A new era of college sports opened up today allowing student athletes to now make money through endorsements and business deals without losing their eligibility
The change comes after nearly a decade of legal, political, and public pressure that athletes on college campuses should have access to the billions of dollars they help generate into the
universities.
It is similar to pro athletes, where the athletes will also be allowed to hire professional help through agents.
Nittany Lions cashing in on NIL’s name, image, likeness.
“Penn State student athletes are going to have incredible opportunities that they’ve been taking advantage of, let’s say from a social media stand point, from a career stand point, learning
professional skills and now they can apply that to the opportunity to capitalize on their NIL’s during their time at PSU.”
Penn State has more than 800 student athletes in 31 sports
“Big schools are the winners here. By that I mean big sports schools with big programs and a huge fan base and that I just described Penn State.”
And although these new opportunities apply to every sport so far, those profiting in Happy Valley include footballs Sean Clifford, Curtis Jacobs, Derrick Tangelo, Tyler Rudolph, Brandon Smith,
Ta’Quan Roberson, Bryce Effner, and wrestling’s Roman Bravo-Young
They all announced deals and giveaways on their social media.
To help these student athletes with the new changes, Penn State launched a new program called statement, which is an educational program that will guide them with understanding and growing their
personal brands. Athletics also offers additional resources for those students.
“We have Ivent PSU, we have the Happy Valley Launchbox which is really about helping students get off the ground with Entrepreneurial work and ideas. Its about feeding their Entrepreneurial spirit and adventure.”
Although this changes comes with a lot of opportunity, more still might be in the future.
“Change is starting in the NCAA and it’s going to keep going. Trying to predict whether there will be an NCAA or what it will look like in the future is pretty tough right now, but I think what this
means is there may be more changes to come, so stay tuned.”
