team, that’s about $150,000 per player. Or $500,000 for the top 26 players/starters. That’s not chump change.

Another fun fact from Sports Illustrated: “From 1998 to 2020, six teams won 74 percent of the national championships: Alabama (6), LSU (3), Clemson (2), Florida State (2), Florida (2) and Ohio State (2). Five of the six are not only inside the top 12 nationally in 2019 athletic budgets but also have reeled in the best talent in the nation over the last decade. In a study from MaxPreps, seven college football programs have signed 55 percent of the five-star prospects from ’11 to ’21. They include LSU, Alabama, Clemson, Florida State and Ohio State, as well as USC and Georgia, the ’21 national champion.”

NIL could lead to college football parity. Anything’s possible. But the smart money’s on NIL expanding the gap between national title contenders and every other program.

Student-athletes (and their families) aren’t complaining. After bringing in billions of dollars for schools and the NCAA, they can get paid for their skills beyond a scholarship.

There are lots of big NIL endorsement deals in college sports. Student-athletes can earn big bucks by licensing their names, images and likenesses to merchandisers, sponsors, marketers and media outlets that cater to their network and fans. Student-athletes with an entrepreneurial spirit can create their own brands like Georgia defensive lineman Jonathan Jefferson, who started his own online merchandise business called Uno Jon.

Five-star high school quarterback Nico Iamaleava, a senior from Long Beach, California, and one of the top players in the country, reportedly got $8 million from a Tennessee NIL collective to bring glory back to Rocky Top for the Volunteers, who haven’t won 10 games in a season since 2010.

That gives hope to the also-rans and have-nots. If they have the money, they can buy the best players and compete with the best teams.

Even high school teams are getting in on the act. High school powerhouse St. John Bosco in Bellflower, California, signed the first team-wide NIL deal at a high school level with a sports technology company called KONGiQ. Each player on the varsity roster will get $400 to be an “influencer” and promote the company’s brand on social media by selling a product they use for weight training.

This is just the beginning. More NIL deals are on the horizon.