College sports hurtles toward free market
An agent for a noted college athlete said out loud what schools likely hear in private: Pay the player more, or he will transfer to a school that will.
The brazen demand made on behalf of University of Miami basketball player Isaiah Wong last week provided a rare, unvarnished glimpse into the way elite college sports have been transformed by student-athletes’ rights to earn money through endorsements.
Teammates are comparing contracts. And coaches and administrators are struggling to keep rosters full — and players happy — without running afoul of the rules.
If Wong’s agent didn’t cross the bounds of what’s permissible — players can’t seek payment in return for a promise to play at a specific school — then he planted his foot on the line, according to labor experts.
“We are rapidly moving toward professionalization at full market rate for these NCAA players,” said Michael LeRoy, labor law professor at the University of Illinois. “It’s really not about endorsements, it’s about paying guys for their performance.”
Until recently, endorsement deals — or any compensation other than scholarships — were off limits. Paying students was seen as a threat to the ideal of amateur sports. But legal challenges by athletes seeking to reap some of the billions of dollars schools were earning off of sports forced change. In 2019, California became the first state to pass a law allowing athletes to earn money on endorsements, autograph signings and other activities, and by July 2021, the NCAA lifted its ageold ban.
The NCAA left in place loose guidelines: deals could not be used to entice recruits or as a form of pay-for-play.
Wong, who has apparently opted to stay at Miami, surely wasn’t the first player to have a representative make a demand based on a player’s perceived market value, and he won’t be the last, experts said.
“He was just the first to be so public about it,” said Todd Berry, executive director of the American Football Coaches Association.
Tens of thousands of athletes across many sports have cashed in, according to Opendorse, a firm that works with schools on player compensation matters, from brand building to compliance.
Deals can be worth as little as a few hundred dollars; some reportedly top $1 million. Football players earn the most, followed by women’s and men’s basketball players, according to Opendorse. Endorsements can be found even in low-profile sports such as golf, rowing and hockey.
“All 85 (football) players are your roster and free agents every year,” Berry said. “This is a professional model. It’s not a collegiate model anymore.”
TCU football coach Sonny Dykes said recruits routinely ask about endorsement deals.
“Basically, all we can do is pass on a number and say, ‘Hey, you can talk to this guy, and he’ll tell you what we can or can’t do.’ It’s really that simple,” Dykes said. “The concern for me is that somebody makes a promise to a kid and doesn’t follow through. We have no control over that.”
In many cases, the people to call are the ones running socalled collectives, sports marketing agencies that have sprung up to support specific schools and facilitate deals between athletes and businesses such as apparel companies, energy drink makers, car dealerships and restaurants.
At Texas, a group is dangling $50,000 a year to offensive linemen for work supporting community charities, such as inperson appearances, promotions or representation. At Oregon, Nike founder Phil Knight is part of a group helping Ducks athletes line up deals.
The NCAA, the governing body of college sports, has taken a mostly hands-off approach since allowing endorsement deals, and more than two dozen states have laws allowing endorsement deals. Most state laws include the pay-forplay ban.
But as cases like Wong’s illustrate how quickly college sports is changing, there is pressure to study the issue. On Thursday, the commissioners of the Southeastern Conference and Pac-12, two of the wealthiest leagues in college sports, met with lawmakers in Washington to lobby for federal regulations, which could include possible bans on using endorsement contracts as recruiting inducements and pay-forplay deals.
Leagues, schools and coaches worry the new free-for-all upends competitive balance, disrupts rosters and pushes more control over athletic programs to outside forces.
What caught many by surprise is how quickly deep-pocketed collectives and individuals aligned with major colleges poured in to dangle millions of dollars to athletes.
“Nobody anticipated these collectives forming a year ago,“LeRoy said. “It shows us how out of control the whole system is. It has become a way for schools to find a third-party payer for their athletic talent.”
Mit Winter, a sports law and business attorney in Kansas City, Mo., said some deals push the boundaries and make it seem as if players are simply getting paid to play, as opposed to being paid at market rates for endorsements.
“Arguably these deals are violating NCAA rules and sometimes even state laws,” Winter said. “That’s kind of the big question: Is the NCAA ever going to start investigating some of these deals?”