A NIL Manifesto!

First of all, I’d like to note that I’m not an old fogey or a male version of a ‘Karen’.

I fully believe that College players of all sports should be paid. After all, their appearances make all of the networks a ton of money, as well as the schools who are ‘in partnership with the networks’, as well as the businesses who want to be associated with their school, because thanks to their talent, they are always in a National Championship or March Madness shout.

But this thing has become a cluster-f**k, and we all know it.

First of all, the NCAA can’t work out what to do. They’ve been throwing out this idea that every school should pay all of its athletes a minimum of $30,000, as well as some stuff that most mathematical scholars would understand.

But then there’s the Tennessee case, where apparently they weren’t allowed to fly superstar quarterback Nico Iamaleava to Knoxvegas for some meetings (it later turned out to be a successful get, because he’s wearing orange this year). Was he a client of a sports collective? Or was he doing a recruiting trip for Tennessee, who happened to have a jet spare for the next Peyton Manning (or so we’re told).

Tennessee is obviously fuming, saying that it was “intellectually dishonest for the NCAA staff to issue guidelines that say a third-party collective/business may meet with prospective student-athletes, discuss NIL, even enter into a contract with prospective student-athletes, but at the same time say that the collective may not engage in conversations that would be of a recruiting nature”.

But there aren’t really guidelines, because no-one knows what in the ****’s going on, do they?

It should be fairly easy, thought.

Here’s a thought:

Collective Transparency

1. All collectives have to have an official stamp of approval from the university, the conference of the NIL
2. There will be a transparent list not only on school’s website but also on the conference’s and NCAA list for all NIL collectives.
3.  Any NIL has to show that it has the finances to pay players. If a NIL doesn’t have the funds, it will be banned from soliciting individuals until it does. Any violation of that will be an immediate 2-year ban from being a NIL and be removed from the database. That collective has to show funds to get its license back again. This stops players being led into thinking the collective who is working on behalf of the university has the money to fulfil its obligations.
4. Every players’ ‘NIL fee’ must be made public, as happens in professional sports.
5.  If a player is dismissed from a school, all future NIL monies will be null and voided.
6. Any person who ‘works for an NIL’ who has a criminal record or who has been investigated and found guilty by the Securities and Exchange Commission is barred for being involved in the NIL, or with the school’s athletics recruiting department.
7. Schools can create their own official NIL systems, but also kids should get a percentage of the TV rights that the schools gain from each TV deal.
8.  Every school will be mandated to have a tax office or hire a tax adviser. This is because players need to know that any of their income they get will get taxed at a federal level. $400,000 doesn’t mean they can hit the strip club and spend the money, and not get a knock on the door from the IRS.
9.  A school can use third parties to entice a player to come and player for their team as long as they are part of the NIL (For example if Hank Stepney want to encourage the next quarterback for South Carolina by flying him in a Boeing 747, he can do so. But it has to be at the NIL collective’s expense, and not the school’s). If the school is paying for it, it will count towards ONE OFFICIAL VISIT. If the visit is paid for by a member of a NIL collective or the collective as a whole, then it can be counted as an unofficial visit, as long as no monies are exchanged between school and NIL.
10. There will be no collective office within the school’s campus, although the school can appoint official NIL advisors to help with the NIL process.

Declaring for the Draft

A player can declare for the Draft in his or her particular sports, and then take more advice and ‘undeclare’, to attempt to make sure that sports like football and basketball have similar rules around them. If a player undeclares late and there isn’t a scholarship left for him or her at their former school, then they are out of luck. That’s their fault.

For poaching

1. Any school found guilty of trying to ‘poach player’ will be fined $100,000. If this carries on, this becomes the removal of scholarships and if again, a postseason ban.
2. A player trying to openly ‘sell himself’ while active at another school will – if found guilty – lose his eligibility for that year.

The Transfer Portal

1.  A player is welcome to market himself to schools when he’s officially in the transfer portal and not before.
2.  Transfer Portal Signing Day will be immediately after the final whistle of the National Championship Game. Not before (If that means that a school has to appoint a ‘transfer portal expert’, then so be it. Most schools have got the money to).

On the recruiting front

1. The second National Signing Day for Jucos and high schoolers will happen in Mid-February (pushed a week).
2.  As established players can visit a school as many times as they wish. The school can pay for his or her visit ONCE, and only once. Having said that, if a NIL collective wants to fly said recruit to a game for an ‘unofficial visit’, then so be it.  A school cannot pay for the trip.

Agency

1. A player should be able to appoint a licensed NIL agent or advisor if he or she wishes.
2. Licensing will be the same as the licensing in professional leagues. See the requirement in Florida, for example.
3. A player can use the same NIL agent to work out whether his or her stock is high enough to go professional or transfer.

For coaches

We stay with the ‘Any teams who’s coach leaves for another team can go into the transfer portal for 30 days’ rules.

 

Anyway, we like these set of ideas. Let us know if anything else tickles your fancy.