Getty Image
Earlier this month, NIL tech company Opendorse released a report that showed just far the world of name, image and likeness rights in college sports has come.
Perhaps the most eye-opening part of the report, however, was that college basketball players, not college football players, earn the most money on average among the top 25 earners in each sport.
But as it turns out, that’s just scratching the surface of the insanity that encompasses the college basketball NIL landscape.
CJ Moore, Brendan Marks, and Kyle Tucker of The Athletic released a report on Thursday that dives into the world of NIL in the sport, and the findings were almost unbelievable.
“I’m not sure there are any rules,” one coach told the trio. “That’s the thing that I think at some point there’s got to be a handle on. I have no idea what the rules are.”
Coleman Hawkins’ NIL deal is as lucrative as any signed this offseason by a college basketball player. Worth in the neighborhood of $2 million. https://t.co/uDEzmdTkYQ
— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) June 14, 2024
Kansas State Showed How Wild The College Basketball NIL Landscape Is
Former Illinois star Coleman Hawkins transferred to Kansas State in the offseason after briefly testing the waters of the NBA Draft.
For his troubles, Hawkins reportedly received $2 million from the Wildcats.
Make no mistake. Hawkins is a good player. But he was far from elite for the Illini.
The 6-foot-10 Hawkins averaged 12.1 points and 6.1 rebounds while making 37 percent of his threes, good enough to land him a third-team All-Big Ten selection from the media.
“There are some top basketball houses that are operating with $5 million. …. Then there’s a lot of schools that are top-tier in the $3.5-4 million range, and then there’s a glut of good schools in the $2.5-3.5 million range. I don’t really deal with many schools that have less than that,” an agent told The Athletic.
One representative for a collective told The Athletic that their budget is a constant moving target because schools continue to raise more and more money.
“The rumor was (rival school) didn’t have any money to get (a top transfer); they didn’t until they did. If you have a target and some clarity on what you need the money for, that number can change quickly. So ‘budget’ is a very loose term,” they said.
Unfortunately, the brunt of these costs is often (and unsurprisingly) passed on to funds, who are now being asked directly to be responsible for the success of their programs.
“We have around 3,000 fans donating now (for all sports at the school, but men’s basketball donors are ‘a large chunk of that’),” one representative for a collective said. “I think crowd-funding is the way to go long-term. If you can get everybody to chip in, people have seen, ‘OK, I can do this small amount each month, and it is adding up to make a dent in this thing.'”
The NCAA has no power. Schools have no uniform set of rules. And NIL is very quickly getting out of control.