SEC Statement on NIL Ruling Poses Issues with Third-Party Compensation

In 2017, Business Insider released a study calculating what the fair-market value of a college football player would be. Essentially, if you put these student-athletes in a free, open market, what would their value be?

It's a study that's always been fascinating to me. On average, an FBS football player is worth over $160,000 per year to their institution. At top schools such as Texas, Alabama and Michigan, that number is north of $500,000.

Well now, the NCAA is close to a ruling that will allow student-athletes to be compensated for their name, image and likeness. If it passes in a vote later this year, which seems likely given the NCAA Board of Governors making a recommendation this week that it do so, schools not be able to pay their players. But the players will be able to make money from third-party endorsements.

Lane Kiffin, speaking on The Herd earlier this week, said the decision would "open up a can of worms." You can read his full comments here.

On Thursday evening the Southeastern Conference released their own statement. At times, the statement seems in support of some sort of NIL ruling passing. But they also highlight some issues with such a ruling. Below is the full SEC statement:

We appreciate the NCAA's Federal and State Legislative Working group for it's work related to student-athlete name, image and likeness issues. It's report represents another step in this effort to consider how to effectively support our student-athletes.

We will reserve further comment on specifics of the NCAA Report until we have the opportunity to review its contents. We will work to understand how the actual proposals will be implemented fairly on a national level while also ensuring that student-athletes are protected.

Among the complex issues that must be addressed is the role 'advisors' will have in guiding student-athletes and the process for verifying and regulating these advisors. We must also develop a system to effectively monitor endorsement agreements to ensure compliance with policies and rules that will be established. And it will be important to create mechanisms that will, to the extent possible, deter boosters from directly or indirectly paying student-athletes as a means to influence the recruiting process.

The NCAA's efforts will supplement our ongoing work to secure a federal NIL law that establishes one set of national rules that will govern all athletics programs and student-athletes across all 50 states and recognizes college athletics as part of the educational mission of colleges and universities with wide participation and benefits.

Sooooooo what did that just say? I'm not entirely sure either – it takes a few reads to get to the bottom of it.

Essentially, the conference seems to be in favor of things that "support our student-athletes." But they present some fair points of issue that this ruling could create. The SEC statement mentions 'advisors.' Their point is this: what's to stop an Oxford car dealership owner from saying to five-star recruit 'X' in Jackson, Miss. "hey if you come to Ole Miss, I'll give you a car if you appear in one commercial for me."

Essentially, that's just buying a recruit. Regardless how you feel about buying recruits, it's not something that's supposed to be legal under the NIL bill the NCAA is considering.

Kiffin used the example of buying jerseys: how can you stop a donor from telling a kid, "if you come to this school, the day you get here, I'm going to buy 1,000 of your jerseys for 100-bucks."

When contacted for comment on third-party compensation, Ole Miss athletics director Keith Carter had this to say:

"I really don’t think we have many comments on NIL yet. I think this announcement just opens the door to pay students for NIL but the majority of the conversation is yet to come. Let’s see how the next few weeks and months go and hopefully we can make some progress."

It's a fair statement. Why comment on something that may not happen? The vote for passing of the NIL will not take place until later this year. At that point, if and when it passes, we'll have a better view from the Ole Miss and SEC angle.

Essentially, this bill seems like it's going to pass. It's unlikely that the NCAA Division I committee would vote against the recommendation of the board.

Should athletes be allowed to receive additional compensation to get closer to that market value? Probably. The NCAA seems to finally be realizing this. But there's certainly kinks to work out with the process. If it passes, it would not go into effect until the 2021-22 school year – so there's still time to work out these potential issues.

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