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Why is Gerrod Lambrecht allowed to do NIL deals for NU players?

The NCAA has abdicated/punted on this issue almost entirely. According to the NCAA legislation on NIL, what UT boosters did in forming a pool of money to entice OL to sign with Texas is completely illegal. Other than NCAA President Mark Emmert saying last year that "some schools" were under investigation for violations of NIL rules, absolutely nothing has happened.

IMO, the next litigation on NIL will come when an international student athlete sues the Federal government because the student F-1 visa rules appear to prevent international student athletes from doing NIL deals. I forget which school he plays for, but there's a current men's basketball player who recently signed an NIL deal and his agent contends that social media posts don't constitute "work" and therefore don't violate visa rules.

I became interested in this issue because Huskers women's basketball players Issie Bourne and Jaz Shelly can't enter into NIL deals here in the US. The only thing Jaz was eventually able to do was sell t-shirts. Overall, NCAA women's basketball players are doing quite well with NIL.
There are a lot of influencers who post on social media for money. Hard to understand how that doesn’t amount to employment. Someone pays him money to plug their business. The fact that the manner of message delivery is on the web shouldn’t make any difference.

Should be interesting to see how that turns out. If his plugging for businesses is not work for pay, it means no one else’s is either. That makes it look more like the old world of paying people under the table to reward them for playing football for “their” program.

I thought the whole point in structuring NIL the way they did was to require a quid pro quo. Money in exchange for some action by the student athlete to benefit the company. Arguing it’s not work seems counter productive for supporters of NIL.

I could see a company not requiring any action and instead just asking to be able to use the likeness of the individual in their store or advertising. If no action is required it may not constitute “employment”.
 
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There are a lot of influencers who post on social media for money. Hard to understand how that doesn’t amount to employment. Someone pays him money to plug their business. The fact that the manner of message delivery is on the web shouldn’t make any difference.

Should be interesting to see how that turns out. If his plugging for businesses is not work for pay, it means no one else’s is either. That makes it look more like the old world of paying people under the table to reward them for playing football for “their” program.

I thought the whole point in structuring NIL the way they did was to require a quid pro quo. Money in exchange for some action by the student athlete to benefit the company. Arguing it’s not work seems counter productive for supporters of NIL.

I could see a company not requiring any action and instead just asking to be able to use the likeness of the individual in their store or advertising. If no action is required it may not constitute “employment”.

I agree with you that posting to social media is "work." The problem is that the Department of Homeland Security office in charge of international student visas hasn't done anything about this issue beyond saying they were "looking into it" a year or so ago. Because the visa rules haven't been fixed, the player's agent is trying this approach to get around them.
There are other international student athletes who have done things like make NIL posts to social media when they're outside of the US. That may or may not be legal, nobody's had their visa revoked for it (yet.)
 
I agree with you that posting to social media is "work." The problem is that the Department of Homeland Security office in charge of international student visas hasn't done anything about this issue beyond saying they were "looking into it" a year or so ago. Because the visa rules haven't been fixed, the player's agent is trying this approach to get around them.
There are other international student athletes who have done things like make NIL posts to social media when they're outside of the US. That may or may not be legal, nobody's had their visa revoked for it (yet.)
It’s certainly a grey area. After I wrote my post last night I thought about it more and wondered if maybe endorsements wouldn’t be work. An endorsement may actually be more akin to selling a product which wouldn’t be employment. But at some point, if it’s routine and ongoing, it might be self employment.

Hard to say how it will work out.
 



This is a fascinating topic. While not analogous, I see similarities to the regulation of political campaign contributions. It's ostensibly regulated but money always seems to find a way flow in, around, or over the new rules. What's to stop anyone from setting up shell companies that offer NILs while shielding the actual funders from scrutiny? The NCAA certainly isn't equipped to investigate that. It really seems like the NCAA took the worst option in compensating players.
Most likely, the shell company scenario probably already exists. My dad always told me, “ Where there is money, there are thieves.”
 


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