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Reaping benefits: Some 80 Tech athletes, including 35 football players, see NIL offers
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- Reaping benefits: Some 80 Tech athletes, including 35 football players, see NIL offers
When an ESPN camera panned the NRG Stadium crowd in the fourth quarter of Texas Tech's season-opening victory at Houston , it stopped briefly on two people wearing apparel depicting Jacob Morgenstern .
Stenciled on one of the T-shirts was, in all caps, BIG CHEETAH 24 — the Tech linebacker's nickname and uniform number. The other fan's T-shirt bore a large facial image of Morgenstern, what an artist might sketch from a head shot of the big senior from New York.
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To the extent a viewer might have given it any thought, he probably didn't think of this: Morgenstern gets a small commission from sales of those shirts, ones produced and marketed by an Austin-based company with whom Morgenstern connected once state legislatures and the NCAA gave their OK this summer for college athletes to profit off their name, image and likeness.
Before he transferred last year to Tech, Morgenstern used to choose that very subject for some of his class assignments.
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"I wrote a few papers about it when I was an undergrad at Duke University," he said, "so I definitely had strong feelings for it. I'm glad that student-athletes are able to finally profit off their name, image and likeness, because they do bring so much value. I felt like they were unduly impeded from accessing the market, being able to capitalize on their NIL. So I think it's really great that they're able to do that."
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On July 1, college sports entered a new era with its athletes able to make money off endorsements , autographs, public appearances, giving lessons and creating content, among other endeavors. Newly enacted laws in about half the states paved the way, and the NCAA opted to stand down rather than try to punish players engaging in NIL activity.
Athletes may reach out to businesses and vice versa. A university's athletics department may not broker deals, but an athlete is required to disclose to the school NIL-related opportunities he or she is considering.
Texas Tech's numbers
Tech senior associate athletics director Amy Heard said recently her office had received about 140 such disclosures from about 80 Tech athletes, at least one from 11 of its teams. Most have come from football, men's basketball, baseball and soccer players.
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Of the 80 athletes, Heard said 35 are football players. The number of NIL opportunities presented to Tech athletes and the number of athletes receiving such opportunities, she said, is higher because not all athletes are taking deals they're offered.
Colin Schooler signed in early August with the Radegen sports and entertainment agency, less for what it can do for him now than in the future.
"I'm not necessarily using it as a way to make a quick buck here and there," the Red Raiders' linebacker said. "I'm more using it as a building block to start a foundation of what can come.
"As a team, we've kind of come to a consensus that winning is the most important thing here, and the more you win, the more opportunities there will be for NIL.
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"And it's a gift and a curse, the way you look at it. Players can get more caught up in the NIL than football, so I feel like especially when we have 18-year-old kids living by themselves for the first time, it can be tempting to only focus on that."
Schooler says he's "kind of waiting" before jumping into an NIL deal.
"More building a foundation, building connections and learning the way, how it goes," he said, "rather than going out and signing something quick that I don't know much about."
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Rustic Furniture Warehouse in Lubbock has run commercials on local television throughout this season featuring the Red Raiders' Erik Ezukanma, who went into this weekend third in the Big 12 in catches and second in receiving yards.
During a session with the media this past week, Ezukanma wore a stocking cap bearing his personal logo: his EE initials offset in stairstep fashion and separated by a lightning bolt. A marketing company helped the Tech wide receiver with the branding and authorization, completing the process in the past couple of weeks.
There's now a website up and running, erikezukanma.co, that advertises T-shirts, jerseys, sweaters, hoodies, caps, beanies, joggers and shorts bearing his logo. As is the case with the apparel that bears Morgenstern's likenesses, Ezukanma can legally earn a commission from sales off his website.
Senior cornerback Adrian Frye said before the season started he wouldn't mind doing what he could to help out a small business, but he had not spent much time pursuing NIL opportunities.
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"I just feel like if the time comes where somebody wants to use me to promote their brand and things like that, then I'll respond. I'll accept it," Frye said. "I haven't really been reaching out very much. I reached out to one or two companies, but they're mainly like my friends' companies."
Tech quarterback Tyler Shough has missed the past five games with a broken collarbone, but the transfer from Oregon was one of the first Red Raiders given multiple NIL offers to sort through. His appeal for promotional purposes was plain to see: He arrived at Tech this spring having already been a power-five conference starter for Oregon, not to mention being 6-foot-5 and with pro potential.
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Shough said in August he has done NIL activity locally with 1,000 Degrees Pizza and Cardinal's Sport Center, also with the Raising Cane's chicken fingers chain restaurant and "some trading-card stuff nationally." He also looped in his offensive linemen to be able to receive complementary meals on another agreement.
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Like Schooler, Shough said he believes more in what he can earn in the future than in the short-term.
"Also, within the locker room I've been doing everything I can to spread the wealth," Shough said before the season. "And I really haven't been doing that much compared to a lot of other quarterbacks around the nation who have signed marketing agents."
Heard said disclosed compensation to Tech athletes with NIL agreements indicates merchandise, discounts codes, and traditional cash compensation.
A little less than 38% of the disclosures involve social media, with nearly 20% being disclosed as an endorsement.
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"It'll be interesting," Heard said. "I think it's going to continue to keep growing. I think students are going to get more active. Businesses are going to continue to get engaged."
Unintended consequences
Those opposed to college athletes profiting from NIL suggest it will lead to dissension and jealousy in the locker room. Tech players had mixed opinions on that.
"Everyone understands they're not going to get the same opportunities," center Dawson Deaton said. "Like me as a center, I'm not going to get the same deals as Tyler, our quarterback, and Henry (Colombi) and those guys. I understand that, and I think everyone on the team has done a good job of being together in that aspect."
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Early on, Deaton agreed to do social-media promotions for The WagBar, an American Wagyu beef snack, and for Roundhill Investments, a New York-based firm.
Frye said the potential for locker-room issues is present, "but I feel like that's for guys that don't really have that bond and really aren't close with each other.
"I mean, Tyler Shough just got here and he has name, image, likeness opportunities where I'm not jealous of him. I'm really happy for him, because that gives him a chance to promote his brand, make his name, have a statement, and then on top of that he gets to help companies benefit as well.
"I'm not a guy to hate on somebody's else's upbringing and stuff like that. You've got to be a negative person to let that affect you."
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Morgenstern said he can understand the contention among those opposed to NIL, "but at the end of the day," he said, "I believe you're worth your market value.
"And if you're going to say that about football specifically, then you can say that in the work environment. Why are people paid differently? It's what's your value, what do you bring, what do companies want to get from you and what value can you extract from them?"
One player's experience
Jacob Morgenstern and a classmate during his days at Duke once did a 20-page paper, single-spaced, on the NCAA. They researched the concept of amateurism and how the NCAA adhered to it, especially under Walter Byers, the sanctioning body's first executive director who served from 1951 to 1988.
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"It seemed wrong to me that student-athletes were able to be stripped of their intellectual property rights and to be able to make a living simply because the NCAA said so," Morgenstern said. "They were making something that was not illegal, illegal to student-athletes specifically.
"If you apply that to any other market, you can't do that. You can't tell an amateur actor that they can't go and give acting lessons to make some money, but for some reason student-athletes had those right stripped from them. So I was very passionate about that."
Lo and behold, the loosening of the restrictions took place before Morgenstern's college career ended.
The T-shirts bearing Morgenstern's nickname and likeness are done by Last Stand Hats based in Austin. He's one of 17 athletes — others are from Texas, Stephen F. Austin and Texas State — whose apparel with catchy designs is advertised on the company's website.
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Morgenstern had two NIL opportunities rejected. Both were from beverage companies with whom he could not engage because their products would be considered competitors and in conflict with Texas Tech's contract with Coca-Cola.
"I think we're still working through a lot of the kinks," Morgenstern said. "Some offers that I've had have been rejected through compliance, because of nuances and technical (considerations), I guess, things with the state of Texas and whatnot.
"Hopefully we'll be able to have greater access to a full market in the near future. But I do ultimately think it's a good thing that the ball got rolling and student-athletes can access the market."
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Some 80 Texas Tech athletes, including 35 in football, see NIL offers
