The Balance Between Ball and Brand: How the NCAA Allows Athletes to Embrace Their Identity
Story by Allison Clowers & Madeline Wilson | Design by Chandler Vanous
Click! Click! Click! All you can hear is the clicking of the camera flashing before your eyes.
You’ve been asked to become the face of a major sports endorsement brand and you are experiencing your first major photo shoot. This is just the beginning of your new brand as a professional student-athlete, only you’re not a professional yet.
This could be the new normal for future student-athletes; opportunities for them could begin to pop up, with the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA) new ruling that will support their building of a personal brand.
According to a press release from the NCAA in April 2020, “The Board of Governors supported rule changes to allow student-athletes to receive compensation for third-party endorsements [and] also supports compensation for other student-athlete opportunities, such as social media, businesses they have started and personal appearances.”
This means that while student-athletes cannot currently seek out photo shoots with brands as described, this could be in their future over the course of the next few years.
There are many different factors at play when deciding rules about student-athlete conduct, specifically with name, image and likeness (NIL).
Defining NIL
These three facets to one’s identity fall under what the NCAA defines as right of publicity which, “involves those situations where permission is required of a person to use their name, image or likeness,” according to an article on how student-athletes’ NIL will shape the future of college sports from NCAA by Rachel Stark-Mason.
There are a variety of intricate rules that are involved with governing student-athlete conduct which means the process for changing them can be difficult.
Assistant Athletic Director for Compliance and the Senior Women Administrator at CWU Athletics Laura Dahlby Nicolai says, “Specifically with name, image, likeness … we actually delayed the vote. All levels … at the recommendation of the home office in Indianapolis, we actually all delayed our votes and removed them from the docket this year.”
Within the different divisions of the NCAA, universities are allowed to vote on specific rule changes. Dahlby Nicolai says, within the conference CWU is in, “NCAA Division II has a one institution one vote policy; every institution gets a vote.”
She adds, “Additionally, the SAAC which is the Student-Athlete Advisory [Committee] gets a vote as well. Everybody votes … if it passes, awesome, and if it doesn’t then you can try again in a couple years.”
This process occurs whenever universities or committees propose a rule change. But before people can even vote on what rule changes occur, there is a lengthy process of proposing legislation and finding sponsors, according to Dahlby Nicolai.
For example, if new legislation were to be proposed to change the NIL rules, as a university or committee “we say, ‘we think this rule needs to be changed,’ or ‘we need a new rule,’ … and we go to the conference. Then, the conference says ‘yes, we support you,’ or ‘no, we think that’s silly and we aren’t going to support you.’”
However, one group does not need to bring up a rule change alone. There can be multiple universities or committees working to propose the change.
“You can bring it up as a single institution [but] it’s less likely to pass,” explains Dahlby Nicolai. “The more support you have, it kind of goes through the process. You submit a rule proposal and if it gets enough support, then it is sponsored for legislation.”
Even after this entire process, there are still rules such as the proposed changes to NIL that are either not passed or decisions are pushed to a later date such as what occurred this past year.
One of the main reasons NIL is so difficult to discern a clear set of guidelines for is because of the many factors that need to be considered, such as the role of student-athletes.
Implementing the Changes
Something that may be an issue is how these rule changes will be implemented into the universities and upheld by the staff and students.
“When a rule change passes, what happens then? We have to identify what of our process changes,” explains Dahlby Nicolai. “Had it changed, I would have had to … send additional paperwork to student-athletes to say, ‘Do you have an outside contract with anyone? What’s the deal worth?’”
Additionally, there can be upkeep with how the athletes are branding themselves that falls on the athletics department to keep track of.
One of the factors noted in the original press release from the NCAA was “the use of conference and school logos, trademarks or other involvement would not be allowed.”
If someone were to misuse CWU logos, there would need to be a new set of guidelines made to develop consequences for breaking these NIL rules.
“For each institution it’s a little different because for us … we would have had to make sure the campus policies on the use of the logo and which logo were clearly identified to student-athletes so that they knew when they could use a logo on anything that would make them individual money using their NIL,” Dahlby Nicolai says.
Understanding the Consequences
With so many opportunities available to athletes to capitalize off of their brand, what are the consequences if they break the rules or give their image a bad rep?
Aubrey Miller, senior Sport Management major with a specialization in Sports Business, Marketing and Promotions intern for CWU Athletics and former marketing officer for the Sport Management Association, predicts, “If a student-athlete gets in trouble (caught at a party, etc.), then they are putting on a bad image for themselves, their school and the company that they are sponsoring.”
Within the legislation that was created to allow athletes to use their NIL for monetary gain, there are some clear restrictions in place, but the consequences may need to be clarified by each institution.
Dahlby Nicolai explains, “When someone breaks a rule … [For example], if somebody practiced too many hours in a week, there’s sort of a case precedent where if you practice two extra hours we have to give you a two-for-one penalty. So, for every one hour I give you a penalty of two hours removed; if they practice two extra hours, I would have to take away four practice hours.”
There is also the possibility that once the consequences of breaking the NCAA rules are outlined, they could affect more than just the individual player.
“We have a requirement that they have to be in 12 credits at all times. So, if a baseball player played in a game but he thought he was in a class but he was only waitlisted so he was only in 10 but he played in this game, we then can’t count that game,” Dahlby Nicolai says. “If we won, we actually forfeit that game. Additionally, we have to ask for his reinstatement from the NCAA.”
Then, “if that went unnoticed and we didn’t notice until after the national championship game that they won, that national championship is now forfeited and every game that they played in is now void,” she adds.
The Role of Student-Athletes
If this rule were to be in effect, not only would there be changes to the university athletics’ policies but also to the role of student-athletes. When there is an extra factor involved in their day-to-day lives, their academics and other interests may suffer.
“If you did a study of what student-athletes' grades are now without having to worry about money and then doing a study on how grades … drop [after NIL changes], you will definitely see a big drop when they start to get paid and prioritize making money,” says Rey Green, running back for CWU Football, Digital Journalism major and PULSE Magazine writer.
He adds, “We see the pendulum of managing school, work (which would now be football), meetings, learning the playbook and then other aspects of your life. It’s never just a straight and narrow equal level of attention [to] time.”
Adding on essentially another job can be stressful and may take a toll on one’s academics, especially for busy athletes.
“Yes, these changes will affect student-athletes’ academics because … student-athletes are student’s first, athlete’s second. There is a reason that they are called ‘student-athletes’ and not ‘athlete-students,’” explains Miller.
Performing in Class and on the Field
The priority of student-athletes is to be both a student and an athlete, but either of those roles may be put on the backburner if a money factor is involved.
“Student-athletes are attending school to get a degree in addition to their sporting activities,” Miller says. “They should be focusing on their schoolwork first [and] then their extracurriculars. It will become a distraction if they have a brand name and [are] being paid for their likeness [and] image.”
Haley Abeyta, senior Law & Justice major and loose head prep for Women’s Rugby, adds, “We are student-athletes for a reason and our main goal [is] to get our degree. Being an athlete should be our number one priority and be considered our job. At the end of the day if we are not performing in the classroom, we won’t be able to perform on the field.”
With already busy schedules, adding the opportunity for outside monetization may make the players have difficulty with choosing their priorities, but it is not impossible.
Green says, “You always make time for the things that you truly want to have in your life. I think people will have the opportunity to fit that into their schedule.”
“It would be hard to do that but yes, you definitely could fit it in,” he adds. “If you’re a football player and also trying to be a nurse, it’s going to be kind of insane to where you’re not getting any sleep. It kind of goes into the lifestyle you want to live.”
Linae Myhand, senior double-majoring in Business Administration with a Marketing specialization and Economics with a Business and Economic Forecasting specialization, and president of the CWU Sport Management Association, explains, “If there would be ways to be able to still make the money, [and] to not affect the schedule … I think there should be some [but] I don't know what they look like.”
Sponsorships & Endorsements 101
One of the struggles that many face in determining how this decision will affect athletes is that there are a lot of unknowns about how NIL rules will affect them personally as well as how they could go about finding sponsorships.
Dahlby Nicolai explains, one of the difficulties she has witnessed is, “Nobody really knows how they are going to support [it] because it really is a monitoring nightmare.”
Because there are so many factors for the universities to consider, being able to monitor how students work with NIL rules could look different.
One point that Dahlby Nicolai mentions is the unknowns about the use of outside agents to represent the students.
“There is space within the legislation at both our level and Division I to allow agents to work with student-athletes, only for the purpose of NIL. They are allowed to have professional service advisor contracts with lawyers and tax advisors, as long as it doesn’t branch into professional playing opportunities,” Dahlby Nicolai says. “That’s one of those things that become very hard to monitor.”
The monitoring of how student-athletes follow the new NCAA guidelines may become more difficult with more people involved.
“A lot of athletes can probably do some of this on their own … [However], for any type of endorsement, via the local car dealership or if they're doing Instagram postings, those all require legal contracts and that's what we specialize in,” says Tim Dillon, owner and agent at 206 Sports Group, a professional sports agency that represents NFL players such as Seahawk players Russell Wilson and DK Metcalf.
He adds, “A lot of my work is reviewing a legal contract so the parties all understand their place and what’s being offered and what they're doing as athletes.”
Similar to professional athletics, once the new NIL rules are passed, there will be specific guidelines for how student-athletes can seek out agents.
“You'll start to see … in final legislation if the NIL goes through … they'll probably put some sort of guardrails around that just like they do in professional sports,” Dillon says.
As a student it may be difficult to navigate these changes and understand how their role changes from just student-athlete to now adding a job as well.
Myhand questions, “At what point does it become … where there’s so much that it’s a lot for him to maintain? Maybe he needs an agent now. What happens then when these college players have agents?”
She adds, “I think that's something that the NCAA is probably thinking about a lot because technically, once you sign with an agent, now you are no longer an amateur athlete … You can't really expect these students to maintain the school, the college sport and then also these relationships.”
The Perception of Student-Athletes
While being a student-athlete is not technically considered a job, adding the opportunity for endorsements or sponsorships may change the way people perceive these students.
“A lot of people will start to realize that it is a full-time job because a lot of people don’t. From my understanding people think that we’re lazy [or] not smart,” Green says.
“That’s kind of the perception, especially being a football player. Growing up, everyone has that joke of [being a] ‘dumb jock,’ he adds. “It will change the narrative.”
Even if athletes do not consider themselves to have a job already, a clear difference between paying athletes and allowing them to find their own forms of income should be made.
Miller explains, “These changes will cause student-athletes to feel like they are doing a full-time job on top of school, instead of being a student on top of doing sports. They would lose out on the college experience.”
“There is a reason that student-athletes are not being paid,” she adds. “Compensation is meant for those in professional sports, not for those in college.”
Building a Brand
Even if student-athletes aren’t actively seeking out sponsorships or endorsements for the money, there are some positive opportunities available as they begin to build their brand while still in school.
Dillon says, “It allows them to fully take advantage of their brand, and be kind of the owner of that, and that’s what we encourage.”
He adds, “We look at it as a huge opportunity, especially in my side of the business. We do a lot of endorsements [and] a lot of speaking engagements … I think that's a huge opportunity for them and it spans to this whole level.”
Athletes will be able to cultivate their personal identity into a recognizable brand.
“Once they become athletes, or high level elite athletes, even in high school, they start to get this brand and you start to see them change around social media,” Myhand says.
“It really becomes just like a blank slate. So this waiting for hopefully, five, six years from now when I go pro, and then I can actually get sponsorships and I can do things,” she adds. “If they were able to actually capitalize, there's so many practices where you can be a brand ambassador.”
If student-athletes are able to make an image and brand surrounding their name there are a multitude of job experiences waiting for them, especially with the help of outside sports agents.
Dillon says, “We have an opportunity to kind of build their brand, even if she wants to get into event planning, it might not be sports anymore but they can use that as a launching pad for other parts of their kind of career.”
There are many advantages that come with the ability for athletes to capitalize off of their brand. One clear positive is motivation.
“If I were sponsored or endorsed, it would personally motivate and push me to be better,” Abeyta says. “Playing at my best is always the goal but now that I am being sponsored, it pushes me to be even better than imagined and if I am not performing, they can take that away from me.”
Whether or not this change is made, it will be up to the student-athletes to decide if they want to build a brand out of their name, image and likeness.
