NIL guidelines? Alston payments? What they are, and how they’ve changed college sports
As the college sports world turns, new phrases have entered its nomenclature over the past year or so.
NIL is all the rage. Alston gets thrown around frequently. What does it all mean?
In short, a lot of things that used to bring NCAA investigators to town no longer do. Extra benefits are not longer against the rules, but not everything is allowable.
But while NIL and Alston are lumped together because they both are opportunities for college athletes to receive compensation, they are also distinctly different.
Here’s a primer on the terms:
NIL
Shorthand for Name, Image and Likeness, NIL represents earning opportunities for college athletes that were impermissible prior to last July 1.
For decades, NCAA rules prohibited college athletes from engaging in marketing and endorsement deals, even though college students who weren’t involved in athletics could do so. Even as social media increased and people became influencers thanks to large followings on Twitter, Instagram and other platforms, college athletes could not benefit.
In 2009, former UCLA basketball player Ed O’Bannon sued the NCAA and Collegiate Licensing Company because an EA Sports basketball video game featured a player who wore a UCLA jersey, looked like him and played his same position. Some 20 other former college athletes, including Oscar Robertson and Bill Russell, joined his suit.
EA Sports and Collegiate Licensing Company settled out their part on the suit for $40 million. But the NCAA fought on. In 2014, a federal district court in California ruled the NCAA’s practices violated anti-trust laws.
The NCAA appealed to the Supreme Court, which upheld the lower court’s ruling. The NCAA was ordered to pay the plaintiffs $42.2 million in damages and court fees.
Meanwhile, state legislatures around the country decided this was an unfair infringement on the free market system and several introduced bills to defy the NCAA and allow college athletes in their states to benefit from NIL activities.
The NCAA fought against the change for years, instead asking Congress to create federal laws on the subject rather than having its member schools subjected to differing laws from state-to-state.
Even as Congress failed to act, the NCAA changed its bylaws last summer to allow athletes to receive outside benefits from NIL activities.
Some things are still not allowed. The NCAA says NIL benefits are not to be used as recruiting inducements, and athletes can’t receive compensation tied directly to on-court performance.
For example, companies are not supposed to promise a certain payment for enrolling or staying at a particular school. A basketball player can’t receive a bonus payment for, say, scoring 30 points in a game.
Alston
This word stems from the Supreme Court case, NCAA vs. Alston, which began in 2014 when former West Virginia running back Shawne Alston and former California basketball player Justine Hartman filed a lawsuit.
They represented a class of former college athletes alleging the NCAA unfairly limited their earning potential.
The same federal judge from the O’Bannon case, District Judge Claudia Wilken of California, ruled in 2019 that the NCAA’s rules restricting education-based compensation violated anti-trust laws.
The ruling at first involved non-cash compensation for educational benefits tied to their field of study, such as computers, science equipment and musical instruments. But it also allowed college athletes to receive payment for summer internships. It was expanded to include payments up to $5,980 per year based on academic achievement.
The NCAA appealed to the Supreme Court, which voted 9-0 last June 21 to uphold the lower court ruling.
With that, the compensation became allowable under NCAA rules. But it is up to the schools to decide whether or not to provide them.
Thus far, according to research by ESPN, only 22 of the 130 schools that participate in college football’s highest level (the Football Bowl Subdivision), have plans in place to make the $5,980 payments.
In the ACC, only North Carolina, Clemson and Miami have started providing Alston payments. In March, N.C. State announced its plan, called the Wolfpack Academic Incentive Program, would begin with the fall 2022 semester. N.C. State’s payments will begin to graduates this summer and to returning students in the fall.
This story was originally published May 10, 2022 at 5:10 AM with the headline "NIL guidelines? Alston payments? What they are, and how they’ve changed college sports."