Bidding Wars: College Sports in the NIL Era

NIL deals have transformed recruiting in college sports. Will the Buckeyes be able to take advantage?

Adam Bloom | April 24th, 2022

College sports are quickly entering uncharted and unpredictable territory as NIL deals and collectives are rapidly reshaping the landscape of NCAA sports. What started as a way for players to earn at least some form of compensation while competing at the collegiate level has evolved into something much bigger than any of us could have imagined. Nick Saban, authority on all things college football, said that “it creates a situation where you can basically buy players. You can do it in recruiting. I mean, if that’s what we want college football to be, I don’t know.” One coach was reported to have compared the current situation to the NBA “without the…salary cap.” Between high school recruits and transfer players, we are starting to see bidding wars over players. Free agency has officially arrived in college sports, and Ohio State is aware of the current situation.

Many schools have had boosters collaborate through ‘collectives,’ which provide money to players through NIL opportunities. In Columbus, booster Brian Schottenstein teamed up with the legendary Cardale Jones to start an NIL collective at Ohio State. Their organization, THE Foundation, is a nonprofit that functions by paying players on the football and men’s basketball teams. Players will do charity work around Columbus to take part in the organization. Through THE Foundation, Buckeye boosters and local businesses can put their money together to go straight to players, without involving the university itself. THE Foundation does not just focus on helping the C.J. Strouds and Jaxon Smith-Njigbas of these teams. Cardale said that he wants other players, such as “a lineman who’s not scoring touchdowns on Saturdays, where everyone’s cheering and screaming his name, or…that defensive player who is a hustle player on the basketball court who is not making all the big-time shots and plays.”

NIL policies vary from state to state, and federal and NCAA guidelines all impact what schools and boosters can do. There is no federal legislation which governs NIL deals, and currently 28 states have laws pertaining to NIL, including Ohio. The issue that colleges are now seeing is that schools in states with more lenient NIL laws have recruiting advantages over schools in states with stricter regulations. Prospective recruits might be tempted to go to school in a state where the NIL laws will allow them to profit the most, leading them to choose their college based on NIL prospects. There are some general rules to NIL deals. For example, players are not allowed to be paid in pay-for-play schemes, where they are given money from boosters without something in return other than playing at a given school. NIL deals must have payments that are exchanged for something student-athletes do off the gridiron.

Over the past few months, we have seen some striking ripple effects from the NIL era. Look at Texas A&M, who finished with the highest-rated class of all time, seemingly out of nowhere. Many questioned whether Texas A&M could have attracted so many highly-ranked recruits based on their football program, which has struggled in recent memory, without using NIL deals to entice players. Rumors flew around that the Aggies put together a $25 million package from boosters that would go to players through NIL deals. A&M coach Jimbo Fisher adamantly denied that his historic class was a result of NIL money, saying “that had nothing to do with this class. This was hard work by our staff. It’s insulting to the kids that come here that you insinuate that.” Regardless of Fisher’s comments, this appeared to many fans to be one of the first major instances of schools recruiting by promising prospective players lucrative financial deals through NIL programs.

Things only got crazier from there. The Athletic reported on one five-star football recruit that was valued at $8 million, and was offered $350,000 up front. This would be continued through monthly payments that added up to $2 million per year. They also found that one 4-star receiver was offered $1 million, and that a three-star defensive lineman was offered half a million dollars. While fans have long moaned about certain programs secretly paying recruits to come to their schools, we now have a completely legal, and largely unregulated, system for schools to essentially do the same, only through ‘collectives.’ An unnamed SEC basketball coach has even claimed that two programs in his conference got into a bidding war for a transfer, which only ended when one school decided $650,000 was too much. We are officially witnessing legal bidding wars for college players. Wow. The first school to form a collective, Tennessee, immediately landed a five-star quarterback commit for the first time in over 20 years. Texas now has four collectives, with one that is exclusively for, you guessed it, tight ends. 2022 National Player of the Year Oscar Tshiebwe recently announced that he was returning to Kentucky for another season, rather than going to the NBA. Why would a player who averaged 17.4 and 15.1, and is the only NPOY to do so since 2008, return to college? Instead of going to the NBA next year, Tshiebwe will be paid around $2 million through NIL deals in return for returning. So, what does this mean for the non-powerhouse programs that don’t have enough boosters who can afford to give massive paydays to players? Bad things. That’s what it means for them.

Recently, Oklahoma went even further than any other school to this point. Former Sooner coach Barry Switzer announced the 1Oklahoma Collective for Oklahoma student-athletes. His announcement said “we changed the game in 1981 at The University of Oklahoma football by being a pioneer for schools to negotiate their own contracts and generate additional revenue. Through NIL, every OU football player will have an opportunity to earn between $40,000-$50,000 a year.” Yes, you read that right. Oklahoma now essentially has $40k-$50k salaries for their ENTIRE football, men’s basketball, and softball teams. While many schools are figuring out how to navigate the NIL era, some schools, such as Oklahoma, have jumped to take advantage of the opportunities that it presents in recruiting.

This weekend, Chris Holtmann and the Buckeye basketball team learned the hard way what NIL deals can do in recruiting. After the departure of many key players this offseason, Ohio State desperately needs to fill its roster with talent from the transfer portal. The Buckeyes made the top 3 for Kansas State guard Nijal Pack, along with Purdue and Miami. Many Buckeye fans felt that Holtmann had a good shot at landing Pack, who averaged 17.4 PPG and shot 43.6% from 3 last season, but he announced that he would be taking his talents to South Beach instead of Columbus. It was soon announced that he would be getting an NIL deal with LifeWallet that will pay him $400,000 over the next two years. Oh, and he’s also getting a new car. Pack was ranked as one of the best recruit prospects in the country, so it’s no surprise Miami was happy to take advantage of NIL collectives to land him. One of the strangest parts of this deal is that his NIL deal was announced while he announced his commitment to Miami. Where have we seen that before? Probably in Adam Schefter tweets announcing NFL and NBA players’ free agent decisions with the terms of their contract. Ohio State, for whatever reason, was not able or willing to take advantage of the new landscape of college sports to make an NIL deal for Pack to bring him to Columbus.

One question that Buckeye fans might have now is whether Holtmann and Buckeye boosters could entice last season’s breakout true freshman star, Malaki Branham, to return for a second season rather than following through with his plans to enter the NBA draft. An NIL deal that could bring Branham back to Columbus would be game changing for both next season’s team, but also the entire Ohio State recruiting strategies. Ohio State, along with every other program, is now faced with determining how much they will use NIL deals in their recruiting processes. Some schools likely figure that bidding high on the best players available will pay off with top tier talent on the field. Others may decide that they would rather let their prior success on the field do the talking, and risk losing top recruits who are more interested in financial potential at their college. One possible benefit for Ohio State if the Buckeyes were to take the latter route would be that you are not going to be recruiting players who are more concerned with getting paid than performing on the field and developing as your most talented players. Only time will tell how much further NIL deals will transform college sports, but free agency and bidding wars are officially a key part of successful recruiting going forward.

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