How President Trump’s Proposed Executive Order on NIL Could Impact the Kansas Jayhawks

President Donald Trump reportedly plans to sign an executive order establishing national standards for Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) initiatives in college athletics, according to CBS News.

This news comes on the heels of the SCORE (Student Compensation and Opportunity through Rights and Endorsements) Act advancing out of the U.S. House Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade earlier this week. That bill is also aimed at standardizing NIL for college student-athletes and would reportedly supersede state laws currently regulating the NIL space.

While it’s currently unclear what changes the executive order from Trump would fully entail, any type of federal directive or legislation that would help reign in some of the wild spending happening across college athletics right now would likely be welcomed by Kansas Athletics administrators and coaches.

It’s not an enviable task that Kansas Athletics Director Travis Goff and the various KU coaching staffs have with schools now able to pay players directly through revenue sharing and players wanting to earn money from NIL on top of that.

It’s a lot to manage, and it can make fielding a competitive team year after year that much more difficult, especially with tampering going on – something Kansas football coach Lance Leipold recently addressed at Big 12 Media Days.

And although KU Athletics teams as a whole have performed very well recently despite the challenges, the NIL setup as it exists currently is simply not equitable or sustainable with different states having different regulations and many universities having more financial opportunities than others.

However, more limitations and guardrails in place on NIL earnings could help balance out the playing field between schools competing for the best talent while also providing an edge to schools such as KU.

Take Kansas basketball head coach Bill Self for example. He was already a great recruiter before NIL came into play. And while he has used it to KU’s advantage to help land some of the best high school and transfer prospects in the country these past few years, NIL standardizations – such as player earning caps – could lessen the bidding wars for players and allow him to use more of the traditional (and successful) recruiting tools he’s used in the past.

Right now, money is largely the deciding factor for these student-athletes deciding where to play. And while more NIL restrictions could reduce KU’s ability to outbid other schools for players’ services, it would also allow Self to go back to selling kids more on KU’s winning tradition, the allure of Allen Fieldhouse, national exposure, etc.

There are several schools who can compete with KU on money, but few who can match up when it comes to the intangibles, history, and sustained success of Kansas basketball.

NIL regulation could be advantageous for Kansas football as well, with the program soon to have some of the newest and best facilities in all of college football – which Leipold and his staff can use to out-recruit schools when money isn’t as much of a factor.

Having limitations on NIL income could also allow KU programs such as football, baseball, volleyball and others to prevent some of their top talent from transferring at season’s end if other schools are no longer easily able to outbid them for a player through promised NIL earnings. And having more restrictions on NIL could restore some control and integrity to the recruiting process for both KU coaches and their athletes.

Overall, federal NIL regulation could prove to be very beneficial for KU sports programs and provide much-needed stability across the college athletics landscape.

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