RALEIGH, N.C. — In a California courtroom in 2014, Mark Emmert, then in his fourth year as NCAA president, made a dire prediction about the future of college athletics if a day like Thursday ever arrived. Emmert was testifying in the O’Bannon case, which achieved one-name status in no small part due to the threat it posed to the NCAA’s so-called “collegiate model.”
The case had begun years earlier when Ed O’Bannon, an All-American on UCLA’s 1995 men’s basketball national championship team, led a group of plaintiffs who argued that college athletes should be compensated by the NCAA for use of their name, image and likeness. For years, O’Bannon’s likeness, along with hundreds of others, had appeared in popular college basketball and football video games. The games made millions. The players received nothing.
On the witness stand that summer day in 2014, a lawyer asked Emmert what would happen if that dynamic ever changed. For decades, leaders in college athletics, both within the NCAA and across its member schools, had argued that the enterprise would crumble if athletes were ever allowed to be paid. Now Emmert received another opening to take a familiar stance.
“If the NCAA rules were changed to permit payments to student athletes for use of their name, image and likeness, do you believe that some schools would leave Division I?” the lawyer asked.
“Yes,” Emmert said.
“Why would schools leave Division I if the rules were changed in that way?” the lawyer asked.
“I think two fundamental reasons,” Emmert said. “The first being philosophical, that they believe in an amateurism model and they don’t want to participate in a professional model of athletics. I’ve heard from a number of leaders of campuses that that’s how they feel.
“And the second is more pragmatic, and that would be the sheer cost of it.”
The day Emmert long feared — the day that a lot of leaders throughout college athletics long feared — came on Thursday. After years of mounting public pressure, and of states passing or preparing to enact laws that conflict with the rules that long governed major college athletics, the NCAA relented. At last college athletes are allowed to monetize their name, image and likeness (NIL).
In the days since the news became official, the college sports apocalypse has not begun. No school has defected from Division I, as Emmert argued might happen, nor have there been any indications of such a move. No school has protested the new reality, at least not in a public way, though to be sure some administrators have been quicker than others to embrace change.
The sun has risen, and risen again, and the world of college sports has not ended. The Earth remains spinning on its axis, despite years of protestation that suggested it might not should this day ever come. And yet across college athletics, and at schools throughout North Carolina, a fear of the end times has been replaced by apprehension of the unknown.
Athletes applaud the change, coaches are mostly quiet
College athletics has followed a long road to this point. Now nobody’s sure where it goes from here.
Across North Carolina, some college athletes have used social media to express gratitude for their newfound financial and commercial freedom. Coaches, meanwhile, have remained mostly quiet. And in interviews throughout the week, athletic directors at FBS schools shared a mix of optimism and skepticism — along with no shortage of frustration with the NCAA’s failure to implement a national NIL standard before it was forced to create a last-minute interim plan.
“We’ve tried to take a very patient approach to this, because we’re in a state that hasn’t passed anything,” Boo Corrigan, the N.C. State athletic director, said on Wednesday — two days before North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper issued an executive order formally granting NIL rights to college athletes in the state.
Cooper’s order was another last-minute development in a week full of them though Corrigan, at least, could be sure about one thing:
“I think the good thing from our standpoint is that we didn’t put something out three months ago, that we’ve got to go back and change.”
Said Mike Hill, the athletic director at Charlotte:
“The challenging thing for all of us in college athletics has been the uncertainty, and it’s been an extended period of uncertainty. I think the only thing that was certain was that change was coming. But what’s been unclear is what is it going to look like?”
It’s a question that will linger, and one that will be answered only slowly. For now, what change looks like is largely dependent on the same factors that have shaped college athletics forever — resources, budgets and staffing among them.
One of the NCAA’s arguments against NIL rights was that they could promote competitive imbalance — that, say, a car dealership in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, could feasibly offer Alabama football players inordinate amounts of money and claim it’s for endorsement deals instead of a not-so-subtle pay-for-play scheme.
Yet across North Carolina, and the country, the response to the changing NIL landscape has reinforced the reality that there’s no such thing as competitive balance in college athletics in the first place. The wealthiest schools, such as those in the Power Five conferences, can provide for their athletes in a way that other schools cannot.
North Carolina and N.C. State, for instance, have both partnered with third-party companies, including INFLCR, to help their athletes navigate their NIL rights. The tagline for INFLCR, pronounced “influencer,” is “we’re changing the game,” and, indeed, in recent years it has changed the way athletes have presented themselves on social media. Now the company is taking it a step further, with a mission of assisting athletes build brands they can monetize while in school.
To that end, both UNC and N.C. State have hired personnel to help their athletes craft an image.
“How do we help build their brand?” Jenna McLaughlin, an associate athletic director at N.C. State, asked. She was repeating a question that’s been on her mind in recent weeks and months while she’s helped the athletic department prepare for change.
“For one, we’ve added some positions to football and men’s and women’s basketball,” she said. “We’ll actually have someone on campus that can help build your brand by giving you content.”
Smaller schools, fewer resources
At a place like East Carolina, the support infrastructure surrounding NIL will be less robust. Jon Gilbert, the athletic director there, said the university considered partnering with an outside company to assist athletes with NIL rights, but decided against it.
During an interview he didn’t sound fazed when reminded of what other, wealthier schools are doing.
“We’re all not equal,” said Gilbert, who in some ways is taking a wait-and-see approach to NIL.
“I’m not really sure what we need today,” he said. “Like I know we need to educate. And I know we need some disclosure forms to make sure that we’re helping these student-athletes have the best experience, and get the best opportunity and make sure they don’t get sideways with taxes, and all those things. But outside of that, that education and helping empower the student-athletes, this is going to be an evolving process.
“Who’s to say six months from now we don’t have national legislation, and we’re pivoting again?”
Gilbert emphasized another point of inequality among schools, one that no amount of money or resources could change. It’s geography, and the difference between college towns and cities. The NIL opportunities in Greenville will undoubtedly be different from those offered in the North Carolina Triangle, which contrast, still, with what could exist in Atlanta or Boston.
In professional sports, major media markets are sometimes a draw for athletes who want to maximize their off-court or off-field exposure. How might that dynamic manifest in college athletics?
“I do think we have an advantage of where we are in Greenville in that people east of (Interestate) 95, they care about the Pirates, and are very supportive,” Gilbert said. “And so while we don’t have the number of businesses or companies that an Atlanta, Georgia, has, we do have a very passionate region that I do think that our student athletes will be able to capitalize on.”
In an age of online influencers, physical geography might not matter as much as it once did. As the clock struck midnight on Thursday, endorsement deals with college athletes began to become public. A story in Sports Illustrated detailed one of the first — an agreement between Antwan Owens, a Jackson State football player, and 3 Kings Grooming, a Black-owned business specializing in hair and grooming products. Owens signed the deal in New York City.
Throughout the rest of Thursday and Friday, other reports of college athlete endorsement deals continued to circulate. Among those that became public, the most lucrative belonged to Hercy Miller, the son of rapper Master P. According to a report by TMZ Sports, Miller, an incoming basketball player at Tennessee State, signed a $2 million deal with “an American technology company,” which other reports later identified as Web Apps America.
“It’s incredible,” Master P. told TMZ Sports in an interview it posted on Twitter. “This is going to change the way college athletes want to stay in school.”
Few NC endorsement contracts announced ... so far
In North Carolina, an anticipated rush of college athlete endorsement deals had yet to transpire through Friday. Jimmy’s Famous Seafood, a restaurant in Baltimore, Md., announced on Twitter on Thursday that “the first EVER Jimmy’s-endorsed college athlete” was Armando Bacot, a UNC basketball player. On Twitter, the restaurant has long shared its passionate support of UNC athletics.
Another college athlete in the state, ECU quarterback Holton Ahlers, used Twitter to announce “the Official launch of my personal faith based brand, Built When Broken.”
“Go check out our website and ‘our story’ tab to learn more!” Ahlers wrote, sharing a link to his site.
Many of the most prominent college athletes in the state — UNC quarterback Sam Howell, for instance, along with most basketball players at UNC and Duke — had yet to publicize any endorsement deals. Undoubtedly, marketing and brand opportunities will await those who seek them, and schools that long did everything in their power to stop athletes from receiving payments have rushed to appear supportive in this new world.
Most FBS schools in the state, and many around the country, have branded the programs they’ve designed to help athletes build their brands. N.C. State’s NIL initiative is ALPHA, a play on its Wolfpack mascot. UNC’s is “LaUNCh,” with those three letters strategically capitalized. Charlotte’s is “Green Light,” a reference to one of its primary colors. ECU’s is “SABRE,” which fits into the Pirates motif and also stands for “student-athlete brand resource education.”
Just a decade ago, UNC found itself embroiled in a scandal, of its time, when football players accepted money from agents. Just three years ago, N.C. State became part of a broader college basketball corruption case after revelations emerged that Adidas had paid the family of Dennis Smith Jr., a former Wolfpack guard. More recently, Zion Williamson has faced allegations that he accepted inducements to spend his lone season at Duke.
Now, as of Thursday, the rules have been upended. Most administrators have said they welcome it.
“I think we’re believers in the most deregulated system possible, here in Charlotte,” said Hill, the Charlotte athletic director. “Just because, limiting the student-athletes and their opportunities doesn’t make any sense. Obviously, we have to have some sense of boundaries from a recruiting standpoint, and we get that.
“But in terms of their opportunities commercially, we’re anxious to try to help them.”
“I think it’s an exciting moment,” N.C. State’s Corrigan said. “I really do. I think it’s something that’s been coming for a while. (N.C. State athletes) know that we’re supportive ... I think there’s going to be a ton of questions on what it is, and how it works from a broader group. And on some levels it can be a little bit scary, because it is so new and so different from what we’ve done in the past.”
Change comes slowly to college athletics
For years, change came slowly in college athletics if it came at all. Then it arrived all at once, when the NCAA realized it could delay no more. In 2019, California became the first state to pass a law that superseded NCAA rules and allowed college athletes there to capitalize on their NIL. Other states began to follow, slowly at first, before the movement accelerated.
Last month, when he testified during a Senate hearing related to the potential of federal NIL legislation, Emmert pleaded with lawmakers to solve his problem, and enact a uniform nationwide standard. It wasn’t long before it became clear that one was not coming — at least not before several state laws were set to take effect on Thursday, forcing the NCAA’s surrender.
While college athletes have celebrated a new kind of freedom, some leaders throughout the industry have been left to wonder how this all came to be, with such suddenness. Bubba Cunningham, the athletic director at UNC, has fought the kind of widespread NIL freedom that became legal on Thursday, and he didn’t back down from that stance during a recent interview.
He remained concerned, he said, about how a “redistribution of revenue” might affect UNC’s ability to sponsor 28 sports — 26 of which, he noted, are supported by the revenue that football and men’s basketball generates.
“What we try to do in collegiate athletics is create broad-based programming for a lot of students to participate,” he said. “And what we’re doing is moving more toward a professional model. And that’s concerning to me, and typically when you do that there’s fewer opportunities.”
If it’d been up to him, Cunningham said, he would have employed a different legal strategy to try to stop states from passing their own NIL laws.
“The legal strategy I would have deployed years ago would’ve been to sue the states for interference in interstate commerce,” Cunningham said. “That would have been my legal strategy — not the legal strategy that we pursued. And so now, we’re living with that legal strategy.
“I don’t agree with it. So I would have trouble articulating a plan to get me from here to where we need to be, because I didn’t buy into the first one. So my responsibility now is to our students here on campus, and how do I try to support them?”
Later that day, he had a meeting scheduled with all of UNC’s athletes to go over NIL, and the things that were now different, and allowable. Cunningham had already had meetings with some of the university’s most prominent athletes about endorsement deals that were in the works. The biggest ones had yet to be announced, but he knew they were coming.
