NIL Independence isn’t just an ideal, it’s a necessity in the NIL era

If you’re a company that works in college athletics, you likely work with — and either pay or receive payment from — an athletic department, if not multiple. If you’re a sports drink company or an apparel partner looking to sponsor a particular program or school, you’re doing a deal with its athletic department, even if a third party is serving as the intermediary. If you’re an NIL educator, you likely have a contract with the department that hired you.

But if you’re an NIL dealmaker, like Icon Source, who is facilitating endorsements for college athletes and getting actual contracts into their hands at the goal line, can you still do that completely neutrally, and in true service of the athletes, presenting students from all sports with every possible opportunity available to them, while getting paid by their athletic department at the same time? The answer is simple: No. You can’t, and that’s why we don’t partner with any schools. We don’t want to be beholden to any of their influence. But many in our position do, ignoring the very paradox I’ve just described.

As Ellen Staurowsky, a sports management professor at Ithaca College, was recently quoted as saying, “if you are not independent, if you are not really completely on the side of the athlete, then you are making compromises along the way.”

What athletic department partnerships in our industry inherently create is a gray area, a place where potential self-serving influence or conflicts-of-interest can live that could limit the opportunities presented to an athlete. That gray area is where compromises happen. The best interests of athletic departments and their athletes are not always aligned. That’s why there’s no way to serve both without compromising at some point or another. The only way to avoid operating in that in-between, if the student athletes truly are the focus like they are here at Icon Source, is to choose not to be on an athletic department’s payroll.

Independence was actually what the NCAA had in mind, and what it got right, in my opinion, when it comes to name, image and likeness. The interim policy lets student athletes make money on their individual NIL by having businesses pay them directly so deals, and any money attached to them, are not going through the universities, which is also key to keeping amateurism intact. Now, that’s not to say we don’t report deals to compliance officers to make sure schools are appropriately apprised of the contracts being signed, as many state laws mandate, but what we haven’t done is put ourselves in a position to be influenced by any athletic department anywhere.

Independence is not just an ideal but a necessity in the NIL era, because the compromises we’re talking about only hurt one party: the student athlete. That’s the only party we exist and work tirelessly to both empower and protect, and who we’re so uniquely positioned to serve best because we operate solely in their best interest.

We don’t compromise. We don’t take any shortcuts. We’re a true, third-party platform. Icon Source is the premier marketplace for brands and student athletes in this NIL era.

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About Drew Butler: Drew is the Executive Vice President of Collegiate at Icon Source and a former NFL punter for the Arizona Cardinals & Pittsburgh Steelers. While at UGA, Drew was twice First-Team Academic All-American. He is the host of the highly popular “Punt & Pass” podcast and additional shows. Drew currently resides in Atlanta, GA with his wife Jacqui and two daughters Bridget and Cara.

This article originally appeared on Medium.

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