NIL Collectives Boost Student Athlete Earnings

(From left) Rogers attorney Tom Mars and Dustin Kellums, executive director of Arkansas State University’s Impackt Club collective (Provided)

Big-time college athletics and money have gone hand-in-hand for decades, and with the proliferation of NIL collectives, that relationship has taken a more professional tone.

While critics worry about the ruination of college sports, advocates say collectives offer a real chance for student-athletes playing college sports to maximize the earnings for their name, image and likeness, something the NCAA began to allow in 2021.

In November, the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville announced its new and improved NIL collective, Arkansas Edge, in partnership with Blueprint Sports of Las Vegas, joining a long list of college programs that have formed similar collectives.

Under the collective arrangement, supporters of the university can donate — or become a subscribed member — of the collective. The collective then pools the money for distribution to the university’s athletes.

The University of Arkansas said when it announced Edge that it had a donation of $1 million to match the first $1 million raised by subscribers and donors. Dustin Kellums, executive director of Arkansas State University’s Impackt Club collective, didn’t want to release Impackt’s financial kitty from a “competitive standpoint,” but said a recent three-hour phone-a-thon raised $200,000.

The UA did not comment for this article.

The idea of amateurism in college sports has long since died, and rightfully so, said Rogers attorney Tom Mars, who gained prominence for his representation of college athletes in lawsuits against the NCAA (see sidebar at bottom). Mars said collectives and NIL are here to stay.

He said the NCAA has proved incapable of defending its policy forbidding pay for athletes in court because it’s indefensible.

It’s the American way to reward people who produce the product. A singer gets paid to sing, an actor gets paid to act, but college athletes are supposed to not get paid to perform.

Mars said Rose Bowl tickets this past season went for as much as $37,000, so there is plenty of money being made.

“Everything about college sports defies the logic that drives the American economy,” Mars said. “It is all backward.”

The collective system is not without risk. On Tuesday, it was reported that the University of Tennessee was being investigated for NIL violations regarding allegations that a player was paid to sign with the Volunteers.

Mars represents Spyre Sports Group of Knoxville, which operates the Volunteers’ collective. While the NCAA allows current players to be paid for NIL, it still prohibits NIL payments being made as an inducement to get a player to enroll at the school.

“Whichever schools turn out to be their first target on NIL, it is not likely in my opinion to roll over,” Mars said a day before the possible investigation was reported. “I predict with a pretty high level of confidence that some time in the coming months not only will those schools resist and fight back, but we are going to see a wave of NIL litigation.”

By the Numbers

Blueprint Sports partners with nearly 30 universities on their NIL collectives. Officials there declined to talk, and the UA said Chris Bauer, whom it hired as the Edge’s executive director, didn’t want to speak since he was still new on the job.

Arkansas State University in Jonesboro started its upgraded collective, the Impackt Club, last year. Kellums works with coaches and athletes to directly provide NIL opportunities and to broker deals between the athletes and outside companies.

Kellums said women’s basketball player Izzy Higginbottom got a deal through Impackt to do radio advertisements for a local memorabilia shop.

“I communicate with the coaches on campus about their athletes on their teams,” Kellums said. “We don’t reward any athlete on campus if they don’t do their job in the classroom, too. There are standards set. Of course, performance on the field, on the court, all of that is a must as well. Part of their agreement is doing things out in the community too.”

The collective model is great for the student-athletes, Mars said. When NIL was first allowed in 2021, the NCAA washed its hands of regulating the industry and instead said colleges should rely on their respective state laws.

The result was an initial rush of “unsavory agents” who were looking to exploit the market and take financial advantage of young athletes.

“These rats were coming out of the woodwork and approaching these kids with these ridiculous proposals,” Mars said. “One of the best benefits of the collective movement has been to professionalize the monetization of name, image and likeness. There is much lower risk now that some player is going to be taken advantage of by some unscrupulous, untrained agent.

“A [Razorback] player interested in NIL benefits can deal with Edge and feel confident that he doesn’t need financial acumen, doesn’t need a lawyer and can trust these people.”

Good Pay

Since 2021, some NIL deals are modest while others have more to do with encouraging and rewarding athletes for their community service at a youth camp or a food bank.

There are also those examples that seem more extravagant. In October, for example, the University of Utah’s collective offered one-year leases of a 2024 Ram Big Horn 1500 Truck to 85 members of the Utes’ football team.

“Everybody in the country is in this arms race,” Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said.

The combined value of the trucks was estimated at $6 million. To qualify for the bounty, the players had to promote the collective and would be “encouraged” to do community service, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.

“NCAA rules prohibit pay-for-play,” Mars said. “However, the NIL rules allow a school or a collective or a collective attached to a school to help a college athlete or a prospective college athlete to earn money off their name, image and likeness.”

It’s hardly a secret that collectives are a huge recruiting tool — Whittingham said as much during the truck ceremony. While a collective may not be able to legally offer inducements to get a player to sign with its school, a player can fairly easily understand what is possible if he does.

“The coaching staff would come to me and say, ‘Hey, so-and-so has been doing a good job on the field and in practice, and is being a leader’ — all the things we require — ‘and we need to reward him financially with a contract,’” Kellums said. “I take it to our board of directors, and they either approve that number the coach asked for or we go back to the drawing table with the coaching staff and negotiate a little bit.

“Don’t leave out the part they have to be involved in the community as well. We can terminate their contract if they are not fulfilling their obligations.”