Taking advantage of a new NCAA transfer rule, Jasman Sangha was the first player to commit to the Canisius men’s basketball program, playing right away without penalty after he arrived from Cal State Northridge.
Now that the collectives are up and running, each has set its own goals, and each faces its own challenges. That includes dispelling some of the myths that surround collectives and NIL, as the landscape of college sports continues to change.
At first glance, one would think his decision to transfer also involved opportunities to profit off his name, image and likeness (NIL).
Not so. NIL opportunities were not a factor in his decision to join the Golden Griffins in May, he said.
“Not at all,” said Sangha, a forward/center from Brampton, Ontario. “I’m not in it for the money, I’m in it for the program. Coach (Jim Christian) said, ‘This is a basketball decision.’ He said, ‘If you come in here and you do what you want, you’ll get what you want out of it.’ I want to be a professional athlete, and that’s the goal. This was strictly a basketball decision for me. It wasn’t about the money or the school.”
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Nowadays in college athletics, particularly in basketball and football, player transfers are often linked by their desire to profit off their name, image and likeness.
But that’s not always the case – particularly when athletes are transferring to mid-major programs like the University at Buffalo, Niagara, Canisius or St. Bonaventure. Collectives for the Big 4’s athletic programs have been established and launched in the last two years, but collectives for UB, Niagara and Canisius were announced publicly in the last four months. Athletic programs at those schools aren’t necessarily seeing the benefits of having an NIL collective yet. But they are not being impatient about the start-up process, either.
Collectives are entities that raise money and broker marketing opportunities for college athletes to earn money off their name, image and likeness, but are independent of college athletic departments. Collectives for the Big 4’s athletic programs are mostly in the development stages, and they haven’t had the initial, high-profile impact that tends to come with NIL opportunities.
But because collectives are still so new, they are in the process of connecting with potential constituents (donors, boosters, alumni, fans) and educating them about collectives while making initial asks for donations.
“It’s about educating and doing things right,” said Rocco Surace, chairman of Fly Purple Eagles, the collective for Niagara’s athletic program. “It’s compliance with the NCAA, compliance with Niagara. We have to be in constant communication. We are telling donors that we are an ‘and’ contribution. Don’t take dollars away from donations. We want you to also support us, and we want to make sure everyone is talking.”
Coaches are thinking long-term about NIL opportunities, as well, rather than looking at the short-term impact on shaping a roster.
A little more than a month after being hired as the Canisius men’s basketball coach, Christian said it was “a little too early” to say if he already sees the benefit of the new collective that benefits the program’s NIL efforts.
“We should do everything we can to make the players as comfortable as we can make them,” said Christian, whose hiring was announced April 8. “I think for us, retainment is probably more important than enticement when it comes to recruiting at this stage of the game. It might change. I don’t really know. If somebody comes here and does a great job academically, and they’re comfortable and they play, it would be great to be able to give them NIL opportunities, to retain them.
“In terms of using NIL to get them, we haven’t had a need yet. Maybe next year I’ll change my song on that, after the season. There’s a lot of guys who understand what they were coming here for, and I give those guys a lot of respect. And quite honestly, there were some guys we would have liked to have recruited – but because they were looking for ‘X’ amount of something, we didn’t pursue it.”
The University at Buffalo did not have a formalized collective when George Halcovage III took over as UB men’s basketball coach in March 2023. Halcovage had to reassemble UB’s roster in the first weeks after he was hired; an established collective may have helped UB’s recruiting efforts.
“In college basketball, in the men’s game right now, it’s everywhere,” said Halcovage, whose school initially publicized the Nickel City Collective in April. “If you don’t have a collective or if you’re not doing NIL at a high level, you’re going to be losing a competitive advantage or losing the ability to stay competitive.”
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— Pete Lembo (@Pete_Lembo) May 29, 2024
It’s not all big bucks for college athletes who pursue NIL deals, though.
In the spring of 2022, INFLCR, an NIL business-management company, released aggregated data for the first year of NIL in college athletics. INFLCR found that the average value of an NIL transaction was $1,815, but the median value was $53. A year later, INFLCR found the average value of NIL transactions rose nearly 6.7% to $1,936, but the median value remained $53.
INFLCR’s data for the third year of NIL, released the week of July 1, showed growth. Over a three-year span, the average value of NIL transactions was $4,422, with the average value for non-Power Five NIL transactions $906. The median value of all NIL transactions rose to $115.
Not many collectives will disclose financial details, either, though some NIL information is available for other programs and for other players. Sometimes it’s through a news report, or even a lawsuit.
In May, Georgia quarterback Jaden Rashada filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Pensacola, Florida, against Florida coach Billy Napier and the program’s top booster over a failed NIL deal worth nearly $14 million.
On3.com estimated that current WNBA rookie star Caitlin Clark had an NIL value of more than $3 million during her final year of college basketball at Iowa. Some of her sponsorships included State Farm, Nike, Gatorade and Buick.
Some gifts and designations earmarked for NIL efforts are also publicized, whether they are small-scale efforts by alumni or major gifts by corporations.
FedEx, for example, announced in April that it pledged $25 million over the next five years to be used in sponsorship deals with athletes at the University of Memphis. That announcement came days after the NCAA Division I Council approved a proposal that allows schools to be directly involved in facilitating NIL deals between college athletes and third parties.
Athletes also publicize their own NIL deals and sponsorships. Marcus Fuqua, a safety on the UB football team, has posted several sponsorships on his social media accounts, as well as his own apparel line.
Halcovage said he discussed UB’s collective during the last recruiting cycle, but that NIL wasn’t the players’ first or second priority.
However, Halcovage also sees the necessity for collectives.
“We’ve got to get aggressive on this, because a lot of schools in our conference, who are peers at our level, have already been playing this game for a couple years now,” Halcovage said. “I’m thankful we were able to get this done, and I think it’s something we have to play some catch-up on, but I think we have the ability to do that here.”