Abstract
In 2021 the National College Athletic Association (NCAA) overturned its rule requiring unpaid status of student-athletes, instead determining that student-athletes could profit from their Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL). Prominent student-athletes are receiving NIL deals that can amount to thousands or even millions of dollars. But which student-athletes are specifically benefitting the most from NIL? Our study gathered data from On3NIL (www.on3.com), which uses an algorithm considering student-athlete performance, influence, and exposure, to create a projected annual valuation from NIL revenues. We examined their list of the top 100 NIL-valued student-athletes. Athletes’ NIL valuation ranged from $497,000 to $6.1 million, with mean value of $937,580 and median of $734,000 (STD=758,720). The majority of athletes played football (76%) or basketball (22%) and were male (94%). Athletes were most frequently Black (68%), or White (22%) and most commonly played in the Southeastern (30%) or Pacific-12 (23%) Conferences. Number of social media followers ranged from 3431 to 13,524,000, with mean value of 1,055,885 and median 150,050 (STD=2,462,106). Both NIL valuation and social media followers were heavily positively skewed. NIL was presented as an answer to the injustice of unpaid student-athletes. However, our data show that the majority of money is concentrated in a few student-athletes in a few sports, and that many student-athletes are still not being rewarded for their athletic efforts at university; this is particularly true for women. Additional research is needed to identify ways that all student-athletes can benefit from their sport.
Presenters
Anna ScheyettProfessor, Social Work, University of Georgia, Georgia, United States Leon Banks
Assistant Professor, School of Social Work, University of Georgia, Georgia, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Sports Management and Commercialization
KEYWORDS
Student-Athlete, NIL, Commercialization of Image, US College Sports
