Ahead of NFL Draft, Notre Dame's Hartman Calls NIL a 'Slippery Slope'
College football talking heads have and will continue to endlessly postulate on the impact of NIL and transfer portal rules on the sport, the lives of players, and team dynamics; and while it is entertaining to hear spirited debate regarding a sport with arguably the most devout fanbases in America, the best insights are often extracted from those who have taken the field during the NIL era.
2024 NFL Draft hopeful Sam Hartman recently recieved a feature story on ESPN about being a quarterback in a new era of college football. His comments acknowledged the good of NIL, but he was sure to indicate that it was not all roses.
The 24 year-old quarterback has a perspective only a few players could have realized. Hartman entered college in 2018 at Wake Forrest, three years prior to the implemetation of NIL and the NCAA's removal of a one-year probationary period for first-time transfers. For the first half of his playing career he saw the version of college football of old, where rosters remained static and player payment was disallowed but understood to exist under the table.
Starting in 2021, Hartman watched as the collective system grew from a creative way to get athletes extra NIL cash through legislative loopholes to a standardized institution with multi-million dollar bankrolls adopted by nearly every FBS program. Hartman holds first hand experience with both collective negotiations and the free-agency market that the transfer portal created. During the 2023 season Hartman transfered from Wake Forrest to Notre Dame for his final season of eligibility in efforts to increase his draft stock; being a highly siught after quarterback, NIL discussions naturally followed.
When asked about the current state of NIL, Hartman expressed reservations about the current system: "I think it's a slippery slope. There's certain circumstances where it's used really well, and then sometimes I think it's just misconstrued for guys to kind of jump ship and say, 'Hey, there's a little bit of money getting flashed at me right here. I'm going to go do this.' And then that money's not as much as some people might think it might be." Hartman eluded to a more and more common complaint of those who have used the portal. Anecdotal reports have outline scenarios where players are told a figure by NIL collectives during recruitment and upon arriving on campus are met with significantly less compensation than expected.
This recent statement is not the only critsism Hartman has had towards NIL. In an interview with On3 he noted challenges that NIL has presented in locker rooms: "People start pocket-watching and start wondering, why is this guy making this and I'm making that? And it happens naturally. But if it's something that's in the dark corners, that's life. But as soon as it becomes the main focus and football is not, then that's when you struggle." While discrepency in pay is not uncommon for athletes at the professional level, at the collegiate level, this is a novel complication. Coaches, administrators, and those running collectives need to find ways to quell animosity and ensure that players do not resent their program.
NIL is far from perfect. As we move forward into correcting this system, it is imperative that voices like Hartman's are heard. The decision making processes at the institutional level all the way to Congress and the Supreme Court must give strong deference to the opinions of current players in the leauge, after all, those players live the downsides of the NIL era.
NOAH HENDERSON
Professor Noah Henderson teaches in the sport management department at Loyola University Chicago. Outside the classroom, he advises companies, schools, and collectives on Name, Image, and Likeness best practices. His academic research focuses on the intersection of law, economics, and social consequences regarding college athletics, NIL, and sports gambling. Before teaching, Prof. Henderson was part of a team that amended Illinois NIL legislation and managed NIL collectives at the nation’s most prominent athletic institutions while working for industry leader Student Athlete NIL. He holds a Juris Doctor from the University of Illinois College of Law in Urbana-Champaign and a Bachelor of Economics from Saint Joseph’s University, where he was a four-year letter winner on the golf team. Prof. Henderson is a native of San Diego, California, and a former golf CIF state champion with Torrey Pines High School. Outside of athletics, he enjoys playing guitar, hanging out with dogs, and eating California burritos. You can follow him on Twitter: @NoahImgLikeness.