By: Jax Crall
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (UATV) – Name, image and likeness, better known as NIL, is one of the most prominent storylines in athletics in today’s college sports. Since 1906, collegiate athletics has been run by the National Colligate Athletic Association (NCAA).
The NCAA based their business model off amateurism, rather than professionalism, which meant student-athletes could not be compensated for the contributions they made to the university’s athletic success and revenue generated.
In 2021, the landscape shifted into a new era where athletes could now earn compensation legally for their own name, image and likeness.
“It’s just blossomed into this crazy concept over the last four years,” Associate Director of Player Relations, Sydney Lemmerhirt said. “I think in the next four, maybe even the next year, it’s going to look completely different.”
For some student-athletes, NIL brought the opportunity for a source of income or even the chance at financial freedom that was previously only rewarded to professional athletes. But, with the new reality of NIL, some drawbacks surfaced between player and program, new pressures, unequal school budgets and expectations placed on students.
“As an athlete, you don’t have a lot of time to do things,” former track and field athlete, LilliAnn Nunley said. “So, using your athletic ability to help promote is an amazing thing, but sometimes I don’t understand how some athletes fit everything in with NIL.”
To compete at the level the southeastern conference demands, the University of Arkansas has to contribute everything they have to pay their student-athletes, even if it means sacrifices have to be made.
“Our benefits have been cut by the NIL because all that money that we are getting, we’re now giving the players to support the team and hopefully have on-field success,” Razorback equipment staff member Tyler Wood said. “I’ve had to make some personal sacrifices with my scholarship or the money that I’m getting for school, so that can make it hard.”
Those personal sacrifices go a long way, and according to Nunley, the university is aware of it and their number one priority is to make sure the student-athletes learn how to correctly use their money, especially with some student-athletes earning more than $1 million.
“The University of Arkansas specifically does really well on educating athletes,” Nunley said. “We would have to go to multiple lessons, fill out this course just to make sure that we were setting ourselves up for success.”
A big step towards the future of NIL was made this past June. Revenue sharing was introduced because of the approval in a court settlement. Schools will now pay a portion of their revenue directly to their athletes with a $20.5 million annual cap limit across all sports. This now allows all schools to compete on an even playing field and forces them to decide how to distribute their budgets among their scholarship sports. This move is expected to add about $1.75 billion in total athlete compensation.