Auburn navigating through NIL law to help players 'make some money'
Auburn is looking to capitalize on the new name, image and likeness law signed by Alabama Governor Kay Ivey on April 20th.
The law states that collegiate athletes can hire agents to represent them when it comes to profiting off their likeness, while the school cannot limit the money brought in by a player and also cannot compensate one of their own players.
How Auburn does that, though, is still a question.
“I think the toughest part—if anybody can pin down NIL, I’d like to know who that person is, right? Because it is, it’s a little bit all over the place,” Athletic director Allen Greene said. “We’re still learning interpretations from the state law. Obviously, each state is different.”
While states like Arkansas have its NIL law set to go into effect in 2022 and California in 2023, Alabama’s is set for July 1st. Same for Florida.
Nearby, Nick Saban and Alabama have already announced a comprehensive NIL program as has Florida State.
But, as head basketball coach Bruce Pearl noted, programs are trying to be careful and make sure not to break rules.
“We've had lots of discussions, lots of meetings, trying to stay ahead of the curve,” Pearl said. “But we have to wait until this thing gets started because if you do too much in advance, you actually could be unintentionally breaking rules.”
Pearl has always been in favor of “realistic scholarships” for players along with floating the idea of annuities the players could use in the future. So, the new NIL law is something Pearl is hoping his players can benefit from.
“The idea that they are going to be able to be compensated for their own name, image and likeness, it absolutely makes sense. And Auburn is going to kind of do everything we can to support those student-athletes,” Pearl said. “And, from a compliance standpoint, manage it. There are limits to what we can do with it, but we'll pay very close attention to what's being done around the country and do everything we can to assist the kids.”
Over on the gridiron, Bryan Harsin is going through similar discussions on what the NIL means for his team.
“Yeah, we've had discussions. I still think that one is so new,” Harsin said about the NIL law. “Right now, we're in that idea phase, right? What are some of the ideas? What does it look like? What does it mean? To my understanding, in different states, it can mean something different, right? I haven't gotten to how different everybody in all the states, how it's all viewed at this point. I'll look into that.”
For Greene, it’s simple.
“But we want to provide an opportunity for our student-athletes, those who want to have an ability to make some money off of name, image, likeness, for them to be able to do so,” Greene said.
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