Fifteenth International Conference on Sport & Society

Abstract

The National College Athletic Association (NCAA) had long required student-athletes be unpaid “amateurs”, despite the multi-million-dollar profits in college sports. Two cases contested this; O’Bannon v NCAA (2014) and NCAA v Alston (2021) found that the NCAA violated anti-trust laws. Soon after, the NCAA voted that student-athletes may receive compensation for the use of their name, image, and likeness (NIL). NIL is often managed through boosters and foundations separate from universities, with variable transparency and there is wide variation across state NIL laws. Combined with huge amounts of money, and student-athletes who are young and potentially very vulnerable to influence, the risk of exploitation and of being tangled in various laws, is high. The need for research on the impact of NIL is thus crucial. Our research asked “Who is studying NIL and what is their focus?” Using multiple major databases, we completed a scoping search on NIL, finding 64 articles. First authors’ disciplines were primarily Law (56%), Sports Management/Administration (18%), and Business (8%). Articles focused primarily on Legal analyses of NIL (41%); Impact on subpopulations (e.g. women); Rights of student-athletes (22%); and NIL’s impact on athletes (16%). In only 16% of articles were actual data collected, the remainder were legal analyses and “think pieces”. The implications of these findings are concerning. We found little scholarship examining the experiences of student-athletes receiving NIL, its impact on their finances, relationships, team dynamics, or mental health. Research in this area is essential to shed light on the impacts of NIL on student-athletes.