The average college athlete spends thirty to forty four hours a week in their sport according to the National College Athletic Association (NCAA).
Add in being a full-time student and it is easy to say the job of a student athlete is more demanding than any other job in the professional world. ‘
The only difference is up until this past July, college athletes were punished if they recieved any sort of compensation for the job they do.
College athletes receiving compensation from the use of their name, image and likeness has been one of the most highly debated topics when talking about the NCAA.
On June 30, the NCAA announced they would allow athletes to make money and participate in endorsements and deals that use their name, image and likeness as of July 1.
The timing of this rule change is no coincidence.
After years of debate, the new rules started to take shape in 2019 when California state senator Nancy Skinner introduced a bill that would prohibit schools from punishing athletes who accept endorsement money while in college.
After much hesitation and trepidation, the NCAA board of governors decided it was time for a rule change across the entire nation and NCAA president Mark Emmert asking congress to create a federal NIL law.
Although federal regulation has not yet been put in place, many state legislatures have begun changing rules at the state level and the NCAA adopted a temporary rule change allowing schools to set NIL policy.
Since then, we’ve seen athletes like Livy Dunne, a gymnast from Louisiana State University and Tennessee State basketball player and son of American rapper Master P, Hercy Miller sign deals worth over $1 million.
Dunne has made majority of her money through big name partnerships like American Eagle, Vuori Clothing and Plant Fuel, while Miller signed a $2 million deal with Web Apps America, an American technology company.
Richard Hanley, a professor at Quinnipiac University and sports historian, says the historic decision by the NCAA is long overdue.
“This is a big move forward for student athletes to make sure they get a piece of the pie,” Hanley said.
Although Quinnipiac athletes have not signed any major deals, the impact the rule change has will change the future for Quinnipiac athletics and remove hurdles that many athletes of the past have faced.
McKenna Haz, a Quinnipiac rugby alum and founder of SEAAV Athletics, experienced firsthand how difficult it is to run a business while avoiding breaking NCAA policy.
Haz started SEAAV Athletics while playing rugby at Quinnipiac and would often use other athletes as models for her business’ social media platforms which now have over 10.6 thousand followers.
Haz said it wasn’t always the easiest process.
“According to the compliance department, if their mom knows it’s the model’s body, then we couldn’t use the images,” she said. “If there was a birth mark or a tattoo or anything that could identify them, I couldn’t use that picture. That’s how extreme the rules were.”
“It’s super controlling of [the NCAA] to say that they own me personally for any part of promotional things,” she said.
Haz decided to graduate a year early from Quinnipiac to focus on her business without having to worry about the NCAA holding her or her company back.
The main reason that Quinnipiac Athletes have not signed any big deals yet is due to the fact that Quinnipiac asked their athletes to hold off on signing deals in the beginning, due to uncertainty and differing rules on Name, Image and Likeness, depending on which state the school was located.
“Right now, it’s based off every state law, so it’s kind of a mess around the country at this point,” said Charles Tortorici, assistant athletic director of compliance at Quinnipiac University. “Based off Connecticut’s State laws, we are providing athletes with education in different areas.”
Tortorici says Quinnipiac is teaching their athletes not just the NCAA compliance rules, but also working with alumni to teach athletes how to market themselves, build their personal brands and help them understand financial literacy.
Many schools around the country have even brought in alumni and boosters to pay full scholarships of walk-on athletes through sponsorship deals. Tortorici says due to Connecticut state law, that won’t happen at Quinnipiac.
“We’re not allowed to help them do those types of things and broker and bring them deals,” Tortorici said. “This is something that student athletes have to do on their own. They have to come out on their own time, find their own sponsorships. The best resource we can give them is helping them build their brand and teach them how to align themselves with companies they want to align themselves with.”
According to Hanley, different rules throughout different states are an issue that needs to be addressed at the federal level of government.
“The NCAA wants federal regulation to smooth over these rough parts of NIL matter,” Hanley said. “It wants that to give all schools the chance to recruit athletes on a level playing field.”
Hanley also said federal regulation won’t be the easiest process to get approved.
“[The NCAA] may lobby to get federal legislation to standardize rules, but they’re going to be going against state legislatures from places like Texas and Alabama and California who are going to want to have the most liberal rules possible to attract athletes to their state institutions.” said Hanley. “Thats going to be very difficult to neutralize through federal regulation when you have members of congress who are going to be against this from the start.”
Although athletes at Quinnipiac can’t use their school as a resource for gaining sponsorships, their greatest tool to make connections is social media.
One of the first companies to step up and sign athletes across the country was Barstool Sports. Barstool started receiving direct messages from Division I, II and III college athletes, who were all asking to become Barstool Athletes.
Barstool now sponsors thousands of athletes across the country including Quinnipiac’s Emily Mihov, Chris Mazza, Jared Zimbo, Amanda Funaro, Jordan Bradley, CJ McGee and many others.
The extent of being a Barstool athlete is getting a t-shirt and a shoutout on Instagram. However, for many athletes it inspired them to use social media to get involved.
Quinnipiac women’s ice hockey senior Katie Huntington said seeing Barstool Athletics take off on social media inspired her to use social media to reach out to other companies.
“You hear about the big football players and the big basketball players, and you think, ‘Well what a great opportunity for them,’ but I didn’t know how that would come around to impact me,” Huntington said. “Then I heard about some of my teammates reaching out to Barstool Sports and I was like oh that’s cool anyone can do that, and it kind of opened my mind up to it.”
Huntington said the platform of social media gives players not always in the headlines a chance to still get noticed and has used her own social media to make connections.
“I’m not the number one ice hockey player, but with that in mind I still wanted to see what opportunities I could build for myself.” said Huntington. “So, I just went into it with an open mind and started messaging companies here and there and seeing what I could get from that.”
“Having a platform makes a huge difference. Had I known this was coming I probably would have tried to get a couple more followers here and there the last few years,” Huntington said.
Huntington says the impact of this rule change is important aside from being able to make money. She says the new rule change also allows athletes to better prepare themselves for the future and brand themselves which will put them at an advantage when their athletic career ends and they search for a new job.
Huntington now has partnerships with Liquid I.V, Campus Protein, NuGo Bars, Premier Protein, Quantum Squares and Slate Milk.
Although Huntington has yet to land a partnership where she receives an actual paycheck, she is more than happy to receive the free products for now.
Other Quinnipiac athletes who also have partnerships where they receive free products include Nicole Migliozzi and Kyle Maves with Liquid IV, Lexie Adzija with Haute Swimwear and Astoria Active Wear and Jared Zimbo with Ani Energy and Jocko Fuel.
Quinnipiac softball senior and nursing major Bridget Nasir hopes to connect with companies that will align her with opportunities after graduation.
“I’m thinking about branding with nursing and how to get my name out there,” Nasir said. “I’m not taking advantage of it at the moment but just to know that I have the chance to do it is really awesome.”
Along with helping launch her own success, Nasir said she hopes the new rule change will inspire young female athletes to see college athletics as a chance for greater opportunity.
“There’s not as many opportunities for women to go further with their sport as there are for men,” Nasir said. “That would have been a really cool thing to see when I was playing travel ball and still in high school. To see girls in college, make a bigger name for themselves. I hope it empowers women to go to college and play sports and shows they can get more out of it then the education and just playing.”
Aside from athletes making money and students getting the opportunity to make career connections or coaches having an advantage when it comes to recruitment, the one thing that Hanley, Tortorici, Haz, Huntington, Nasir and Quinnipiac women’s ice hockey coach Cass Turner all said is they hope this new rule change will increase the popularity of women’s sports and give female athletes more recognition.
“My hope is that this gets more women out there, that female athletes get more exposure, that people truly see what women can do in the sporting world,” Turner said. “I think it gives women an opportunity to have a voice and for women to get out there for us to celebrate female athletes, so that we hopefully get to a place where we have more professional leagues for women in hockey and in other sports.”
Haz said even if Quinnipiac athletes don’t get the chance to sign big deals, the opportunities created by this new rule change are so much bigger than making money.
“I think this will shed light and awareness on female athletes and bring more awareness to women athletics,” Haz said. “If anything, it’s a massive benefit to the NCAA that their athletes are influencers and able to influence a whole new generation of female athletes.”
With a gender wage gap at 68% at the professional sports level, the hope of many is that athletes being allowed to make compensation off their name, image and likeness will do so much more than make athletes money or act as an advantage when recruiting the best athletes to certain schools.
The hope is that this historic rule change will give athletes a platform to fight for what they believe in and make a true impact and difference not just in sports, but on the world as a whole.