South Carolina Boss Candidly Opens Up on Difficulty of NIL Future

South Carolina Gamecocks athletic director discusses issues surrounding NIL deals and the fair market assessment under the House v. NCAA settlement.

Jeremy Reper-Imagn Images

The House v. NCAA settlement primed to bring revenue-sharing to college football and allow programs to directly pay their players is mired in issues related to the future of NIL and third-party involvement.

The solution of proposed terms has schools scrambling to assemble departments poised to write and administer contracts while balancing a cap management system, something South Carolina Gamecocks athletics director Jeremiah Donati sees as an inelegant situation that does not fully address the future of NIL deals.

Donati spoke at length on the issues surrounding the future of NIL in college football with respect to the impending settlement with Jay Philips and Elijah Campbell on “The Postgame Show” on 107.5 The Game on Tuesday.

Among the aforementioned headaches that athletic departments are saddled with in trying to assemble staff and resources to handle revenue sharing is the continued lack of regulation toward NIL deals.

Perhaps the term describing name, image, and likeness should be in quotations to denote how little these deals actually reflect—or are driven by—a player's market value.

Donati's past experience in the NFL illuminates how ridiculous NIL deals are in college football.

"I used to work on the NFL agency side," Donati said. "When I worked for Leigh Steinberg, one of [Leigh's] clients was an All-Pro running back. And he had a deal with Nike that I remember was $50,000 annually. This particular running back had to do all these things for it."

He acknowledges that this took place 14 years ago, but it provides critical context for why he thinks the numbers around players' market values won't survive scrutiny under the fair market value (FMV) assessment that is part of the settlement.

The running back who was contracted by Nike was required to fly across the country to film commercials and actually put his name, image, and likeness to priority use under the brand deal. That deal also accounts for less than 10% of the NIL numbers being thrown around in college sports.

"We’re talking about linebackers and running backs that are getting $600,000 to $800,000 deals," Donati said. "If you want to burn up some of your revenue share inside the cap for that, that’s the institutional decision. But to find an $800,000 real NIL deal to pass scrutiny, I’m telling you, they are very, very, very few and far between. Other than a Heisman Trophy-caliber player, they just don’t exist. They certainly don’t exist for offensive linemen or that type of thing. That’ll be some kind of hard industry set."

One of the terms of the settlement that the NCAA expanded on in a Q&A document released in December is that third-party NIL deals will be subject to FMV analysis.

Division I student-athletes will have to report NIL deals worth $600 or more regardless of their school's decision to opt in or out of the settlement. The important date for disclosure and review of third-party NIL is July 1, 2025.

Existing deals only come under scrutiny for payments after that date. Any new deal prior to the settlement's approval is free of FMV review for payments prior to that July date. Approval is not guaranteed, but it could happen as early as April of this year. After that approval, all NIL deals entered into after that date are under FMV scrutiny and review requirements—even for payments occurring before July 1.

Should the settlement be approved, what will that process of scrutiny even look like? What precedent is there to compare fair-market value in a way that won't violate free trade restrictions or the ability to even assess NIL value on a case-by-case basis?

The average layperson does not have the necessary legal understanding of intellectual property law and market valuation, but not all athletes have correct and ethical representation with all the issues surrounding sketchy NIL athletes.

Donati's remarks should serve as a warning for athletes engaging in transactions that lack genuine impact on their name, image, and likeness. Education and resources, arguably, are just as essential as regulation for athletes to empower themselves in this new NIL era of college sports.