Money Talks: Athletic program boosters impact recruiting using NIL deals

Across the college athletics world, boosters have had an important role in school programs. For instance, Phil Knight, co-founder of Nike, has infused hundreds of millions of dollars into his alma mater University of Oregon and their teams to keep the Ducks competitive in Division I athletics. Yet, even though boosters have played a crucial part in sustaining and improving college athletic programs, there has been recent controversy in their relationship with name, image and likeness (NIL) deals. 

Ever since NIL deals were approved last year, the college athletics world has been in chaos – especially in major sports like college football. Along with coaching staff, school prestige, and many other factors, the value of NIL deals now plays an important role for potential recruits and brings a new investment opportunity for boosters. 

According to the NCAA, boosters are known as “any third-party entity that promotes an athletics program, assists with recruiting or assists with providing benefits to recruits, enrolled student-athletes or their family members,” so any individuals and collectives they form to help pay student athletes for NIL deals would be included in this definition. 

These boosters have taken advantage of NIL and the transfer portal to get top established players to come to their schools. One example can be seen here at USC with reigning Biletnikoff winner and All-American wide receiver Jordan Addison coming to Southern California from Pittsburgh. Rumors about his transfer to USC were made even before he was officially in the transfer portal, causing concern over the role boosters have had in his eventual transfer to the Trojans.

Addison’s move instigated the NCAA to start taking action against boosters and collectives for manipulating NIL deals in May. Boosters are now not allowed to have contact with student athletes and their families before they have committed to a university. 

This viewpoint was emphasized by CEO of NIL management company Athliance Peter Schoenthal, who said, “I think the Jordan Addison situation clearly was one of the straws that was, ‘OK, enough is enough,’” in an interview with TribLive.com. 

Furthermore, boosters have not only been using the transfer portal for their NIL deals, as high school recruits have been influenced by them also in their decision-making.

Take for instance Texas A&M, which only had an 8-4 record last year. Yet, they ended up having the number one recruiting class for the 2022 season with eight 5-star recruits. Although Texas A&M has been a prestigious program and has a strong head coach in Jimbo Fisher, it isn’t difficult to see that boosters like Monty Davis, COO of earth and oil analysis firm Core Laboratories, had a role in getting these recruits. 

It even got to the point that University of Alabama head coach Nick Saban called out Texas A&M for their recruiting practices. 

“I mean, we [Alabama] were second in recruiting last year,” Saban said in an event with local Birmingham business leaders. “A&M was first. A&M bought every player on their team — made a deal for name, image, likeness.”

These comments sparked controversy with messages exchanged between both the Alabama and A&M camps throughout the summer, but overall, they highlighted the contentious nature of NIL and boosters getting involved. 

Despite all of these issues going on between teams and the NCAA, boosters are still moving forward with their own NIL deals. One such example is with USC.

Although the University does not want to be involved in any more legal issues with the NCAA, the “Student Body Right”  collective, which is made up of rich donors, school alumni, and fans, wants to provide more monetary incentives for players to join their school.

USC already has a school-sponsored NIL organization, BLVD LLC, to manage NIL deals among its student-athletes, so they are not in violation of any rules or regulations. Therefore, they do not want to associate with SBR, with Athletic Director Mike Bohn not even acknowledging their existence. 

As a USC fan, getting the top players for all of our sports does sound appealing at first. However, if the NCAA starts to enforce punishments for schools breaking their NIL rules, these booster collectives start to become worrying. 

Looking forward, it seems that these collectives and boosters will keep working in the shadows to get players to join their schools. It will be interesting to see how universities, the NCAA, and governments will react and challenge them. 

Pratik Thakur is a senior writing about business in the world of college sports. His column “Money Talks” runs every other Wednesday.