NIL
Save The Receipts
By: Robert Craft
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
The recent verbal jousting over NIL between two of college football’s heavyweight head coaches, Nick Saban and Jimbo Fisher has garnered a ton of national media attention and headlines in the past few days.
The minute Alabama coach Nick Saban’s comments regarding Texas A&M and NIL showed up on social media Wednesday night, the college football world stopped to watch what happened next.
Saban further opened up about what he said during an event in Birmingham. He said Texas A&M “bought every player on their roster,” which led to a fiery press conference from Aggies coach Jimbo Fisher on Thursday.
Saban reiterated his stance on NIL and how it’s a good thing for players, but continued to call for “guardrails” to help create “parity.”
“It was not my intention to really criticize anyone,” Saban said. “I was just trying to make a point about the state of college football and college athletics right now. I think we have some unintended consequences of name, image and likeness in some of the circumstances that we’re in right now. The spirit of competition is what has made sports popular, created a lot of fan interest….But we’ve always had guardrails on rules that govern competitive sports to create parity, and I think the situation that we’re in now in college football, we don’t have that. There’s a lot of Division I schools that aren’t going to be able to do the same things that other Division I schools can do to create opportunities for players in some kind of way. I’m all for the opportunities for the players, but some way, we’ve got to create a balance in all that.”
Saban also said he worries about programs losing players to other programs because of NIL opportunities — and he called for “guardrails” to prevent that.
“I don’t want to go down that road of bidding for players out of high school. I don’t,” Saban said. “But if we go through this recruiting class this year and we lose all the players, because Jimbo Fisher has been saving the receipts.”
Texas A&M’s head coach went scorched earth Thursday during an impromptu press conference responding to comments by Alabama head coach Nick Saban, who accused Fisher and the Aggies of “buying every player on their team” through NIL deals this offseason.
Texas A&M inked the greatest recruiting class in modern history this spring, and Fisher, who has already issued multiple public statements denouncing accusations of cheating, once again doubled-down that the Aggies did nothing outside of the NCAA rules (i.e., pay for play) to land their historic class.
“It’s a shame that we have to do this,” Fisher said. “It’s really despicable. It’s despicable that somebody can say things about somebody, an organization, and more importantly 17-year-old kids. You’re taking shots at 17-year-old kids and their families. That they broke state laws, that they’re all money, that we bought every player in this group. We never bought anybody. No rules were broken. Nothing was done wrong.”
Thou doth protest too much? Too much performance art? Absolutely, but under the new NIL rules, Texas A&M could’ve totally provided six-figure deals to players. While inducements are prohibited, there’s a lot of gray area in-between.
But the mere suggestion that the Aggies’ recruiting was not above board sent Fisher into such a tizzy that he unleashed the greatest diss track since 2Pac’s Hit ‘Em Up.
The man emptied the clip on a man many considered his mentor, someone Fisher worked under for five seasons at LSU. During his opening salvo, Fisher referred to Saban as “despicable” multiple times, and called him a narcissist.
Jimbo Fisher has been saving the receipts, and his clapback is just relentless. No mercy. Who else cannot wait to be a fly on the wall when Fisher and Saban sit at the same table at the SEC Spring Meeting.
What Do They Look Like?
By: Robert Craft
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis signed the bill for Florida college athletes to profit from their name, image and likeness starting July 1, 2021.
Making Florida the first State with NIL (name, image & likeness), however California was the first state to implement an NIL bill.
The California bill won’t go into effect until January 1, 2023. The state of Florida was a leader on NIL, and the other states quickly tried to follow our model, college athletes in Florida have been able to position themselves to be ready to benefit starting July first.
The state has consistently been at the forefront for NIL legislation, with Governor DeSantis championing it over the last few years. Other states have already passed NIL laws Mississippi, Iowa, New York, Maryland, Alabama, New Mexico and Georgia to name a few.
While most of these NIL laws are exceedingly athlete friendly, some are more restrictive than others.
Mississippi allows the universities to impose limitations on the date and time which an athlete may participate in NIL events. Iowa places a cap on the number of hours per week a student can participate in athlete activity.
New Mexico prohibits schools from denying an athlete enrollment if they earned NIL compensation as a recruit. South Carolina compels schools to set aside $5,000 per year in a trust for each football and basketball player.
Alabama gives athletes the option to participate in NIL or receive $10,000 a year from the school.
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp signed the NIL bill during a ceremony at the University of Georgia. The law is scheduled to take effect July 1, 2021.
Georgia’s NIL law contains a unique feature: Colleges in Georgia can elect to require their players (on all their teams) to share up to 75% of compensation received for the use of their name, image and likeness.
The force sharing would occur pursuant to what Georgia House Bill 617 terms a “pooling arrangement,” with the shared compensation directed to a fund for the benefit of individuals previously enrolled as student athletes.
One year after graduation former players could draw pro rata shares of the fund’s pulled contributions.
Another crucial aspect of Georgia’s NIL law is that the decision to compel sharing is at the discretion of the school. University of Georgia, Georgia Tech and other colleges might decline to provide for pooling arrangements.
One obvious reason why a school would be reluctant to adopt a pooling arrangement is recruiting. If a high school athlete is recruited by Miami, Mississippi State and Georgia, he or she could keep all their post tax NIL compensation by attending one of the first two schools.
If a player instead attends UGA, and if UGA adopts a pooling arrangement, the player will lose some portion of his or her endorsement, sponsorship and influencing compensation.
In my opinion, this is just window dressing. Next month the Supreme Court may decide to make this federal law or defer to individual state laws.
Congress will take that opportunity to roll out a federal law and the state laws will be moot.
