With NIL details still to be sorted, Penn State taking 'holistic' approach
New name, image, and likeness rules are coming to college athletics soon.
For Penn State specifically, though, the parameters of those impacts remain very much to be determined as a July 1 start date welcomes state-based laws to go into effect. Those states, and their varying laws, include Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, New Mexico, Tennessee, and Texas at present, with more likely to come aboard through individual, state-by-state legislation.
But without a clearly defined set of rules nationally, either through federal legislation or an NCAA-wide edict, the uncertainty is something Penn State has been preparing extensively to be ready to handle, AD Sandy Barbour said this week during the virtual Coaches Caravan.
“We've always been preparing for many years our student-athletes as it relates to content and responsible behavior as it relates to social media,” Barbour explained. “So now we've just really broadened it more from an entrepreneurial standpoint. But I'll tell you this, for all those of you listening, like most things at Penn State, our 750,000 living alumni will be a huge advantage for us on this front.”
A talking point that has accompanied the statements of Penn State’s stakeholders throughout the growing reality of likely NIL rules changes, the Nittany Lion athletic department very much expects to position itself not for its local sponsorship opportunities in small-market State College, but rather as an opportunity for national exposure given its alumni base.
How that comes to bear in practical terms is something that remains to be seen, both in what’s eventually permitted by law or NCAA rules but also in the form those opportunities take shape.
Even for Penn State football head coach James Franklin, the challenges and hurdles to creating a fundamentally sound and coherent policy for NIL have been clear for quite some time. Speaking at a February 2020 press conference, in fact, Franklin expressed his skepticism about how the issue could be dealt with at an equitable scale.
"I think a lot of times when we come up with these things, it's not as simplistic as we think," Franklin said. "Name, image and likeness, let's just do it because it's the right thing to do because we all focus on the one kid that had the YouTube channel. It's not that simple. There's a lot of issues and factors from it. I get both things."
According to Barbour this week, though, the changing landscape is one in which Penn State’s student-athletes will likely have a wide-ranging set of opportunities in which to take advantage moving forward.
“It means that students will have the opportunity to capitalize on their name, image, and likeness, but have the opportunity to serve as spokespeople, whether it be for commercial entities or any entity, to do autographs, to run camps, to run any kind of business that any student on our campus has the opportunity to do,” Barbour said. “And that was the impetus there, was that we were restricting student-athletes from doing something that students across campus had the opportunity to do.”
Anticipating changes to arrive sooner than later, then, but without a clear dictate as to when they'll go into effect, Penn State has shaped its goals for dealing with NIL with its student-athletes moving forward.
“We're taking a very holistic approach about this that's really about students and building their brand," Barbour said. "It's about entrepreneurship and giving them the tools, not only to be able to take advantage of now but take out into their careers after Penn State or maybe even their careers after sport."
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