In a ruling that could help push changes in college athletics, the Supreme Court on Monday unanimously sided with a group of former college athletes in a dispute with the NCAA over rules limiting certain compensation.
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Frankly, IU is going to be one of the biggest winners in this. The current staff is already pumping it in recruitments. IU will compensate players more than almost any other school in the country. IU UK UNC KU etc. a few huge winners in this. Hell, I’ll pay Tamar to put “Cavanagh was right”on his shoes.
There are soooo many layers to this, and details that are yet to be determined, that I think its basically impossible to say, right now, who will benefit the most from this...outside the players themselves, which I think is the main takeaway, at this point...and the point of NIL. High profile male basketball talents, if you're looking for a demographic that will certainly benefit from NIL rules, will be the ones that benefit the most. High profile football players, namely quarterbacks and other position guys, would probably be up there too. Then other rare Olympic level young athletes that choose to attend college... Really any athlete that already has an established social media following coming into college, is going to benefit from this NIL the MOST.
The devil is in the details for just how much, who, what programs, etc... will benefit the most from NIL. If it ends up being pure market driven...think a professional athletes freedom to make money via endorsements, autographs, etc... but obviously without the salary... If that's how it goes, I can't envision a scenario where IU basketball doesn't benefit greatly from it, versus most other college programs.
Use Zion Williamson as an example (most extreme recent example, but a good one)...If he's allowed to make money off his Youtube fame, his twitter fame, his instagram fame...and maintain his NCAA eligibility...he'll come into college already wealthy. So it'll change the factors he'll use for his college choice, possibly. But I would still think, nearly ALL high profile recruits will begin to factor in what schools will maximize their earning potential during those 1-4 years they're in school. And that's where the details are crucial. If its a pure market, and fans, companies, donors, etc... are allowed to endorse and pay players for things like appearances, autographs, are allowed to drive followers to their social media platforms, are allowed to cross market ON their social media platforms, etc...without any regulation or oversite from the NCAA and/or from the school...well then IU will absolutely benefit greatly from it...versus most other programs. If things are divied out in the athletic department in anyway, if NCAA controls it somehow, if there are major limiting factors on how earnings are generated, etc... then obviously it could change the calculus greatly. If its in anyway based off total school revenue, obviously the Texas, OSU, Alabamas of the world will dominate. But I think that would kind of go away from what this whole NIL movement is trying to achieve...which is to allow the individual athletes to make money off their own talents and contributions.
With regards to IU. If its purely market driven, and a Zion Williamson type kid can make money off both his own brand coming into college, but then also benefit and make even more money off what his brand will grow too while in school...I can't see how IU wouldn't benefit GREATLY from it.
How many schools have had the ability to pay a 10 million dollar buyout in basketball...AND offer a guy like Stevens the contracts that we were rumored to have offered him...and then go and assemble a staff like we were able to assemble??? That list is VERY short. And it illustrates how powerful our numbers, our alumni, and even though we haven't earned it on the court in a LONG, LONG time, how powerful our tradition is when it comes to spending money on our basketball program. If anything, the fact that we were able to get a donor to buy Archie out, and to spend the money to assemble the staff we did...despite the Admin fumbling on nearly every major decision we've made on the program since the mid 90's... makes an even stronger case for how powerful our "brand" will be for these high profile recruits.
How much earning potential will there be, in a short period of time, for these athletes.
Coach Woodson will have to become well versed in what IU has going for it in terms of social media followers, active donors for the program, etc... Or more likely, all the top programs will have a specialist that will track all this, and be able to communicate what their earning potential would be at IU versus the other programs they're looking at. And this "Player Brand Associate" will probably be the most popular people at the AAU tournaments. To the point where it'll leave the coaches to just go back to watching basketball, and not having to deal solely with the "entourages".
"PBA...I want to pursue these 8 players. Get in contact with them and their people and give them our NIL numbers."
No matter what, things are going to change dramatically for the high profile basketball and football kids. It'll change for all athletes, but I don't think the non revenue sports will benefit, or get hurt much from it.
Whether IU basketball benefits from it is based on the details of the rule.