Credit: Ed Zurga
The nature of college athletics drastically changed in July 2021 with the introduction of name, image, and likeness (NIL) deals permitting college athletes to receive compensation for their NIL. Over the past three years, college athletes have been featured in brand-deals, TV commercials, and social media campaigns. Top athletic brands such as Nike and Adidas, and leading technology companies such as T-Mobile and Amazon, now feature college athletes in its marketing campaigns. Since 2021, the question of how these deals should be regulated is a constant source of debate. While both Republicans and Democrats have introduced national NIL legislation in Congress, no federal laws have been passed on the topic since 2021. Thus, the current state of NIL regulation is a messy web of state laws and athletic governing body rules that are in dire need of simplification and national synthesis.
Although the incarnation of NIL deals has generated meaningful income for thousands of student-athletes across the country, it has also drawn widespread criticism for the influence of these deals on student-athletes’ choices to commit or transfer to specific universities. While transferring rules have been relaxed to allow student-athletes to transfer to universities where they can capitalize on their personal brand and maximize NIL compensation, schools are barred from directly offering student athletes money in a pay-to-play manner.
This issue of pay-to-play has gained significant attention after Matthew Sluka, quarterback at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, admitted to transferring to UNLV after an assistant coach verbally offered him $100,000 in NIL compensation. When that payment did not come to fruition, Sluka, leading the then 3-0 and nationally-ranked Rebels, decided to red-shirt the rest of the season with plans to transfer at its conclusion.
During his recruiting, Sluka reportedly turned down offers ranging from $350,000 to $600,000 from Power 4 programs to stay loyal to his commitment to UNLV. The UNLV athletic department and corresponding NIL collective deny making any formal NIL commitments to Sluka and claim Sluka made demands for “pay-for-play” in violation of both NCAA rules and Nevada state law. Whether or not the university misrepresented Sluka’s actions, his story has now become the clearest example of how NIL can also be a destructive force in the new landscape of college athletics.
Until more comprehensive NIL regulation is passed at a national level, athletes like Sluka need to take all possible steps to protect themselves from non-binding verbal offers and be sure to receive full clarity on perceived deals. Sluka’s story is not the first, and it certainly won’t be the last. Young athletes can be vulnerable to being “pen heavy” and seeking to sign or commit to a deal, without fully understanding the fine print, merely out of sheer excitement for the perceived income. Thus, it must be ensured that athletes receive competent and experienced representation when negotiating NIL deals.
Competent representation provides a crucial buffer against the possible pitfalls of NIL as seen with Sluka. Agents, who are now enlisted to represent athletes as young as high school age, can help ensure that student-athletes are avoiding unnecessary liabilities, protecting their NIL assets for future use, and understanding exactly what is being offered to them in complex contracts. Student-athletes need proper advocacy and complete information to make the best NIL decisions with such critical future implications.
While the story of Matthew Sluka at UNLV exemplifies the very worst of the current NIL landscape in college athletics, it has also reignited the critical need for passing comprehensive regulation at a national level to better protect players. Until that time comes, however, athletes should turn to competent and experienced representation to ensure that any deal they commit to is properly aligned with the verbal representations made to them.
*The views expressed in this article do not represent the views of Santa Clara University.
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