The Business of Sports Marketing and the Growing Challenge of Name Image and Likeness (NIL) for Student Athletes

Abstract

The research focuses on sports marketing and the growing challenge of name, image, and likeness (NIL) activities for student athletes. Name, image, and likeness (NIL) is the common term for the ruling of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) vs. Alston case centered around whether the NCAA could limit education-related payments to student-athletes. For many years, athletes argued that student-athletes should be paid due to college sports being non-amateur. Furthermore, coaches benefited from being paid high salaries based on student-athlete labor and exploitation at the price of an education. Several decades of backdoor payments to student-athletes and increased television revenues marketing deals to telecast high school and collegiate sports has opened the door for NIL activities to be introduced.