NIL at Texas State
- samgroff98
- Nov 14, 2022
- 5 min read
Updated: Nov 29, 2022
By Samuel Groff
San Marcos, Tx - Before NIL or Name, Image and likeness was passed student-athletes couldn’t make any money according to NCAA rule.
When Nil was announced it came with a few questions. What is NIL and how are student-athletes going to be getting their NIL deals? How is this going to affect student-athletes? Are student-athletes going to focus more on NIL than their academics?
NIL gives student-athletes a chance to make money off their Name, Image and Likeness.
“Name Image Likeness is I guess is more of a term for student-athletes using their name image and Likeness to make money,” said Texas State Associate Athletics Director Kelsey Solis. “So previously there weren’t able to do that under NCAA rules up until last summer.”
According to ESPN Staff Writer Dan Murphy on June 30, 2021 the NCAA made a temporary rule change that allowed States to set rules for NIL. Then on July 1, the first set of NIL state laws started to into effect. Then NIL started to happen after that.
“Last year the rules changed along with the state laws across the nation,” said Solis. “That were adopted to allow student-athletes to allow student-athletes to an ascent make money off their Name, Image and Likeness.”
People's Thoughts on NIL When It Was Announced
People had different reactions when NIL was announced. Some people liked NIL and others had a few concerns about it.
People think NIL can be a good thing for student-athletes as long as it doesn’t interfere with academics.
“You know I think for me it was obviously, it’s like one of those things that be a really cool thing for our athletes to make some money and use their Name, Image and Likeness in a positive way,” said Texas State Women’s head Volleyball coach Sean Huiet. As we told our kids, we are all for it as long as it doesn’t interfere or overtake anything, their academics their volleyball.”
Others see NIL as a way for college athletes to make money to help them get through school.
‘’You're having to do classes all the way up until practice time, and by the time practicing ends, like you have enough time for dinner, do a little bit of studying, some homework, and then it's time for bed,” said former Texas State Baseball player Tristan Stivors. “NIL just gives the student-athlete like the ability to go out and pursue like NIL deals with companies to help make a little money and to help them get by college if they aren’t on scholarship.
Concerns of NIL
One concern of NIL was, would this have an effect on college recruiting.
Some people feel that NIL hasn’t gotten to the point that it's affecting recruiting.
“You know seeing some of the autonomy 5 in how they are using it and how it's overtaking with the recruiting and what they can provide to student-athletes it’s a little scary,” Huiet said. “Where were at like I said in the volleyball."
l world, where our program is at has not really been a reason why we lost a kid, or we’ve not gotten a recruit.”
Others think that it’s going to affect recruiting because athletes are going to see what NIL deals athletes are getting and how many NIL deals are happing at different schools.
“Yes, I do think that student-athletes at the high school level and even athletes enter the portal will have some sort of persuasion going to one school over another just because of how many NIL deals that school can get,” said Stivors. “I mean the name of the school, where the schools at, I mean also plays a very big role on NIL.”
If recruits are choosing Schools because of NIL, they still have to follow NIL rules.
How NIL works
Texas law says that student-athletes have to let the school know when they participate in NIL.
“So, my office our compliance office reviews all of the disclosers that come in,” Solis said. “So, it’s in an electronic form that our student-athletes basically just fill out and tell us, give us details about what they are doing.
With student-athletes getting NIL deals the schools can’t help the athletes with their deals with companies. Schools can only give athletes educational advice according to state law.
“Texas State law says that institutions can’t be involved in deals,” Solis said. “We try and educate and help them as much we can, but we can’t be involved in any actual deals.
Some of the Educational approaches that they can give are how to manage money and their brand.
“How to build their brand, how to manage money, and how to think about tax implications,” Solis said.
NIL Deals at Texas State
The way student-athletes get NIL deals is they have to build up their brand on social media
One of the student-athletes that has built her brand up at Texas State has been Volleyball player Janell Fitzgerald.
“We have a couple of kids that are doing stuff,” Huiet said. “Jenell Fitzgerald is like one of the top females in the Sunbelt, and it’s a lot to do with her social media presence.
Another athlete who got a Nil deal because of social media was Stivors.
“On social media, they asked me if I wanted to collaborate on merch deal and I was like yeah let’s do it,” Stivors said.
Stivors got a NIL deal with Barstool sports.
“They did like a merch apparel deal for me,” Stivors said. “Where they sold tea shirts, hoodies, sweaters.”
He got 80 percent of the profits from his NIL deal.
“I was able to get 80 percent of the profits from that deal,” Stivers said. “I ended up making a couple of 1000.”
Future of NIL
With student-athletes getting NIL deals today, NIL might look different in the future.
Some people think NIL isn’t going to just be one person getting a deal from a company; it will be a group deal.
“I think it’s going to be more like a team thing where a company comes and gives like a team a certain NIL deal, like let’s say GMC,” Stivors said. “GMC will come in and say, I’ll give your student, your baseball team two free supplements, if they come and help promote, are like our store one day and just stand outside for a few hours.”
Other people think that donors of the school are going to have a part in NIL.
“I think you'll see some schools with bigger sums of money being touted as what they have raised, not schools, but donors of schools raising money,” Texas State Information’s Director Chris Kutz said. “Saying they're going to pay X thousand dollars to student-athletes of a sport or multiple sports for one school.”
Comments