Since summer of 2021 there has been a lot of talk about the impact of NIL. Whether we like it or not (and I’m generally in favor of it) it’s here to stay and will likely have a lasting impact on the landscape of college athletics. It’s a wonderful opportunitiy for programs to be at the forefront and act wisely to take advantage so lets look at where both of Kentucky’s major programs currently stand.
Where Does Kentucky Basketball Stand?
Tracking down individual NIL information can be tricky (which I’m fine with by the way, I don’t think players should have to disclose it if they don’t want to) but we’ll start with basketball. We recently got an announcement from Cal that the entire Kentucky team had signed a NIL deal and On3’s Jack Pilgrim confirmed that team deal is with Morgan and Morgan. In addition Jack Pilgrim confirmed that Jacob Toppin signed a deal with AT&T and Chris Livingston signed with Beats by Dre. Kyle Tucker of The Athletic reported back in the fall that Oscar made around $500K from NIL after his trip to the Bahamas (his student visa keeping him from working NIL while in the country) and close to $3m total. Those are the notable deals but there are others, On3 has a good database to help keep track.
On3 also has a very handy NIL 100 that keeps attempts to quantify the value (not what they are making, just their value) of all HS and college athletes in terms of NIL. The formula (according to their site) is a combination of performance and brand (social media). In this ranking Kentucky’s 4 biggest commits in the 2023 class are ranked in the top 100 (Dillingham at 34, DJ Wagner at 49, Justin Edwards at 67, and Bradshaw at 70). On that database you can toggle to just active CBB players and on that list Jacob Toppin checks in at 46 and Antonio Reeves come in at 68.
In short Kentucky basketball appears to be in a good place on a national level with NIL. Cal and the school have clearly done a good job getting guys deals and hopefully it possibly leads to guys like Livingston (who will also be in the LeBron James movie due to his Akron connection) and Reeves sticking around for another season. The bright lights that are Kentucky continue to prove that if you come here and perform you’ll find opportunities.
Kentucky Football
Now we’ll look at football. No surprise that Kentucky football is in a much different spot than basketball. On the On3 NIL 100 ranking only one football player is listed and that is Devin Leary who checks in at 75 (he jumps to 54 when you narrow it down to just active CFB players). Barrion Brown is listed just outside of the top 100 in active CFB and Dane Key is not far behind (he also signed an undisclosed deal with WinStar Farm in Versailles, KY). No one else at Kentucky appears close to those three and we have no major announcements in a long-time (though guys like Matt Jones have said on the radio that one or two big donors have “stepped up” in the short-term but can’t do that every year).
That means Kentucky football (and other non-revenue sports) are almost exclusively dependent on the new NIL collective that was launched back in November called The 15 Club. This is where fans can subscribe and pay a monthly fee to help fund NIL at Kentucky. There is no reporting on how many subscribers the site has but there has been a lot of consternation from media personalities like Matt Jones who have stated that JMI is blocking Kentucky coaches (specifically football) from working with the collective.
The Outlook
I think it’s safe to say that for the time being Kentucky basketball should feel good about the NIL era. Kentucky offers the brightest of lights to which will lead to the most exposure and the following on social media (if you have Twitter, Tik-Tok, and/or Instagram it now serves a tangible benefit to follow all team members and recruits on those platforms) which is now being monetized by athletes.
Football is another story and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about it. The SEC is flush with big money donors (many of which have been paying players for years under the table) and if we’re honest the economic realities of the Commonwealth don’t exactly help Kentucky football in terms of finding businesses and/or multiple big money boosters needed to fund entire football teams years on end. The addition of Texas and Oklahoma will only knock Kentucky down further, probably just ahead of Vandy and maybe on par with Missouri and the two Mississippi schools.
I have no doubt Stoops and his staff will continue to be able to identify, recruit, and develop good SEC players out of HS. The question will be if they can keep them on the roster once other SEC programs realize they can pluck them through the portal. It is a legitimate concern that hopefully everyone at Kentucky is working on rectifying. For their part, fans probably need to be subscribing to the collective if they can.
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