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Who will pay Wake Forest's players?

You know how NIL is going to help Olympic sports? By helping them attract actual Olympians.

[h=1]Why Suni Lee honored Auburn gymnastics commitment made 4 years ago despite Olympic gold medal win[/h]
https://www.montgomeryadvertiser.co...tics-gold-medal-auburn-jeff-graba/8121031002/

Suni Lee, 2021 Olympic gold medalist, moved into her new home this week at Auburn, where she will be a freshman on Jeff Graba’s gymnastics team. At a school often defined by football, Lee's arrival instantly makes her the most eminent athlete on campus. She won the coveted all-around title at the Tokyo Olympics in July. She elected afterward to stick with her initial plan of competing as a college gymnast at Auburn. Now she's just another freshman.
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[h=2]NIL changed the game[/h]He was never concerned that Olympic fame would change her next course of action because of a recent development in college sports: NIL.



Gymnasts make most of their money from endorsements, and when the NCAA passed a temporary policy change this summer allowing athletes to profit off their name, image and likeness, the door was open for elite gymnasts such as Lee to get the best of both worlds: compete on the college stage and earn some cash.
She is sure to make substantial advertising money in Auburn under the new rules.
“If she had this year in 2020 when she was 17 and there was no NIL and that type of stuff, I think it’s a completely different ballgame,” Jeff Graba said. “I don’t know if she actually can go to college with all the endorsement deals that she would have had at her feet.”
Instead, she was able to arrive this week in Auburn, where her face is on a local billboard and a full college gymnastics career awaits. She has been taking a break from the sport since the Olympics while moving in and getting settled, but she was enthusiastic Friday about her teammates and her future at Auburn.
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I'd not be surprised if auburn (or any other big d1 school) has better facilities and better trainers than anywhere most Olympic sports athletes are training on their own. That's one of the main reasons so many swimmers and runners still go and compete in college.

Texas, for example, always has half a dozen Olympic medalists on campus. UVA will roster three or four Tokyo medalists in swimming next year. That's nothing new. What's new is that NIL enables the famous ones to potentially profit from their image.

It would have been a shame for someone like Suni Lee to go to college and to be forbidden to capitalize on her Olympic success, but that's how it's always been. Seems like a good change in this specific area of the new rule.
 
Sure. Those are the Olympians who were already there. I’m talking about the young stars like Lee or before her Felix and McLaughlin who may be more likely to go to and stay in school under the new rules.
 
PhDeac said:
Sure. Those are the Olympians who were already there. I’m talking about the young stars like Lee or before her Felix and McLaughlin who may be more likely to go to and stay in school under the new rules.
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I was thinking of several swimmers who will be incoming freshman this fall.

T&F athletes are almost always going to college for the reasons I stated, regardless of NIL opportunities. There is no professional league drafting in athletics (or swimming or gymnastics) so college remains the best opportunity for development.

Where I think you're wrong is that someone like Mclaughlin, who was an elite high schooler, isn't going to decide to go to college because of NIL opportunities. College is the best place for them to be until they prove they are good enough to sign a professional contract. SM left Kentucky after her freshman year bc she signed with new balance. NIL is not going to entice someone truly elite to go to college or to stay there, and those that aren't elite are going to need to stay.
 
That’s what we will find out. Can famous T&F athletes or other big time athletes get big contracts without turning pro?
 
Felix is an unusual example of someone in T&F who signed a professional contract straight out of high school.

Basically your argument is that NIL money for high school-aged athletes (that are lucky enough to gain an international reputation in the Olympics before graduating) will entice them to go to college because they are now able to profit from that fame.

For these few athletes, the question is then whether or not their potential NIL earnings are worth more than their initial professional sponsorship. I don't know, but I suspect the NCAA still draws the line somewhere: Mclaughlin couldn't sign with New Balance and still run for Kentucky.
 
PhDeac said:
That’s what we will find out. Can famous T&F athletes or other big time athletes get big contracts without turning pro?
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wakephan09 said:
For these few athletes, the question is then whether or not their potential NIL earnings are worth more than their initial professional sponsorship. I don't know, but I suspect the NCAA still draws the line somewhere: Mclaughlin couldn't sign with New Balance and still run for Kentucky.
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Yes, exactly. I think we're on the same page here with this question.
 
wakephan09 said:
Felix is an unusual example of someone in T&F who signed a professional contract straight out of high school.

Basically your argument is that NIL money for high school-aged athletes (that are lucky enough to gain an international reputation in the Olympics before graduating) will entice them to go to college because they are now able to profit from that fame.

For these few athletes, the question is then whether or not their potential NIL earnings are worth more than their initial professional sponsorship. I don't know, but I suspect the NCAA still draws the line somewhere: Mclaughlin couldn't sign with New Balance and still run for Kentucky.
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I think a lot of the money will remain. The shoe companies etc. will figure out how to make sure the contracts fit the NCAA definition of NIL compensation. Just some accountant/lawyer work to do.
 
Yeah, I suppose there's no reason nike couldn't take a gamble on promising talent and sponsor a couple of hundred top collegians with small sponsorships. (Which would be weird though bc that's more than many "professionals" are getting and the collegians are already getting shoes and gear from school). But unlike, say, basketball, the vast majority of these athletes won't become superstars and I'm not convinced by phdeac's theory that track would be popular with a mainstream audience if it was better marketed. As always, we're only talking about a handful of people out of thousands and thousands of young athletes.

The sad truth is the majority of professional t&f athletes, and in particular distance runners, make very little in sponsorship money. They take money from race purses and if they're lucky enough to run for a single-sponsor "team" they will often have gear and travel and some medical covered but aren't paid or make only a small stipend.
 
In other words, I'm not sure how much their image is really worth to these companies
 
wakephan09 said:
In other words, I'm not sure how much their image is really worth to these companies
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Are they worth more attached to a major brand like Stanford or UCLA?
 
PhDeac said:
Are they worth more attached to a major brand like Stanford or UCLA?
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Good question, and I don't know the answer.

One thing that complicates this is that the "blue bloods" in basketball and football are not necessarily also powerhouses in the other Olympic sports: traditionally, dominant programs in T&F are schools like Arkansas, Colorado, Oregon, USC, aTm and even NC State.

In women's cross country, for example, Villanova has historically dominated and the last five individual champions have come from Mizzou, New Mexico, Alabama, and Colorado.
 
wakephan09 said:
I'd not be surprised if auburn (or any other big d1 school) has better facilities and better trainers than anywhere most Olympic sports athletes are training on their own. That's one of the main reasons so many swimmers and runners still go and compete in college.

Texas, for example, always has half a dozen Olympic medalists on campus. UVA will roster three or four Tokyo medalists in swimming next year. That's nothing new. What's new is that NIL enables the famous ones to potentially profit from their image.

It would have been a shame for someone like Suni Lee to go to college and to be forbidden to capitalize on her Olympic success, but that's how it's always been. Seems like a good change in this specific area of the new rule.
Click to expand...

Speaking of Texas, I saw someone tweet this link to their LEVERAGE NIL Program. Basically a university sponsored webpage with contact info and social media links for everyone on their teams. Kind of cool, I hope Wake does/is doing this.

https://texassports.com/sports/2021/8/10/name-image-and-likeness-nil-directory.aspx
 
So some top recruit from bama: https://247sports.com/Player/GaQuincy-McKinstry-46052990/

His nickname is Kool aid....Naturally he got an NIL deal from Kool Aid.

Can you imagine the scrambling parents are doing to hammer home a nick name for their pop warner kids?

Johnny "Pepsi" Brown
Mikey "Energizer" Malone
Adam "Amazon" Smith

Can't wait to see some of these new nicknames pop up for top recruits.
 
And yes, this joke has a little touch of RJK humor in it. Deal with it.
 
With OnlyFans getting out of the pron business, expect to see athletes and movie stars get OF accounts (at least that is the OF new business model, I believe?). In the future, you can communicate directly to a college athlete for a price. If this is correct, the post-game interview and those distributing it, may become meaningless. The school's PR team needs to coach these kids up for this inevitability.
 
Some friends that own a restaurant here in High Point just announced an NIL deal with two High Point University lacrosse players to be their brand ambassadors or something. I can't wait to ask him how that originated.
 
Barstool sports signed a ton of D1 athletes to NIL deals, including mid-level D1 swimmers and Ivy League baseball players. Not sure what the market strategy is. Maybe there are just a lot of cash rich businesses with money to burn.
 
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