Division I schools can expect to receive further NCAA rules guidance related to name, image and likeness activity as soon as next week, two sources on the subcommittee overseeing the process told The Athletic.
The NIL subcommittee that issued updated guidance regarding the role of boosters and collectives in May is set to endorse its latest set of recommendations next week at a meeting of the D-I Board of Directors. The two sources, who agreed to discuss the group’s messaging before it was made public in exchange for anonymity, said that the board will meet both Tuesday and Wednesday and is expected to adopt guidance addressing which activities are permissible and impermissible when it comes to institutional involvement in NIL activity. The subcommittee’s work is just one of the topics expected to be on the agenda for the board.
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The new guidance does not change NCAA rules; it aims to clarify and contextualize those existing rules. The NIL subcommittee is not a rule-making body, but the information it puts out is “more definitive” than current rules that can seem vague, as one member of the subcommittee put it.
There will be examples of permissible and impermissible involvement, which won’t cover every specific NIL-related issue that arises on a campus but will serve as an FAQ of sorts.
One example of permissible institutional involvement would be an athletic department providing education on NIL to its athletes. An example of impermissible institutional involvement would be an athletic department giving money to a booster-backed collective that then funnels that money directly to athletes. Arranging for or directing a payment from a school to an athlete has always been against NCAA rules, so the guidance would be reinforcing that and contextualizing the rule for the realities of 2022, which would include booster activity.
The dividing line between permissible and impermissible activities comes down to supporting athletes in their NIL activities versus directing, arranging or negotiating deals. For example, schools are allowed to make introductions between athletes and collectives because they’ve always been able to help athletes meet boosters in the past. They can facilitate connections but can’t promise payments.
The NIL landscape remains a source of consternation among administrators on campuses throughout the country. Many coaches and athletic directors have publicly expressed their belief it is being used as a recruiting inducement both for high school prospects and transfer players. The NCAA’s enforcement staff has begun investigating alleged rule-breaking in that space, but no schools have been punished so far.
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Unless Congress intervenes to set new guardrails around NIL activity, it seems unlikely that the NCAA will be able to add restrictions around athletes’ ability to earn money off their NIL in the current legal environment.
The current NIL landscape’s unwieldy nature traces back to the NCAA’s adoption of a bare-bones interim NIL policy in the wake of the 9-0 Supreme Court ruling against the organization in June 2021 in NCAA vs. Alston, holding that NCAA restrictions on some education-related benefits for athletes violated antitrust law. A scathing concurring opinion written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh at the time seemed to welcome future antitrust challenges to the NCAA model.
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