Alabama Hasn't Been Pressured For NIL Money For Visits
Ohio State's athletic director Gene Smith was in Washington last week to participate in a hearing held by the House Committee on Small Business. The purpose was to discuss and examine the impact name, image and likeness was having on college athletics.
During the presentation the Buckeye's athletic director made a shocking claim about how the new rules have trickled down into recruiting.
“For example, student-athletes and their parents visit campuses at the expense of those universities to evaluate where they may make a commitment. A practice of asking a school for a fee to simply visit campus has emerged; asking for $5,000 just to visit has become common,” Smith wrote in his published remarks. “During visits, discussions now emerge regarding how much a student-athlete can expect from NIL.”
$5,000 just to take a visit to a school? Was Smith exaggerating or is this a practice that's becoming widespread?
Alabama head coach Nick Saban was asked during his weekly press conference if his program had experienced recruits asking for monetary benefits just to come to Tuscaloosa and check out The Capstone.
"Not that I know of. I don't know of anybody that has asked us for that. But look, name, image and likeness is not really name, image and likeness. I think we all understand what it's become, and what we allowed it to become and I said long ago, and got very criticized for is this what we want college football to become?" said Saban on Wednesday. "So it's becoming what it's becoming and that's ok. I mean, we'll just adapt and do what we have to do to compete, whatever the circumstances are. Do I think that it would be judicious to have some guard rails on some things? I think you can figure that one out just as well as anybody else."
Currently there is no unified legislation on the horizon but instead the 50 states are all operating under their own jurisdiction in terms of name, image and likeness. While the concept has been beneficial for student-athletes its thrown wrench into the competitive balance across all college sports as certain universities have different advantages due to legislation at their own state's level.
