Long quote, sorry, but worth a read....the bolded part addresses the question I posed just above, in a way:
“Will male or female athletes end up making more money from NIL?”
Men will make more money in totality, I think, but many individual women will make an absolute ton of money off their social media profiles too.
But the reasons people will be paying will differ.
I think men’s basketball and football players will make money based on the interest level in their sports, which are far higher than any other sports, but I think the women who cash in will do so based less on their athletic achievements and more on their looks, humor, and personality. That is, the Instagram influencer market is essentially run by women and almost all of the women making good money there are really good looking. I suspect that overarching model will govern here too.
I’m curious how long it will take for the criticism to be levied that men’s name, image, and likeness dollars tend to be tethered to athletic ability, while women’s name, image, and likeness money tend to be linked to looks. This isn’t necessarily anything new, remember Anna Kournikova made tens of millions of dollars without ever being one of the top ten tennis players in the world, while way more accomplished women’s tennis players made much less. Now Kournikova came along before social media existed, but there’s no telling what she would make in the modern era. Probably way more.
One thing to keep an eye on if the money becomes substantially pronounced in favor of male athletes: will there be lawsuits based on Title IX? In other words, will some female athletes file lawsuits saying that men being paid massive amounts of money outside the scholarship world violates Title IX, which requires colleges treat all athletes equally? We don’t really know the answer to a lawsuit like this — and I suspect it would take many years to resolve — but the more active, interestingly, schools are in monitoring and policing name, image and likeness money, the more of an argument women would have that these payments should be included as part of Title IX.
If Title IX lawsuits like these happen, and courts find they have merit, then I think what you’d end up with is a large cash pool for all athlete endorsement money that gets redistributed evenly to all scholarship athletes.
A couple of other NIL issues that I find really interesting: what will internal locker room dynamics be like when the quarterback is making over a million dollars a year, but other players are making a tiny fraction of that? Remember, there will be a clear superstar effect at play here. Most football and men’s basketball players, even on good teams, are relatively anonymous. So how will this work when some players become rich and most players remain poor?
Furthermore, can you imagine some of the wild trouble million dollar college athletes are going to find themselves in. Think about when you were in college. How often did parties get out of control even if you guys had no money to spend? Can you imagine the parties that would surround a 19 year old multi-million dollar college athlete? Can you imagine the strippers and hookers that might make their way to campus to cash in too? How many Don Kings are there going to be, signing young athletes out there to crazy deals that advantage the marketing agent more than the player? This is going to be the absolute wild west.
And there’s no way, by the way, this isn’t going to flood into recruiting. I know, I know, the schools themselves aren’t going to be paying, but wealthy fans are going to be signing up top recruits and directing them to their favored programs. I don’t know how this will be policed. You can make a handshake deal that as soon as the scholarship is signed or a player arrives on campus he gets a ton of cash to endorse your product.
Every top school is going to have twenty Buddy Garrity’s out there gladhandling for top recruits.
Which is why I actually think NIL might lead to top players going to different schools. Would you rather be, for instance, Alabama’s tenth five star or would you rather be Mississippi State’s only five star? Which would potentially pay better, being the best player on a smaller school or one of a dozen top players? I think it’s the former.
And it could impact the non power five too. Would you rather be Southern Miss’s top player in their class if you’re from Hattiesburg, for instance, or would you rather be Ole Miss’s 20th best recruit? I think this will be fascinating to watch.
A few other questions: how will NIL impact existing sponsorship dollars for schools? Let’s say there’s an official pizza or soda of an athletic department. If I’m one of the rival brands, why wouldn’t I sign the top players and put them in conflict with the university brand deal? How much policing of this will schools be allowed to do without creating anti-trust issues for themselves?
Speaking of policing, why does the NCAA need to exist now? For generations the NCAA has policed “improper benefits” for athletes based on the amateurism standard of college athletics. Now that athletes can all get paid and transfer pretty much without any prohibitions, what’s the NCAA’s role now? Sure, they put on championships and set basic rules, but is that really worth billions of dollars? Why does this vast bureaucracy need to exist at all? And how, by the way, is the NCAA going to punish schools with boosters accused of paying players now that boosters can effectively pay players? These are all major questions to resolve.
Finally, if your “job” is effectively moving from playing a sport to promoting yourself and your own personal brand, how does that interact with team success? Lots of college coaches have been able to manage their teams by telling players if they listen to them they’ll be millionaires in pro sports. But what if some players can become millionaires just by listening to their social followings?
It’s a brave new world, buckle up.