By Nazaiah Steele
Contributor
The ability for athletes to make money by product sponsorship while they play sports is changing the way college athletics recruits.
At a school the size of Trevecca it can make recruiting top prospects more difficult.
“NIL has hurt recruiting because every institution is different from the type of NIL that they can offer, and I say that with the confines of the support they get. As an institution, we ourselves can’t pay athletes’ deals. But now part of the recruiting pitches for those institutions have collective partners, and we have this much money allocated towards NIL deals. So that hurts small schools like us because that’s something we can’t offer,” said Brady Ray, director of athletic compliance and community engagement.
For Natalia Bowles, a Trevecca soccer player, the thought of being in Nashville was appealing to her for securing potential NIL deals.
“NIL was definitely a factor. I obviously loved the school and the soccer team, so it was more than that, but the school was so close to downtown and so many bakeries, clothing stores and restaurants that were up and coming were just five minutes away in downtown. It makes such a difference to make appearances with NIL and create brand relationships,” she said.
For Lucas Baggot, a member of the track team, NIL was new when he was recruited and he knew that sports like basketball and football have more opportunities for sponsorships, so it was a major factor in his college decision.
“From a track and field perspective, there’s only a handful of runners I can name off the top of my head that have headlined NIL deals across all colleges in America, so I would have it a little bit lower,” said Baggott.
The goal for Trevecca athletic administrators is to cultivate athletic alumni and supporters who would be interested in increasing NIL potential for athletes on campus.
“At our level, we’re still competing with state schools, and with that comes larger enrollment, cheaper tuition, larger alumni bases, and more connection to the community because of the alumni. We have to find our niche of alumni and supporters that are willing to go in and start to dream about what it can look like for us to potentially have from a NIL standpoint,” said Ray.
