NIL is changing college athletics. Can UTSA keep up?

Aug. 30, 2023Updated: Aug. 30, 2023 9:19 a.m.
Sizing up the name, image and likeness offerings for UTSA’s players compared to the rest of the programs in the AAC, coach Jeff Traylor estimates the Roadrunners are “probably middle of the pack.”
He admits that trying to develop a firm grasp of the NIL scene is difficult. He communicates with UTSA’s three collectives — 210 Inspired, City Fans 210 and the Runners Rising Project — but tracking deals struck with independent entities can be a challenge.
Traylor also wishes he had some mechanism to “know what’s really going on out there,” relying on scuttlebutt from contacts in the coaching community to learn what sort of offerings are in place at other programs.
In response to an open records request, UTSA shared that athletes across all sports netted a total of 184 NIL agreements amounting to at least $62,320 in cash from the time deals became legal on July 1, 2021, through May 2023.
The data was provided with the athletes’ names redacted, and none of the other 14 AAC schools released any NIL information for their programs in response to open records requests from the Express-News, citing student privacy laws.
Some of the cash payments to UTSA athletes were not reported in the data because the agreements were for an undefined term or conveyed an inexact value. Many of the Roadrunners’ NIL arrangements were also compensated through a variety of means not covered in the cash total — product discounts, subscription services or a percentage of sales using a certain promotional code.
Whatever the realities of the NIL scene might be during a period of rampant speculation and misinformation, coaches and teams across the country understand that fostering development in that realm is critical to building and maintaining rosters in the new era of college athletics.
“NIL is here, and it’s still a baby. It’s still in its infancy stages,” UTSA athletic director Lisa Campos said. “We really appreciate those that were involved in that and helping support that, because it is part of the game right now.”
The UTSA football program listed 72 NIL deals with a total cash value of at least $26,350, as the amounts of some cash payments were not listed. The Roadrunners also reached agreements to earn meals, merchandise, car washes, yoga classes, cryotherapy treatment, sauna service and even free Invisalign teeth straightening in exchange for a commercial appearance.
The Roadrunners’ NIL efforts made headlines last December, when City Fans 210 reached a six-figure arrangement with quarterback Frank Harris to secure a final year with UTSA in 2023.
Looking to drive new contributions, the leaders of 210 Inspired and City Fans 210 organized a kickoff luncheon Friday at the Marriott Rivercenter, drawing more than 750 fans and supporters as well as Mayor Ron Nirenberg and Bexar County Judge Peter Sakai. In his address from the podium on stage at the front of the room, Traylor stressed that he is grateful for UTSA's progress, but "we have a long ways to go."
"We dominated Conference USA in so many categories from our attendance, to we got our budgets up to the top three in that league, and now you’re moving to a league where that’s not that way anymore," Traylor said Monday. "We’re so hot. Our trajectory is on such an upward tick right now. We have to stay there, and we have to keep pushing the envelope."
With NIL springing to life alongside the NCAA’s decision to grant athletes a one-time exception to transfer and play immediately without sitting out a year, Traylor has joined the chorus of coaches speculating that NIL deals are being used illegally as recruiting inducements, with larger programs poaching talented players from Group of Five schools.
Though Traylor said seven of UTSA's players were approached by other programs about transfer opportunities, the Roadrunners lost just one standout to the portal, as wide receiver Zakhari Franklin jumped to Mississippi.
Still, UTSA’s NIL presence is dwarfed by the reported commitment at SMU, which is regarded as boasting perhaps the strongest NIL base outside of the Power Five.
When SMU’s Boulevard Collective launched last August, multiple outlets reported the group intended to pay the school’s football and basketball players a total of about $3.5 million annually.
Football coach Rhett Lashlee said the “beauty of being at a place like SMU” is the Dallas market’s media exposure and business opportunities, as well as “an incredible alumni base.”
“That same alumni base, within the rules, is right now what’s giving SMU, just like it does a bunch of other institutions, a chance to compete in the new landscape of college football,” Lashlee said.
Observing the NIL scene around the American, commissioner Mike Aresco acknowledged the variance in the level of participation at each school, noting the difference “probably has some impact” on the competitive balance in the league.
“Let’s be honest, we’ve never had a totally level playing field,” Aresco said. “Some teams have certain advantages in recruiting. They’ve had them for decades. Some schools have advantages in donor involvement and money. Some were quicker off the starting blocks with NIL than others, so they probably have some advantages.”
UTSA men’s basketball coach Steve Henson said NIL is an everyday talking point in the program. His team listed just 19 NIL deals for a total of $5,210 from July 2021 through May 2023, per the data provided by UTSA, though five of the arrangements did not report their cash value.
Though men’s basketball is the No. 2 sport at most universities and thus a primary driver of NIL activity, the program at UTSA lags many of the Roadrunners’ other sports.
Baseball ranked second in total dollars with 24 NIL deals totaling at least $10,900, women’s soccer listed 27 agreements amounting to at least $9,760, and women’s basketball’s 17 NIL deals totaled at least $6,000. Baseball and women’s soccer players also reached arrangements for merchandise, product discounts or subscription services.
Henson acknowledged the Roadrunners “have work to do in that regard” but suggested “some things are in place now that are better than they were even a few months ago.” He expects the team’s NIL offerings to increase as the fan base gets to know the 10 newcomers to UTSA’s roster.
“Do we need to make a lot of progress? Absolutely,” Henson said. “Is it better, probably, than what the numbers indicated? It’s going to be better than what the numbers indicated.”
UTSA women’s basketball coach Karen Aston said the NIL infrastructure around the program has been “pretty positive.” The Roadrunners notched a six-win improvement and went to the Conference USA tournament semifinals for the first time in 2022-23, and Aston did not lose any players to offseason transfers.
When she meets with potential donors, UTSA’s planned basketball and volleyball training facility is her first fundraising target, but encouraging NIL is No. 2. Aston said player retention will be the biggest key to developing UTSA’s long-struggling program, and a fertile NIL base is one of the top factors to keep players from entering the transfer portal.
“If I have to go shopping the portal for half of my team every year, there’s other people doing that, too, with many more resources than what we have,” Aston said. “In my opinion, I have to try to build this with continuity.”
Henson long believed in a similar philosophy, but the rise of NIL has forced him to reconsider. He expects stories of programs bringing in young players and developing them over two or three years to become fewer and fewer, with top schools cycling as much as half their roster each season.
What was once an arms race for facilities has been replaced by a focus on NIL dollars, Henson said. UTSA has shrunk its pool of prospects as a result, crossing off any high school players who show primary interest in programs with large NIL bases.
Out of 10 newcomers to UTSA's roster this year, Henson added just one high school player, understanding how transient freshmen can be.
“If he has a great year, then he’ll be getting calls from Power Fives. If he doesn’t have a great year, he might go pursue more playing time,” Henson said. “That’s the nature of it. If you take a transfer, you know he can’t transfer again until after he graduates.”
After years of working under a system in which the NCAA established “rules for everything,” Henson said, NIL has been an endeavor “without many rules, if any” and “very little guidance.”
“NIL and the transfer portal have changed everything,” Henson said. “It’s just a different job than it was two years ago.”
As player movement surges across the country, Traylor said he would support a system in which every athlete has five years to play as many as five college seasons, and transfer players must sit a year unless they graduate from their previous school or experience a coaching change.
“I think that would slow all of this nonsense now,” Traylor said.
The guidelines around NIL are also in flux and vary by state. In Texas, a new bill that went into effect in July seeks to prevent the NCAA or a conference from penalizing a university for involvement in NIL activity, aiming to create a more fertile ground for NIL arrangements.
Texas A&M’s 12th Man Foundation in February announced a branch focused on NIL activity, marking the first significant effort to integrate NIL into an athletic booster program. But those operations were shuttered earlier this month after a June memo from the IRS questioned the nonprofit status of NIL collectives.
About three weeks after the new Texas bill took effect, Campos said UTSA was “still working with all of our folks on campus to learn how much we can really be involved in” NIL. Wanting to avoid the challenge of wading through confusing and conflicting regulations passed by states and the NCAA, Campos said she would support Congress establishing overarching rules for NIL.
“That’s leveling the playing field. I think it sets a standard we’re all obliged to,” Campos said. “If we could get a national standard, that would be helpful for everybody.”