Rudy Hill and Jonathan Wohlwend Quoted in Business Alabama on NIL Deals for College Athletes

Bradley attorneys Rudy Hill and Jonathan Wohlwend were quoted on the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling in NCAA v. Alston on whether college athletes should be permitted to accept compensation beyond scholarships, like NIL deals.

For over a century, college athletes were prohibited by the NCAA to accept financial compensation, outside of scholarships financing tuition, room and board. Hill said, “That decision actually pertained to other NCAA regulations. But the way the Supreme Court came down unanimously on that case suggested that if an NIL case was presented to the court, it would be an uphill battle for the NCAA to keep those regulations in place. So, the NCAA backed off that area.”

There is some concern for athletes that do not attend one of the several dozen schools that have significant funds of NIL revenue, so some alumni are putting together collectives to raise funds to assist athletes at these schools to facilitate NIL deals.

“That is one of the concerns of having a bunch of states run NIL and not having any control over it,” explained Wohlwend. “There’s no standard contract for NIL deals and no real way to monitor the program. That’s one of the NCAA’s gripes, that there is so much going on that they can’t control it and don’t have the resources to monitor this activity.

“Right now, you have numerous states with their own NIL laws with various provisions, and some of those states are changing their NIL laws to gain a competitive advantage. States are starting to amend their laws to remove restrictions, allowing more flexibility.”

There are some who are concerned for the coming increased disparity of college athletics without the NCAA provided framework around NIL deals.

The full article, “New rules involving name, image and likeness are creating chaos in college athletics,” was published by Business Alabama on August 14, 2023.