Lincoln Riley: Sooners Already Preparing to Meet NIL Legislation

As long as NIL is done within the team concept, Riley says, everybody wins

The University of Nebraska got ahead of the game.

Anticipating the inevitable coming of student-athlete name, image and likeness legislation (NIL), the Cornhuskers recently announced a partnership with Opendorse, a social publishing platform, to help student-athletes build their personal brands.

“Ready Now” will give all of Nebraska’s 650-plus student-athletes the opportunity to work on their own branding on social media. That is intended to have them “ready now” whenever NIL legislation becomes reality — and it will. To date, 30 states have drafted legislation.

The NCAA meanwhile, has enlisted lobbyists to fight against it.

As many schools ignore the coming NIL challenge or even attempt to stand against it, Nebraska is the first school to actively embrace it.

Last week, Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley described how the Sooners are preparing to meet NIL legislation head on.

OU hasn’t announced any corporate partnerships, but clearly the school has been thinking ahead.

“I think everybody has seen the content we’ve done both in recruiting and with our current team,” Riley said. “We’ve been on the cutting edge of that.”

OU’s recruiting efforts — individual brand logos for each signee, promotional videos shot in Los Angeles, Dallas and Oklahoma City — have been well documented. The Sooners are doing things no other school has conceived of.

Phase 1 | Complete #DareToBeDifferent pic.twitter.com/Fs7MLk6csN

— Lincoln Riley (@LincolnRiley) December 18, 2019

Phase 3 | Complete#DareToBeDifferent pic.twitter.com/cnb6RUz5x6

— Lincoln Riley (@LincolnRiley) December 18, 2019

Riley, though, isn’t just painting this as an opportunity to grow the individual. He sees it as a chance to better the team as well.

“We’ve also worked hard to educate our guys about it,” Riley said. “And then the thing for us has been, how do we educate them about their brand so they can maximize that, they can understand what it means, the ways they need to represent themselves, how important that is — but also do it within the team concept.

“You know, the individual stuff is great, but we’ve tried to educate our guys about, ‘If your brand is about the things you do well, (it’s) also about how well you work with others and what a team-first guy you are. What company, what entity anywhere in the world wouldn’t be attracted to that?”

Remember, 95 percent of college football players will never see pro football. They’ll have to grow up and get a job at some point. Riley sees NIL as a chance to go beyond just pocketing a few dollars every semester. It’s an opportunity, he says, to show future employers — and everyone, for that matter — who you really are, what you really stand for.

“And it fits what we want here too,” Riley said. “We want guys to have individual goals, but the team comes first.”

“You’ve got to be careful. I think there’s some give and take there. And I think you can accomplish both the right way. So that’s been our goal. We want to enhance it as much as we possibly can, and educate. But if it comes from a team-first place, then I think everybody gets what they want.”

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