That crash you just heard was the impact of name, image and likeness rights blasting through the roof of college athletics in search of yet another new ceiling. And this time, we’re talking pro-athlete-level money for a kid who hasn’t even been to senior prom.
If you slept through the latest NIL lightning strike, brace for this one: Last week, a high school junior signed an NIL deal that could be worth up to $8 million, according to a contract reviewed by The Athletic that was supplied by the attorney who drafted it.
Remember the audible-gasp reaction when Alabama football coach Nick Saban told a convention of Texas high school coaches that Crimson Tide quarterback Bryce Young’s NIL windfall was approaching seven figures? That was light years ago in NIL terms – a whole eight months ago – and now we have a deal that’s not too far from nine figures.
For a kid with another year left to go in high school.
It’s taken the NIL era less than a year of existence to make a complete farce of the notion that NIL revenue for college athletes would be commensurate with the promotional value they actually bring to the brands they’ll represent. That’s no criticism of the athletes, who are rightly taking full advantage of a new reality; the value of anything is what someone will pay for it.
But let’s call it what it is: a new era in the recruiting game, not the branding game.
According to the report, the language in the contract cleverly sidesteps NCAA rules against pay for play by making no mention of a specific school. An NIL collective – a third-party pooling of booster funds that doesn’t represent a university in any formal way – is behind the deal. But make no mistake: NIL collectives come draped in team colors; and athletes, like anyone else would, will go where the money is.
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