Do NCAA athletes make money? (Name, Image, Likeness)

Before July 1st 2021 college athletes were not able to receive any compensation outside of any academic expenses for anything related to them being an athlete. Because they are technically in amateur status. Meaning they don’t have an agent and aren’t allowed to profit from their sports abilities.
Some athletes that have gotten in trouble from this are
Cam Newton even though his case was appealed and Cam never missed any games for infraction. Cam Newton’s dad was said to have reached out to Mississippi state asking for 100-180k for his son to sign a letter of intent. Cam’s dad said to the recruiter that other schools had made similar offers. Cam ended up signing at Auburn. There’s no evidence that Cam was paid to go to Auburn. But I think it’s safe to assume Cecil Newton at least asked them for money.
Reggie Bush gave back his heisman award because he had allegedly received around 300k worth of gifts from a USC booster during his time at USC.
Tyrell Pryor was getting free tattoos and selling his memorabilia while he was at Ohio state. Apparently this was only 3500 dollars and he had to pay that back. Basically sold a couple jerseys his championship ring and a pair of pants.
This was a funny one, Heisman Erik Crouch got a free sandwich and a plane ride and had to pay back 22.77 for making a public appearance. The plane ride was 13 dollars and the was 7 dollars. Technically he was supposed to pay for his own expenses.
Now athletes have the complete ability to make money off their own name, image, and likeness.
Some of the ways college athletes can make money off NIL is selling jerseys with their name on them, signing autographs, and endorsement deals.
The reason the NCAA said they didn’t want to have their players be paid is they didn’t want to ruin their amateur status and they wanted to keep things fair amongst the college athletics departments. Wouldn’t want a school with a bunch of wealthy alumni paying the best recruits to go there and killing all the competition.
What prompted the NCAA’s decision to do away with this rule? It was a court case called Alston vs. NCAA. A group of former NCAA players sued the NCAA saying they were in violation of antitrust laws (corporations organizing to create monopolies). The court ruled in their favor saying that no other business/industry doesn’t have to pay its workers or worry about what the competition is paying its workers.
After this knowing that legislation regarding the case was going to be passed the NCAA got rid of its NIL regulations.
Now the only way players can’t make money is by actually getting paid by the school or a booster for anything competition related. Also some schools may have policies about gambling and alcohol endorsement deals depending on religious affiliation I assume. Everything else is fair game.
Interestingly there isn’t the pay gap we see amongst men and women in professional sports. When it comes to the NIL revenue it’s about equal.
I think this is because women are better at promoting themselves on social media and can more easily influence the sale of consumer goods.
So let’s go over a few athletes making big money.
Bryce Young
The starting quarterback for the University of Alabama.
It’s estimated that he’s made over 1 million dollars in NIL deals.
He’s done deals with Logan’s roadhouse, Cashapp, a BMW dealership and Subway.
Do Bryce Young’s teammates get jealous? No says Nick Saban.
Interestingly Bryce has a pretty weak social media presence with only an instagram with around 200k followers.
Sunisa Lee gymnast at Auburn
She’s regarded as the world’s most marketable athlete.
She won bronze on the uneven bars and gold in women's all around
She’s got 1.7 million instagram followers and 1.6 million tiktok followers. That’s a lot of potential sponsored posts.
It’s reported that she makes 21k for each sponsored post
She competed in Dancing with the stars which is the most popular show on tv I’m sure she got the bag for that.
Her biggest sponsor now is Pearson the text book company. Which seems like a good fit being that she’s a college student when she could just focus all of her time on gymnastic.
Amazon, invisilign, target
Olivia Dunne
Olivia the queen of NIL endorsements
She has 2.2 million instagram followers and 5.3 tiktok followers
She is the most followed college athlete in the country
The New York times reported she’d already made over a million dollars in endorsements back in October 2021.
She’s done deals with cosmetic companies, american eagle didn’t even realize that was still a store, and bartleby another textbook company. Again part of her brand is being a college student.
Dunne brings a good point that since NIL deals are now legal gymnast who don’t really have much of a professional league after college now have an opportunity to make some money with their talent.

[theblkmechanic]

Great video as always!Channel deserves to be so much bigger

[balance]

Better late than never right? Just catching up on my watch list for videos and wanted to give my shout out comment. This is a subject that I have been slightly aware of but it was cool to see it with your style/presentation and research. Anyway, love the vid again as usual, keep up the good stuff. Thanks again for what you give.