South Carolina Gamecocks Athletic Director Speaks on Current Climate of NIL

South Carolina Gamecocks AD Jeremiah Dontai spoke on the current climate of NIL in college football.

There is no questioning the fact that college football is very different today than it was five years ago. Whether it's the transfer portal, players getting paid or the expansion of conferences and the playoff, the sport has been under a lot of change. Some might label those changes as good things and some might label it as bad, and South Carolina athletic director Jeremiah Donati provided some insight on his viewpoint on the NIL side of things.

The House v. NCAA settlement is primed to bring revenue-sharing to college football and allow programs to directly pay their players. Donati spoke about the future of NIL in college football on “The Postgame Show” on 107.5 The Game on Tuesday.

NIL stands for name, image and likeness, but according to Donati, that has very little do with the actual value that is being placed on these athletes. He spoke of a story from his time in the NFL from 14 years ago to put into perspective how crazy NIL deals are in college football today.

"I used to work on the NFL agency side," Donati said. "When I worked for Leigh Steinberg, one of [Leigh's] clients was an All-Pro running back. And he had a deal with Nike that I remember was $50,000 annually. This particular running back had to do all these things for it."

Now flash forward to what college athletes are being compensated today, and it's a night and day difference.

"We’re talking about linebackers and running backs that are getting $600,000 to $800,000 deals," Donati said. "If you want to burn up some of your revenue share inside the cap for that, that’s the institutional decision. But to find an $800,000 real NIL deal to pass scrutiny, I’m telling you, they are very, very, very few and far between. Other than a Heisman Trophy-caliber player, they just don’t exist. They certainly don’t exist for offensive linemen or that type of thing. That’ll be some kind of hard industry set."

While changes to the NIL landscape in college sports are expected to come from the House vs NCAA settlement, it likely will not change the current market for the price that it costs to have some of these college athletes on your roster. South Carolina knows this as it was reported they retained their star freshman edge rusher Dylan Stewart this offseason through a deal that was reportedly between $1 million to $1.5 million.

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