College/University Athletics: Many Schools Refuse to Disclose NIL Info
High profile college football coaches Nick Saban of Alabama and Jimbo Fisher of Texas A&M have gone back and forth on the transparency of the Aggies' NIL deals. Saban had suggested that Texas A&M had "bought every player" while Fisher said that his team "had nothing to hide"
However, neither school has disclosed much information publicly.
ESPN sampled 23 universities, with 20 of them being in Power 5 conferences. Most schools refused to provide much information on how their athletes were benefiting from their name, image, and likeness, including Alabama. Texas A&M initially stated they would comply, they have only provided records omitting both names of athletes and finances.
We discussed athletics in colleges and universities in class, along with the pushback from the NCAA against athletes being able to benefit from NIL deals, and how the NCAA finally, though reluctantly, gave in to the pressure.
While the NCAA has added rules to make sure that NIL deals aren't used for recruiting purposes, they have neglected to add any rules requiring schools to disclose information about them, with even many NCAA officials even being prohibited from receiving info from schools, and even LSU requesting for state officials to require NIL deals to be confidential. Due to this, most public information has to come from the athletes themselves or the companies that endorse them.
Many of the schools that denied ESPN's request cited privacy laws preventing them from disclosing personal information to a third party. However, many schools complied while removing any personal information.
Another concern is that with less transparency, it will be easier for some athletes to receive unfair treatment. Athletes, such as University of Florida gymnast Leah Clapper, advocated for transparency stating that it would help everyone know if they were getting a fair deal.
"If people are able to share their experiences working with brands and share how big their platform size is and how much they got paid ... that can really make a huge difference as a means for comparison."
Along with unfair treatment towards individual athletes, many believe that it is easy for male athletes to receive better NIL deals than female athletes if universities, or the NCAA, don't implement some form of procedure to prevent it from becoming wildly imbalanced.
Full ESPN Article:
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