What does recent NIL ruling mean to TrueNU and Northwestern?

A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction last Friday prohibiting the NCAA from enforcing its own Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) rules, meaning that using NIL as a recruiting inducement is now allowed in college sports.

Judge Clifton Corker of the United States District Court of the Eastern District of Tennessee wrote that “the NCAA’s prohibition likely violates federal antitrust law and harms student-athletes.”

Previously, the NCAA barred using NIL as a recruiting tool. Now, collectives can make NIL offers to high school and transfer portal athletes to come to their schools, and those athletes can negotiate NIL deals with boosters without breaking NCAA rules.

“While the NCAA permits student-athletes to profit from their NIL, it fails to show how the timing of when a student-athlete enters such an agreement would destroy the goal of preserving amateurism,” Corker added. The lawsuit was filed by the attorneys general of Tennessee and Virginia.

The upshot is that boosters and collectives can now be involved in the recruiting process. The NIL actions that got the University of Tennessee fined a record $8 million last summer, and placed under investigation again in January by the NCAA, are now legal.

While this ruling may seem like a sweeping change, TrueNU executive director Jacob Schmidt doesn't think it will fundamentally alter the way that Northwestern uses NIL in its athletic programs. The Wildcats' central philosophy of using NIL to retain current players over unproven recruits isn't going to change anytime soon, he said.

There's still the hurdle of an Illinois state law on the books that bans using NIL as a direct incentive for incoming players, but once that is cleared, TrueNU will be able to meet with prospective athletes directly. They can participate in the recruiting process and work hand-in-hand with coaches without fear of breaking an NCAA rule.

"The injunction allows third-party collectives, like TrueNU, to directly communicate with prospects, either from high school or in the transfer portal, and offer them NIL deals," said Schmidt, who has led NU's collective since December of 2022. "As long as NU’s NIL policy allows, we can educate recruits about TrueNU during a visit to campus. We will be at the table. We can say [to transfers], 'If you come here, this is the deal we can give you."

On the football side of things, Northwestern head coach David Braun has stated several times that he wants to use NIL money in his program more as a retention incentive for existing players than as a recruiting incentive for high school athletes.

Northwestern remains at its core a developmental program, and Braun wants the NIL dollars to go to keep valuable players on the roster and prevent them from going elsewhere via the portal. He also wants to use it as necessary to entice proven veterans from the transfer portal to fill holes on the roster.

Schmidt doesn't think that will change. It makes more sense in terms of return on investment.

"That will continue to be the model," said Schmidt. "From an ROI perspective, it doesn't make sense to invest in 18-year-olds instead of transfers. We will continue to use NIL to keep the best players -- juniors, seniors and transfers. They're known commodities."

He adds that this will be the case for most football programs, "unless they're five-star players. And Northwestern doesn't get the five-star players."

Northwestern may be focused on keeping its players in Evanston, but that doesn't mean they won't leave. So far in this cycle, the Wildcats have lost nine scholarship players to the transfer portal, including starting guard Josh Priebe, and starting defensive backs Rod Heard II and Garnett Hollis Jr. They have brought in just one transfer thus far, offensive lineman Matt Keeler from Texas Tech.

But the spring transfer portal window opens again from April 15-30, and Northwestern figures to be active. That’s when they’ve added most of their impact transfers in the past, including Peyton Ramsey, Ben Bryant and AJ Henning. The Wildcats will have completed spring practice by then and will have a much clearer idea of their roster needs. (Graduate transfers, the ones that the Wildcats most frequently land, can enter the portal at any time.)

While the NCAA can no longer prohibit using NIL as a recruiting inducement, there is a state law in Illinois that prevents it. It was passed in June of 2021, just days before the NCAA officially allowed athletes to be compensated for their NIL on July 1.

The law states that while student-athletes already enrolled at a school can earn NIL money, a student-athlete "may not earn compensation in exchange for the student-athlete’s athletic ability or participation in intercollegiate athletics or sports competition or agreement or willingness to attend a postsecondary educational institution."

In other words, NIL can't be used to get an athlete to play at your school.

Of course, the State of Illinois has bigger fish to fry and probably isn't actively enforcing this law. Still, athletic directors like Northwestern's Dr. Derrick Gragg and Illinois' Josh Whitman should be lobbying to get it overturned, just in case -- if they aren't already.

Corker's ruling may not change business-as-usual at Northwestern, but it's still the latest in a string of dominoes that has radically changed the college sports landscape. While programs used to build rosters with a four-to-five year window in mind, they are now doing it year-to-year. They can't project much further than that.

Schmidt believes that, in the not-so-distant future, schools, and not third-party collectives, will pay the athletes directly. Then, they'll be able to set rules, such as a salary cap, to manage rosters.

Until then, "we're the NFL without any rules," said Schmidt.