Unfortunately, NIL is about the money first.
Inside Carolina has an informative interview with Graham Boone, a young man whose family from Concord is Tar Heel blue and true. Boone is the new executive director of Heels4Life, UNC’s football collective in these wild west days of Name-Image-Likeness (NIL).
Boone rolls out in detail what Carolina is doing with NIL to try to keep pace in the unregulated marketplace while staying true to the university’s long-held standard of doing it the right way, which only a few times has turned out to be not exactly true (i.e., NCAA problems in the Butch Davis era). Heels4Life is ramping up its program that is working with the Rams Club and UNC Compliance setting up systems for athletes to not only earn money but also learn how NIL works and what benefits it will provide for their business and future lives. It sounds really good.
The problem is that some other football programs (if reports are true) do it differently by way of the refrain “money talks and nobody walks” in trying to secure 5-star and 4-star freshmen and transfers. That translates into wins on the field and continued support at the box office and traditional fund-raising.
Mack Brown has talked of the tampering he knows goes on and how players and their families he has recruited are openly asking “how much money will we get” because other schools are putting a number on the table.
NCAA rules have been violated for decades, but at least there are rules that many coaches and schools follow. There are no rules that govern NIL, since the NCAA stepped away and now only hands down “suggestives” for collectives. Schools that are serial cheaters are still doing it their own way, which adds to the athletic wealth gap between haves and have-nots.
All the steps Boone outlines in the IC story are noble and sustainable for whenever, if ever, the NIL gets regulated and policed (both of which may never occur). Meanwhile, Carolina and other schools that don’t have a baseline offer from the very start risk losing the best prospects to those that do.
If rosters turn over every year through recruits who don’t come and transfers who leave for money being thrown around by other schools, Carolina’s NIL program might be sustainable — but the Tar Heels’ growing success on the field might not be. That will create uncertainty and unhappiness among donors and fans that could affect financial support and ticket sales.
UNC has been playing by the rules for a long time. But there are no rules to NIL right now, and that is the difference. So, it must figure out a way to thread the needle on short-term success and long-term sustainability.
Photo via USA Today Sports/Brett Davis.
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NIL is another nail in the coffin of the university sports programs of student athletes. I hope Carolina can maneuver through it and keep it clean.