NILISM

 

               The word “nil” means zero in soccer, but capitalized and turned into the acronym NIL it means a whole lot in college sports. The letters stand for name, image and likeness, and sale of the use of them will put legal income in the pockets of some college athletes without altering their competitive status. It’s a change that will revolutionize the games collegiates play, with results we now can only guess at. The saying “watch what you wish for” seems to apply here.

               The new era began legally on July 1 but the money has yet to start flowing in earnest. There will be rules governing what sort of income is and isn’t okay, but as yet they are unclear. Twenty six states have passed laws permitting NIL payouts, creating a hodgepodge of regulations.

The NCAA has given its reluctant approval, and has drawn its own lines, but it and most other actors in the field are hoping for Federal action that will unify and clarify. This in itself is revolutionary; heretofore the NCAA has resisted any Federal involvement in its affairs, the camel’s nose in the tent thing, you know. It’s not an idle fear and I’ll treat it later.

Even at this early time, though, a couple of things about the new era seem certain. One is that it will involve a lot more money than was previously imagined by me and, I’d bet, most other people. The other is that it won’t be distributed equally or nearly so. About 450,000 students in the NCAA’s 1,100 or so member schools are varsity athletes and the soccer-word nil will apply to most of them.  For a lucky few, however, it will be a bonanza, creating a new class of undergrad millionaires. A good thing, huh? Or maybe uhuh.

The magic word is this context is “followers.” Sure, jocks may be able to pick up a few hundred dollars, or even a few thousand, signing autographs at a booster’s auto dealership or being teacher-counselors at summer sports camps. In one deal already announced, a Miami gym owner has pledged to pay each of the U. of Miami’s 90 scholarship football players $500 a month for each year they’re eligible, or $540,000 a year in total, for promotional services.

  Another avenue for spreading the wealth, at least among football and basketball players at the “Power Five” conferences, will be income from electronic-game makers. NFL players reportedly each take in $48,000 a year from those sources, and less-numerous NBAers $400,00 a year. The per-player divisor will be much higher among the colleges, but the haul still should be substantial.

But the real money will come from endorsements on the so-called social mediums. Being elderly, I don’t have much truck with these, but many (maybe most) under-40s do, and reputedly they can be persuaded to buy or do things suggested by the “influencers” that create content for the likes of Instagram and TikToc. According to online sources their followings can be sold to advertisers for annual rates of up to eight cents a year. Multiplied by hundreds of thousands of followers and by several advertisers, those pennies can turn into big dollars. To paraphrase Ev Dirksen, a hundred thousand dollars here and hundred thousand there and pretty soon you’re talking real money.

That’s apparently what’s in store for Spencer Rattler, the quarterback of the U. of Oklahoma Sooners and Heisman Award candidate. With a catchy name, blond coif and strong arm, he’s big on social media, and his agency, led by the famed Leigh Steinberg, is painting quick millionaire status for him. Much the same goal has been set for Bryce Young, the projected starting QB for the U. of Alabama’s always-highly-rated football team, and he’s a sophomore who has yet to start a college game.

But while the big majority of social-media money will go to footballing and basketballing collegiate males, they won’t get it all. The Cavinder twins, Haley and Hannah, play basketball beautifully at Fresno U. and maintain a lively online presence for their reported four million (yep) followers. Margzetta Frazier, a UCLA gymnast with show-business aspirations, does likewise for a smaller but still sizable audience. A high-school hoopster, Mikey Williams from San Diego, also is said to be poised to cash in big from people mesmerized by his flying dunks.

Still, the economic prospects of, say, a second-string offensive guard at Purdue aren’t brilliant, and that could lead to difficulties. Income inequality is well established in professional sports, where players earning a measly one or two million per locker next to teammates pulling down 20 times as much, but it might not play as well in the college realm. Will the above-mentioned kid, living in a dorm and riding a bike around campus, go all out to block for his penthouse-living, Cadillac-driving QB?

 Maybe more importantly, playing a big-time college sport while pursuing an education (one hopes) already is a fulltime job and then some, so where will the time come from to make in-person or online commercial appearances? Rich or poor, the number of hours in a collegian’s day is fixed, and there are distractions aplenty as it is.

The NCAA’s retreat from its historic stance on amateurism already has had consequences. It’s both cause and effect of the loss of political clout that led to the retreat; years of its hypocrisy and money-grubbing has alienated even spineless pols who used to support alma mater no matter what.

 Further, no matter what the rules, income opportunities for jocks inevitably will turn recruiting into the Wild West and lead to the survival of the fattest. Traditional conference structures could collapse and “superconferences” form; for evidence see the recent move of Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC from the Big 12 and the talks now underway between the Big Ten, ACC and Pac-12. The situation may make the just-pay-‘em folks happy, but everyone doesn’t root for ‘Bama or Ohio State. Like I wrote above, watch what you wish for.