Examining NIL Rights in College Athletics for “Non-Revenue” Sports
By Matt Haage, Athlete Partnerships Associate
With the ongoing push for college athletes to be able to capitalize monetarily off of their name, image, and likeness rights (commonly referred to as NIL rights), many people have been wondering how much money will these athletes actually make.
At the time of this writing, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, and New Mexico have all passed state legislation that will allow student-athletes to enter into endorsement agreements and earn money from their NIL rights starting on July 1, 2021. Under Nebraska’s state law, individual universities in the state have the option to opt-in with the four states mentioned above in July. Other states such as Arkansas, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, and Oregon have all proposed similar laws that would have an effective date of July 1, 2021, or January 1, 2022. We’ve even had the Supreme Court weigh in on the issue of amateurism in college sports. All of this is evidence of one thing: student-athletes will eventually be able to earn endorsement money whether the NCAA likes it or not.
Many skeptics seem to think these new laws will only affect the big stars in football and basketball such as athletes like Trevor Lawrence and Zion Williamson. However, that could not be further from the truth. These laws will provide athletes in “non-revenue” and Olympic sports such as swimming, gymnastics, track & field, volleyball, and many more with a unique opportunity.
I put “non-revenue” in quotes because that is what society loves to call them these days. Yet, universities are willing to pay more than $250,000 in salary to the top coaches of these “non-revenue” sports. This proves universities and athletic directors see at least that much value in these sports. Do you know who else will see this kind of value in these “non-revenue” sports? Brands and sponsors.
In a recent study, AthleticDirectorU and Navigate analyzed monetary values of social media followings and applied them to the top student-athletes of the 2019-20 school year. They came up with a list of the top 25 most valuable student-athletes with an approximate value of how much money each one could have earned if they were allowed to use their NIL rights in endorsement deals. The results were somewhat surprising.
Of the top 25, 17 came from “non-revenue” sports (i.e. not football and men’s basketball). If you exclude men’s baseball, “non-revenue” sports accounted for 15 of the top 25. Additionally, more than half of the top 25 were women athletes. Gymnastics saw 5 athletes in the top 25, including 2 in the top 5. For reference, men’s basketball saw the same number of 5 athletes in the top 25, and football only accounted for 3 of the top 25.
The study concluded that there could have been more than a total of $2,400,000 in revenue for student-athletes in “non-revenue” sports. They found the top potential “non-revenue” sports earner would have been UCLA gymnast, Madison Kocian with potential earnings over $460,000 per year. Madison ranked 2nd overall on the list, above quarterbacks Trevor Lawrence and Justin Fields. These dollar figures were based on potential social media earnings only. They did not account for other revenue streams for athletes such as hosting athletic camps/clinics, speaking engagements, and appearances & autograph signings.
So how will all of this play out in reality? It’s simple: NIL rights for student-athletes will create more opportunities for brands to reach their target markets. Sports marketing executives at nationwide brands such as Pepsi have already said they will be able to use college athletes to tap into markets that don’t have established professional sports teams (think Alabama, Iowa, Kansas, Mississippi, Nebraska, etc.).
If you draw it out even further to sport-specific brands, the opportunities open up even more. Let’s take swimming for example. At the 2016 Olympics in Rio, 24 of the 46 Team USA swimmers fell in the typical college age range of 18-22. That is more than half of the Olympic swimmers in America. Think of all the suit companies, equipment companies, and other swimming brands that would now have access to enter into paid partnerships with these college swimmers to reach their target market and endorse their products. You can apply this same idea to all the “non-revenue” sports. This is a great opportunity for athletes and brands alike.
However, it is important to understand that not all college athletes will make money with these changes. In the study mentioned above, all 25 of the top student-athlete potential earners came from NCAA Division I schools. 21 of those 25 came from power 5 conference schools (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac 12, and SEC). There is still a level of athletic skill involved in this whole equation, but if one thing is for certain, it is that student-athletes should be aware of the importance of building their brand now more than ever.
