Eyebrow Raising NIL Deals
Name, Image, and Likness (NIL) deals have completely overturned not just the NCAA sports world, but also the high school sports world and even begun blurring the lines between amateur and professional athletes. Some scholar athletes have signed such lucrative deals in college that making the jump to the big leagues may actually be a massive reduction in pay, offering college players incentive to stay in school longer especially if their draft stock is low to nonexistent.
NIL deals can be signed from any company to any player at any time, there is almost no deal that cannot be signed. From a group deal with players names inspiring a clever slogan of, “Purchase Moore Hamann Bacon,” to signing with a rhyming condiment in the case of the Bijan Dijon mustard deal to the oh-so-obvious-but-yet-just-had-to-be-done Kool-Aid deal with Kool-Aid McInstry, the options are limitless of what companies and athletes can agree to ink out.
For burgeoning scholar athletes at the high school level, the prospect of a college scholarship was once the epitome of a collegiate offer. Now, NIL deals can bring just as much draw and motivation to collegiate athletics. Moreover, high school athletes can also ink NIL deals in states where it is legal, which is currently most states!
NIL Variety
Deals can come from a plethora of sources from A/C companies to beverage corporations to car dealerships to restaurants to even clothing establishments. NIL collectives have also sprung up that offer funding to specific schools to aid in the scholar athletes’ income from their efforts on the field. Even individual alum of a university may approach an athlete and sign a deal. As a student-athlete, one must always be privy to the opportunities that may be presented. A sharp eye will catch even the most fleeting of offers.
Though NIL deals can come from anywhere at any time, some sports do sign more deals than others, and especially at the NCAA Division I level. Football and basketball comprised the most deals with baseball, softball, track and field, gymnastics, and volleyball rounding out some of the more profitable sports.
Kool-Aid, A/C, and FBS
As mentioned above, both Kool-Aid, the beverage company, and an HVAC company have inked deals with athletes at the NCAA Division I FBS level within the past five years.
The most famous is Kool-Aid McInstry inking a deal with Kool-Aid where he earned a valued amount of around $473,00. Not bad for a nickname he garnered when his grandmother gave it to him when he was little due to his cheerful smile.
Decoldest Crawford appeared in SOS Heating & Cooling’s advertisement where it was seen millions of times before he suffered his unfortunate injury. His cool name with the HVAC business seems to have been conditioned perfectly.
FBS football currently ranks as the leading sport in terms of NIL compensation and activities, leading all other sports by a wide margin per Opendorse. However, that is not to say that other sports are neglected, only that FBS seems to garner the most attention.
Fireworks in Men’s Basketball
Men’s Basketball consistently ranks as number two in generating NIL activity and compensation. One of the more obscure and unique deals was with Jordan Bohannon of the Iowa Hawkeyes and Boomin Iowa Fireworks where Bohannon entered his Wisconsin game-winning shoes into a raffle and made himself available for autographs.
Caitlin Clark and Women’s Basketball
Caitlin Clark became a household name during her sizzling run with the Iowa Hawkeyes this past NCAA Tournament, whereby she earned almost a million dollars through various NIL deals. Should she have continued to play in college, her estimated NIL value with Xfinity and others would have been around $3.4 million according to On3.
Other notable and unique NIL deals include Xamiya Walton of Butler College Prep out of Illinois where she had to seek special approval to ink her deal with Shoot-A-Way, a shooting device allowing players the opportunity to practice shooting by themselves. This deal marked the first one of a high school level athlete in the state of Illinois, paving the way for other high school athletes to garner NIL opportunities.
Hey Baseball Dude!
Not to be left in the dark, NCAA baseball also has an interesting NIL deal that was inked this past season between the South Carolina Gamecocks baseball squad and the HeyDude shoe company. Nine players inked deals with HeyDude and plastered their social media accounts with posts advertising the shoes through group shots and shared links.
Even more eyebrow-raising was when Texas A&M Aggies’ ace pitcher, Ryan Prager, turned the Los Angeles Angels down after he was drafted to return to his final season with the Aggies. Presumedly, an exquisite NIL deal is in the works for the star athletes that may have influenced this decision.
Collective Bargaining and Reward
Keep in mind, the above are just a few of the possibilities and sports that garner strange yet incredible NIL deals for athletes. Collectives provide another outlet for athletes to earn on their NIL that organize funds and deals on the athletes’ behalf.
NIL collectives have cropped up for almost every major school in every state. These collectives essentially work the role as a manager for the entire team to communicate with potential businesses and enact deals on the athletes’ and school’s behalf.
Collectives such as Yea Alabama, Sun Angle Collective, For the Peayple, The 12th Man+ Fund, Mission Control, Conquest Collective, and Montlake Players provide support to their respective schools of Alabama, Arizona State, Austin Peay, Texas A&M, UCF, USC, and Washington. These collectives showcase how NIL has changed NCAA sports as nearly a billion dollars was generated from NIL deals in the past year, influenced by the athletes and these collectives alike.
Some collectives focus primarily on one or more sports, but the fact remains that NCAA sports have another opportunity for athletes to earn from their effort on the field beyond a degree.
NIL Overall Influence
NIL has rapidly changed how NCAA sports is conducted, how athletes are recruited, and how athletes choose the next step of their athletic career. Gone are the days of hushed back-room dealings attempting to lure athletes to one school over the other. Now, these deals are mostly completely in the open and athletes are now enterprising for themselves in a whole new manner.
Before the NIL era, athletes would only be able to publicly vocalize why they chose a school based upon the school’s merit, tradition, prestige, program, and academics. Now, they can also factor the financial variable beyond just a scholarship.
Before the NIL era, many athletes struggled to even eat at times due to the demands of their sport and academics. Now, with NIL working on the backend as a passive source of income, they can better live in the pressures of their world. Of course, now there are also massive cafeterias dedicated solely to the division I athletes where they can obtain at least one substantial meal a day along with dieticians designing their own menu items, but with the addition of NIL, student athletes no longer have to feel forced to conduct all their business according to the school’s and/or coaching staff’s direction.
Popeye’s to the Present
NIL has changed almost every facet of every NCAA sport, allowing student athletes more and more power and control over their athletic career. From turning down an MLB draft selection to pioneering an NIL partnership in the state of Illinois, athletes everywhere are taking stock in themselves.
And, some may have inadvertently begun their NIL deal without realizing it. Start early, and one day an athlete may replicate the Popeye’s meme kid signing an NIL deal with Popeye’s restaurant whilst playing football at Lake Erie College as Dieunerst Collin.
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Eyebrow Raising NIL Deals
Name, Image, and Likness (NIL) deals have completely overturned not just the NCAA sports world, but also the high school sports world and even begun blurring the lines between amateur and professional athletes. Some scholar athletes have signed such lucrative deals in college that making the jump to the big leagues may actually be a massive reduction in pay, offering college players incentive to stay in school longer especially if their draft stock is low to nonexistent.
NIL deals can be signed from any company to any player at any time, there is almost no deal that cannot be signed. From a group deal with players names inspiring a clever slogan of, “Purchase Moore Hamann Bacon,” to signing with a rhyming condiment in the case of the Bijan Dijon mustard deal to the oh-so-obvious-but-yet-just-had-to-be-done Kool-Aid deal with Kool-Aid McInstry, the options are limitless of what companies and athletes can agree to ink out.
For burgeoning scholar athletes at the high school level, the prospect of a college scholarship was once the epitome of a collegiate offer. Now, NIL deals can bring just as much draw and motivation to collegiate athletics. Moreover, high school athletes can also ink NIL deals in states where it is legal, which is currently most states!
NIL Variety
Deals can come from a plethora of sources from A/C companies to beverage corporations to car dealerships to restaurants to even clothing establishments. NIL collectives have also sprung up that offer funding to specific schools to aid in the scholar athletes’ income from their efforts on the field. Even individual alum of a university may approach an athlete and sign a deal. As a student-athlete, one must always be privy to the opportunities that may be presented. A sharp eye will catch even the most fleeting of offers.
Though NIL deals can come from anywhere at any time, some sports do sign more deals than others, and especially at the NCAA Division I level. Football and basketball comprised the most deals with baseball, softball, track and field, gymnastics, and volleyball rounding out some of the more profitable sports.
Kool-Aid, A/C, and FBS
As mentioned above, both Kool-Aid, the beverage company, and an HVAC company have inked deals with athletes at the NCAA Division I FBS level within the past five years.
The most famous is Kool-Aid McInstry inking a deal with Kool-Aid where he earned a valued amount of around $473,00. Not bad for a nickname he garnered when his grandmother gave it to him when he was little due to his cheerful smile.
Decoldest Crawford appeared in SOS Heating & Cooling’s advertisement where it was seen millions of times before he suffered his unfortunate injury. His cool name with the HVAC business seems to have been conditioned perfectly.
FBS football currently ranks as the leading sport in terms of NIL compensation and activities, leading all other sports by a wide margin per Opendorse. However, that is not to say that other sports are neglected, only that FBS seems to garner the most attention.
Fireworks in Men’s Basketball
Men’s Basketball consistently ranks as number two in generating NIL activity and compensation. One of the more obscure and unique deals was with Jordan Bohannon of the Iowa Hawkeyes and Boomin Iowa Fireworks where Bohannon entered his Wisconsin game-winning shoes into a raffle and made himself available for autographs.
Caitlin Clark and Women’s Basketball
Caitlin Clark became a household name during her sizzling run with the Iowa Hawkeyes this past NCAA Tournament, whereby she earned almost a million dollars through various NIL deals. Should she have continued to play in college, her estimated NIL value with Xfinity and others would have been around $3.4 million according to On3.
Other notable and unique NIL deals include Xamiya Walton of Butler College Prep out of Illinois where she had to seek special approval to ink her deal with Shoot-A-Way, a shooting device allowing players the opportunity to practice shooting by themselves. This deal marked the first one of a high school level athlete in the state of Illinois, paving the way for other high school athletes to garner NIL opportunities.
Hey Baseball Dude!
Not to be left in the dark, NCAA baseball also has an interesting NIL deal that was inked this past season between the South Carolina Gamecocks baseball squad and the HeyDude shoe company. Nine players inked deals with HeyDude and plastered their social media accounts with posts advertising the shoes through group shots and shared links.
Even more eyebrow-raising was when Texas A&M Aggies’ ace pitcher, Ryan Prager, turned the Los Angeles Angels down after he was drafted to return to his final season with the Aggies. Presumedly, an exquisite NIL deal is in the works for the star athletes that may have influenced this decision.
Collective Bargaining and Reward
Keep in mind, the above are just a few of the possibilities and sports that garner strange yet incredible NIL deals for athletes. Collectives provide another outlet for athletes to earn on their NIL that organize funds and deals on the athletes’ behalf.
NIL collectives have cropped up for almost every major school in every state. These collectives essentially work the role as a manager for the entire team to communicate with potential businesses and enact deals on the athletes’ and school’s behalf.
Collectives such as Yea Alabama, Sun Angle Collective, For the Peayple, The 12th Man+ Fund, Mission Control, Conquest Collective, and Montlake Players provide support to their respective schools of Alabama, Arizona State, Austin Peay, Texas A&M, UCF, USC, and Washington. These collectives showcase how NIL has changed NCAA sports as nearly a billion dollars was generated from NIL deals in the past year, influenced by the athletes and these collectives alike.
Some collectives focus primarily on one or more sports, but the fact remains that NCAA sports have another opportunity for athletes to earn from their effort on the field beyond a degree.
NIL Overall Influence
NIL has rapidly changed how NCAA sports is conducted, how athletes are recruited, and how athletes choose the next step of their athletic career. Gone are the days of hushed back-room dealings attempting to lure athletes to one school over the other. Now, these deals are mostly completely in the open and athletes are now enterprising for themselves in a whole new manner.
Before the NIL era, athletes would only be able to publicly vocalize why they chose a school based upon the school’s merit, tradition, prestige, program, and academics. Now, they can also factor the financial variable beyond just a scholarship.
Before the NIL era, many athletes struggled to even eat at times due to the demands of their sport and academics. Now, with NIL working on the backend as a passive source of income, they can better live in the pressures of their world. Of course, now there are also massive cafeterias dedicated solely to the division I athletes where they can obtain at least one substantial meal a day along with dieticians designing their own menu items, but with the addition of NIL, student athletes no longer have to feel forced to conduct all their business according to the school’s and/or coaching staff’s direction.
Popeye’s to the Present
NIL has changed almost every facet of every NCAA sport, allowing student athletes more and more power and control over their athletic career. From turning down an MLB draft selection to pioneering an NIL partnership in the state of Illinois, athletes everywhere are taking stock in themselves.
And, some may have inadvertently begun their NIL deal without realizing it. Start early, and one day an athlete may replicate the Popeye’s meme kid signing an NIL deal with Popeye’s restaurant whilst playing football at Lake Erie College as Dieunerst Collin.
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