UConn’s Dorka Juhász among those who can’t profit from NIL activities
The direct messages and emails to Dorka Juhász began arriving as college sports was on the cusp of change.
Laws allowing college athletes to earn income off their name, image and likeness were enacted over the summer and the NCAA was altering rules that previously prevented such activity. College athletes were being approached — including Juhász, a basketball player transferring from Ohio State to UConn.
Companies were interested in working with Juhász, who has over 17,000 followers on Instagram. Real, money-making sponsorship opportunities for the former All-Big Ten player now wearing the uniform of the most famous brand in women’s college basketball.
Juhász’ response to the inquiries? Thanks, but no thanks.
As a resident of Hungary on a student visa, Juhász is unable to participate in NIL activities. The terms of her F1 visa are specific — she is in the United States as a student and would require a separate visa to earn outside income not related to her course work.
Those visas are mutually exclusive.
“It’s unfortunate,” said Juhász, a graduate student at UConn. “I mean, it’s very disappointing that we're kind of excluded because there were so much talk about it, and we were excited to be part of it. It would have been a great opportunity to not only show ourselves in our home country, also playing at UConn with those opportunities … it’s definitely not fair.”
Juhász is one of three international players on the UConn women’s basketball roster, along with Nike Muhl from Croatia and Aaliyah Edwards from Canada. The men’s teams has Adam Sanogo from Mali and Samson Johnson from Togo.
Nearly 13% of all Division I athletes are international students and rosters of Connecticut schools are sprinkled with athletes from all over the world.
Those on student visas cannot partakes in NIL activity. At least for now.
State laws across the country — including Connecticut — began July 1, when the NCAA altered its rules. But the NIL guidance remain a patchwork set of rules that vary state to state.
There’s been a call for the NCAA to create a national standard. If that doesn’t happen, a federal law may be the required.
Florida attorney Peter Schoenthal, who runs the NIL firm Athliance, said an NCAA edict would provide uniformity needed for such things as recruiting. But that may not be enough.
“The biggest reason we need that uniformity and we need Congress to act is because of international students,” Schoenthal said. “Right now, international students really cannot participate in NIL because under their F1 visas, if they receive any compensation they could be deported. So Congress needs to get involved, because we need to carve out an exception for international student athletes to be able to profit off of their name, image and likeness
“If we don't get Congressional act, we're leaving out a large portion of studentathletes and they’re going to be negatively impacted … and oftentimes those student-athletes need it more than our own domestic student athletes,”
Athletes have spent the past five months generating income from an array of activity — instruction, selling autographs and merchandise, endorsing products on social media, creating their own brand.
Kentucky quarterback Will Levis, a Connecticut native and Xavier High graduate, created his own logo and sells merchandise online. UConn basketball player R.J. Cole has his own brand, Cole-Blooded, and he sells products online. Freshman basketball player Azzi Fudd had a deal with Chipotle.
Then there’s Paige Bueckers, perhaps the most marketable college athlete in the country. She first signed with the powerful Wasserman Media Group before recently announcing her first significant NIL partnership with the footwear and apparel brand StockX.
Some of the deals are local: UConn’s Olivia Nelson-Ododa promoted a local pizza shop on her Instagram stories.
Wouldn’t a local restaurant or store be drawn to Muhl, a charismatic and popular player?
“I would like to do things, but I'm just trying to be patient, honestly,” Muhl said. “Hopefully people are going to resolve it. It’s definitely not fair. I mean, it’s not my main focus now. But it’s definitely something I’ll think about in the future.
Juhász drew attention as a prospect on the international stage before committing to Ohio State in 2018. She found the visa process complicated as she moved to Ohio from Hungary.
She’s on a five-year F1 student visa. If she moves to the WNBA next summer, she’ll need to apply for a work visa.
“It’s very different,” she said. “I know it can be super hard and very complicated. I have some friends back in Hungary and Serbia that had a hard time getting a student visa and had to wait a year. The system is so complicated.”
Students obtain visas through the Department of State. The F1 student visa requires a student to take at least 12 credit hours per semester as a full-time student.
There are opportunities to earn money: through off-campus employment because of economic hardship; through on-campus employment such as workstudy jobs; through Curricular Practical Training (work related to or required by a degree program); and through Optional Practical Training (work related to field of study and performed upon completion of a degree program).
But international students say they have been told NIL deal would require a separate work visa.
“You can’t have both,” Hartford immigration attorney Dana Bucin said. “They are mutually exclusive. If you are here as a student, you are going to study.”
Bucin said she would advise schools to investigate whether, say, an endorsement deal or other NIL activity falls under the CPT guidelines by proving it’ related to the field of study.
“There are always loopholes,” she said. “If a faculty adviser works with a student … an endorsement could very well be related to their field of study at the school. There are ways around this. It’s very technical, but there are loopholes.”
Schools, though, are using outside vendors to manage NIL activity and act as an education source for athletes. According to UConn’s NIL guidelines, school staff members and employees are “prohibited from creating or facilitating endorsement contracts for a student-athlete or providing compensation themselves to a student-athlete.”
So school such as UConn would need to alter their policy to fold NIL activity into curriculum and state laws would need to be altered.
For now, international students will wait until a federal law is passed that addresses the issue. So while Bueckers, Fudd and others monetize their image, a segment of the student-athlete population is unable to profit.
“I think it is definitely unfair,” said Edwards, a sophomore. “You know, everyone else is benefiting from it, but we’re limited. It’s disappointing. At the same time, we’re in season right now and that’s not really my focus. But I would hope it will change so everyone can benefit from it and some of use won’t be excluded.”