Kansas athletes report 219 deals valued at $380,000 in first 10 months of NIL

LAWRENCE — Kansas athletes have been getting involved in the ability to benefit from their name, image and likeness to the tune of more than 200 individual agreements, since that first became possible in July last year.

NIL data for Kansas Athletics that spans July 1, 2021 to May 5, 2022, obtained through a public records request, details 219 deals reported by athletes to the department across that time period of a little more than 10 months. The total value of the deals, which in the information provided is broken up into 256 separate entries that could represent an entire agreement or part of a larger opportunity, comes out to $380,915.01 — meaning an average of $1,739.34 per arrangement. And the payment types are either cash, or in-kind.

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“I think it’s … something athletes have deserved for a long time,” said Jayhawks men’s basketball athlete Jalen Wilson, speaking in April after his redshirt sophomore season about NIL during a Twitter Spaces Q&A for Rock Chalk NFT. “ People don’t really understand that student-athletes go through a lot and we have to live the varied life that a normal student lives and also play sports. So, when we’re getting home at 2, 3 a.m. and got to class at 9, it’s just a lot of difficult things we go through. So, to be able to finally make money and be able to use our name for stuff like that, is important. And I take it all in as a blessing, really.”

While the data did not specify how many athletes are involved, or which sports those athletes participate in, Kansas athletic director Travis Goff gave a glimpse into that back in February. Goff, speaking then during a Kansas Athletics Board of Directors meeting, said that data that ran through January showed that each of the Jayhawks' sports had at least one deal represented within their respective programs. He detailed as well that the number of athletes with a deal at that point, which was closing in on 90, combined for just more than 170 NIL deals.

The data through May 5 shows that the majority of the entries are for less than $1,000, and in fact that only nine of the entries show an exchange valued at $10,000 or more. But those larger values, the largest entry being $25,000, certainly hold the ability to skew the average to the $1,739.34 per arrangement total that it is.

The compensating party for each entry is listed as either a business or an individual, but what’s asked of an athlete becomes more varied from there. Different activity types included a meet and greet, autograph signing, camp, social media posts on Twitter or Instagram and more. And each entry is also further described with an activity category and an activity class — meaning an Instagram post could be in the category of social and class of service, and a camp could be in the category of an appearance and class of a host event.

That $25,000 entry was a business compensating an athlete with in-kind payment for a photo/video/audio creation that had a category of content creation and class of service. Another example is a $2,500 entry that was an individual compensating an athlete with cash for a meet and greet that had a category of appearance and class of service. Another example is a $30 entry that was a business compensating an athlete with cash for an Instagram story that had a category of social and class of service.

David McCormack, who helped Kansas men’s basketball to a national championship this past season, talked in a separate Twitter Spaces Q&A for Rock Chalk NFT earlier this month about a couple of his favorite NIL deals. They were food related, with Johnny’s Tavern and Wendy’s. And not only did McCormack’s NIL efforts help him earn money so he could get his mother to more of his games, but he took away more from it than just having more money.

“It’s definitely been a positive opportunity for my career, of course, but I think it’s different than other people’s perspective,” McCormack, a senior this past season, said in that Q&A. “I know a lot of people are like, ‘Finally, collegiate athletes get to get paid for their name, image and likeness, and they can get money in their pockets,’ stuff like that. I think, for me, it’s more — it allows collegiate athletes to grow up more in a quicker sense.”

McCormack added: “I always lived on campus. So, I never had the understanding of how to pay taxes. I never had a job. Things like that — you have to now pay taxes. You have to be able to manage your money properly. You have to have an understanding of how things work in that real, grown-up sense. And I think that the quicker you’re introduced to that and financial literacy, it’s definitely going to benefit you in the long run.”

How much the NIL landscape changes in the months and years ahead is unclear. But what is clear, is in some shape or form this aspect of collegiate athletics is here to stay. And that means, in time, more athletes will be able to get involved if they choose to do so and the data Kansas collects will grow.

Caroline Bien, a freshman this past season for the Jayhawks’ volleyball program, told The Topeka Capital-Journal on Tuesday that she hasn’t been involved in any NIL activities yet and noted how busy her freshman year was. However, she added, she definitely is interested in doing so in the future as her career progresses. She hopes that with that will come more exposure, and considering she’ll soon represent Kansas on the 2022 Women’s Under-21 National Training Team for USA Volleyball that exposure may not be far off.

Bien, who said she saw some of her teammates get involved in NIL, wants to save the deals she enters into for brands she has a strong connection with. Of course, those brands will have to actually be involved in the NIL space, she allowed. But if she can find the right opportunities, maybe in the clothing, fashion or beauty industries, she thinks those are relationships that can benefit her life long-term.

Bien said she’s a business major. What she’s involved in with NIL during her college career, could play a role in her life even after she’s finished playing volleyball. She’s looking forward to the experience in the business world NIL endeavors can result in.

“I would love to get experience like that, especially because it is kind of hard to get experienced in, like, the business world as an athlete,” Bien said. “Because we are so busy and, like, there’s not so much time for internships and jobs and stuff like that. So, that would be really good experience.”

Jordan Guskey covers University of Kansas Athletics at The Topeka Capital-Journal. Contact him at jmguskey@gannett.com or on Twitter at @JordanGuskey.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Kansas athletes report 219 NIL deals valued at $380,000 over 10 months