The NIL or 'name, image, and likeness' policy began for college athletes one year ago on July 1, giving them the freedom to earn money through endorsement deals, partnerships, and more. Its introduction was a milestone for college sports, with proponents saying it would create opportunity and level the playing field across sports, positions, and more. How has the policy changed college athletics, and how have students benefited? Tom McMillen, CEO of LEAD1, joins Closing Bell to discuss a year of NIL, how student athletes have earned money, and more. 

Closing Bell

NIL One Year In: How Have College Athletes Benefited From Making Money?

and tomorrow turning to the business sports marks the one year anniversary of college athletes being allowed to profit from their name image and likeness also known as N. I. L. Opponents say the policy levels, the playing field for athletes across sports and positions and encourages them to finish their degree while making money instead of leaving school to pursue a professional career perhaps too early. So what does? And I look like a year later joining me now is Tom Mcmillan Ceo of Lead One, that's an organization that represents athletic directors at 100 and 30 member universities with the goal of supporting student athletes on and off the field. Tom it's good to see you. So one year in what has been the outcome so far offer these student athletes and the universities, this is good to be with you. And the good news about the last year is that a lot of kids have had an opportunity to make money off their publicity rights, which I think is very important. And our schools think it's very important. I think the negative side of the story is there have been some excesses, possibly recruiting inducements, pay for play. Uh some folks getting paid for doing very little and those are the things that, you know, the N C double A. And college sports were concerned about. Um, so those have to be addressed. But another really positive thing is there's a lot of women here we are in the 50th anniversary of title nine and a lot of women surprisingly have been very doing very well with their publicity rights. Why does that surprise you? But it's surprising, it's surprising in the sense that if you look at men's football, obviously we understand how popular that is, but the second biggest category in N. I. L right now are our women athletes. I'm happy, I'm not, maybe I'm surprised is the wrong word. It just was unexpected. And the fact was that there are a lot of women who are very good at building their brand and getting their name out there and they are monetizing that very successfully. So all that is a real positive. Well let's talk about the different ways that college athletes can earn money via N. I. L. Of course at camp pains brand partnerships and more here. Just some of the ways, what are some of the most common ways that you've seen athletes engage in this policy? They're sort categories of It one is the whole social influencing where you have a big social media presence, you know, companies are hiring you to promote their their brand and it could be a piece of shop, it could be anything, but we see athletes who have big social media presence is doing that. The other thing is we've seen some brands, big brands tip their toes into this, but that's going to take a while and I think that's going to be a big area of growth in the future and then you have the regular deals, you know, the car, the car dealership deals, the restaurants, the pizza shop, and a lot of those have been very successful as well. So, um, I I think that there's been a, a variety of kinds of deals. Some very creative. A lot of these, some of these athletes are very entrepreneurial makes sense, right? I mean, certainly we have access to so many more tools these days than we did decades ago. But any sort of data you can provide quantifiable metrics in terms of how successful some of these college athletes have been. Well, it's, I don't have data at my fingerprints right here. But what I will say is that if you look at there are a number of athletes who have signed billion dollar deals. Um, and I think next over the next year, you could see, 40, 50 60 athletes generating million plus deals. That's that's that's quite significant. Um, as I mentioned, the number two category are women athletes generating, uh, monetizing their publicity rights. So, those are some of the big, big trends. All right, we got to leave it there Tom Mcmillan Ceo of lead one