A proposed Connecticut law would allow college athletes to cash in. What does that mean for UConn and other local schools?

A bill now before Connecticut’s state Senate would allow college athletes to sign endorsement deals, resulting in potential windfalls for top athletes at UConn — and maybe other local schools as well.

If the measure becomes law, Connecticut will join 18 other states that have already passed similar legislation allowing college athletes, including high-profile stars like UConn’s Paige Bueckers, to profit off their names, images and likenesses.

The bill, which would take effect July 1, passed through the state House by a wide margin late Tuesday night. A spokesperson for Gov. Ned Lamont said the governor needed to review the bill before deciding whether he would sign it.

Here are the important details:

The rules are likely to change one way or another

Whether or not Connecticut passes the current bill allowing college athletes to profit, the NCAA’s notoriously strict rules surrounding name, image and likeness — known as NIL — appear almost certain to change in the near future.

The most likely scenario, observers say, is that the NCAA will proactively loosen its rules to let athletes sign endorsement deals, to avoid schools in states with NIL laws having a recruiting advantage over those in states without them. If not, Congress could establish federal NIL rules, which would supersede state legislation.

The effort in Connecticut to pass a bill this legislative session comes from fear that neither the NCAA nor Congress will move quickly enough.

“Congress is not going to act on this any time soon,” said Sen. Derek Slap, D-West Hartford, who has pushed Connecticut’s bill. “And the NCAA, if it were to act in June, it would be after our legislative session is over, and if they simply leave it to individual states, then our state’s athletes would not be able to enjoy the opportunities that exist in other states.”

The big money will come from social media

Endorsement deals for college athletes could take many forms. A star basketball player may sign a big-money deal with Nike or Gatorade. The starting quarterback may appear in a commercial for a local car dealership. A prominent baseball player might land an internship with a local company, then appear in promotional materials.

But the largest revenue source, experts say, will be social media, where large followings could translate to sponsored posts, YouTube ad revenue and more.

“I would say that 80-85% of all NIL revenue is probably going to be derived via social media influencing, just because that’s the easiest,” said Jason Belzer, managing partner of Student Athlete NIL, a company that will help link brands with college athletes.

Take Hunter Woodhall, a University of Arkansas sprinter and a double amputee, who quit his college team and went professional so he could cash in on a large social media following. He told the New York Times earlier this year that he was making $7,500 per post.

“Athletes like Hunter are bona fide celebrities to the TikTok and YouTube generation,” Blake Lawrence, chief executive of Opendorse, an athlete marketing platform, told the Times. “People over age 30 might not realize it, but to the generation raised on these social media platforms, these athletes, they’re the ones who have the clout.”

Women’s athletes, especially UConn basketball players, could be big winners

Twenty years ago, the biggest beneficiaries of NIL legislation would likely have been men’s basketball and football players, who have traditionally received the most attention from fans and media. Today, female athletes stand to benefit as much as their male counterparts thanks to the increasingly popularity of women’s sports as well as the rise of social media.

A 2020 analysis from the website AthleticDirectorU found that 13 of the 20 college athletes with the highest endorsement potential were women, including three members of the UCLA women’s gymnastics team.

“Women are going to make, on average, more than men, just on the sheer fact that they have larger social media followings,” said Belzer, who co-authored the AthleticDirectorU analysis.

Similarly, an Opendorse analysis conducted in March found that of the eight of the 10 players in the Elite Eight of the NCAA basketball tournaments with the largest social media followings were women. Topping the list was Bueckers, whose 730,000 combined Instagram and Twitter followers (now up to nearly 900,000) were projected to be worth about $382,000 in annual earnings. Another UConn player, Olivia Nelson-Ododa, ranked ninth in social media following among Elite Eight players, with the potential to earn $30,000 annually.

“We do have a unique situation here,” UConn coach Geno Auriemma told The Courant recently. “The tremendous following we enjoy, the national exposure we have, the amount of times that UConn pops up in media and social media, our players do benefit from that. There are opportunities that would exist here that would be significantly greater than they would be at any other place, or certainly most places.”

Athletes at smaller schools could benefit more than you think

Though superstars like Bueckers clearly stand the most to gain from NIL legislation, some athletes at smaller schools could benefit as well.

In fact, the first college athlete in the United States to legally sign an endorsement deal was Chloe Mitchell, a volleyball player at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Because the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, unlike the NCAA, allows players to profit off their names, images and likenesses, Mitchell was able to monetize the viral do-it-yourself videos that have earned her 2.6 million followers on TikTok.

Although athletes at Central Connecticut State, the University of Hartford, Yale, Quinnipiac, Fairfield, Sacred Heart and other local schools don’t get the same attention as those at UConn, those with some talent and a social media following will now be allowed to profit in a way they previously couldn’t.

UConn and other Connecticut schools could benefit in recruiting

Some advocates of NIL legislation see a benefit beyond simply empowering athletes. They see it as a potential recruiting advantage.

Auriemma said recently that failure to pass a bill allowing players to sign endorsement deals would leave UConn “at a huge disadvantage” compared to schools in other states. On Twitter, the Connecticut House Democrats cited this as a key reason to pass the current legislation.

“Through the passage of HB 6402, Connecticut will move to join other states around the country to allow student athletes to profit off their name, image, and likeness,” the Democrats tweeted Tuesday, “offering a significant recruiting advantage to our college sports programs.”

Any recruiting advantage could become moot if the NCAA changes its laws allowing all athletes to sign endorsement deals. But if the governing body drags its feet, states that have legislation like that proposed in Connecticut could be more attractive to prospective athletes.

Alex Putterman can be reached at aputterman@courant.com.