Agents

MNSpaniel

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Dont know if this has been touched on but do these athletes (male and female) have agents to help get them deals.

I know somebody mentioned tax account to make sure they dont get in trouble with IRS.
Or do schools provide this type of help in addition to the NIL money???
 

IIRC U hired two companies to work with the students on deals and etc.

They aren’t agents in the pro sports sense but their role is similar-ish.
 
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Interesting … it seems like a selling point to recruits if the Gophers ever get any NIL money to offer. You can tell my age. Had to look up what IIRC was 😀
 

Interesting … it seems like a selling point to recruits if the Gophers ever get any NIL money to offer. You can tell my age. Had to look up what IIRC was 😀
There was a webinar the U had that I somehow got invited to (they must have forgot to apply the usual filter) and I joined. They explained their NIL situation.

If I remember right these companies provide education on the rules, what they can do, I think they sort of help "market" the student to NIL opportunities, and help them with compliance (reporting) and etc.

Having said all that I expect NIL land is very fast changing and I'm not sure if those companies are still active today or what the situation is. I expect the U will do whats best for the students but I suspect as wild west as it is companies will come and go and there will be some bad actors. One student at another school was picked up by a shady no name crypto currency orginzation. He was paid in their own crypto ... there's a fair chance that if he paid taxes on that payment ... he just paid taxes and came out with jack shit.
 

Schools aren't supposed to be involved in making the NIL deals or providing or setting up agreements with agents. The U has contracted with companies to provide information to the students on what is and isn't allowable under the rules (e.g. you can't wear your licensed Gopher gear, you can't endorse an alcohol product), to help them raise their public profiles (e.g. they make game photos of the players available to post on social media to try to generate more interest in those accounts) and to make sure they know how to handle NIL business (e.g. you can hire an agent to assist with finding and signing deals, you have to report your income). The collectives have become one way for student-athletes to try to manage all of this.

The U is expected to monitor NIL agreements for compliance, but not to broker arrangements. I believe it is within the rules to tell a prospective student-athlete that "85% of our volleyball players have NIL deals in place" but not that "we can get you NIL deals worth $25,000 the day you commit."

Of course each school is interpreting all of these rules independently and has its own comfort level for what is "fair" under those interpretations. Added to that is the fact that there is little to no enforcement mechanism in place to police any of it.
 


The number of transfers is getting to be ridiculous. We all agree on that.
NIL is going to change college sports in the end. We all know that.
Bowl games aren't going to mean as much. Traditions aren't going to be the same.
Fraud/tampering is going to increase 10-fold. We have no idea how bad it is.
Underground agents are going to ruin the normal recruiting process. Money is the root of all evil.
 

The NCAA is in a gray area, right now. They're afraid to make hard and fast rules, because they don't want to run afoul of state laws. Which there are many different ones, right now, about what the "rights" of student-athletes are in regards to being able to profit off their NIL.

They (the NCAA) desperately wants the US Congress to make a federal law that applies in all states. Then the NCAA could be more specific in its rule framework and enforcement.


I do think student-athletes are allowed to pay someone to help manage their NIL deals and/or search for (new) deals.

It has long been true that signing an agent meant turning professional in that sport, which meant you forfeited any remaining eligibility for college.

I think they're afraid to conflate these things.
 

as I understand it, a player can have someone - an "advisor" - to help line up personal NIL endorsements, but only for that purpose. They can't do any other traditional "agent" duties.
 




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