Ohio State Ready To Weaponize NIL Arm Moving Forward

As name, image, and likeness (NIL) continues to reshape college sports, Ohio State is intent on positioning itself to be a leader in navigating this new landscape.

Last week, OSU Athletic Director Ross Bjork laid out a vision that blends strategic growth, community involvement, and clear rules of engagement. The goal is to provide Buckeye athletes with the clarity and support they need to maximize their NIL potential while protecting the integrity of the program.

With the final sign off of the House vs. NCAA case settlement complete, schools will now directly pay their athletes beginning July 1. The current cap for sharing is $20.5 million for any school that wishes to engage. Ohio State will start off by paying athletes of four sports: football, men’s and women’s basketball, and women’s volleyball. Football will get the bulk of the revenue as they are by far the largest driver of that revenue.

The NIL space is still a valuable piece of providing even more money and opportunities to the athletes, and now the House settlement has also allowed for rules to be put in place so that the current Wild West approach will no longer pass muster.

All NIL deals over $600 will now go through a clearinghouse known as NILGo. They will have the power to approve or nix any of those deals should they not meet the agreed upon metrics and purposes.

According to Bjork, this will bring some necessary answers to the Ohio State student-athletes.

“Look, in talking to our athletes, they want clarity,” Bjork explained. “They wanna know, ‘Okay, if I do this, and I do five appearances, this is what I’ll get.’ They want that clarity. So I think most of our athletes, they’re embracing this opportunity because they want the clarity that just hasn’t been there. ‘Hey, sign this deal over here with this group, and then tomorrow you’re gonna sign this deal. And then, hey, a month from now, you’re gonna do this.’ But we need to bring clarity for the athletes so they know the rules of engagement. And this is what everything in this settlement provides.”

Building On Momentum

Years ago, when former Ohio State AD Gene Smith talked about NIL during the very early stages, he would mention the number of companies in the Columbus area that could provide plenty of opportunities for the student-athletes.

Ohio State is now centralizing those opportunities with the implementation of the Buckeye Sports Group, which will handle marketing for its student-athletes. Basically, acting as a matchmaker for athletes and companies.

“Essentially what that does is that brings all the resources that we’ve had in NIL, collectives, a little bit of Learfield, athletes can get agreements on their own. This really brings everything under one umbrella,” Bjork explained.

Even with revenue sharing now a thing, the collectives still want to help and play a part. “And we embrace that,” Bjork said.

“But as we transition with Ohio State Sports Properties, it’s really a marketing agency that can go out and arrange agreements between an athlete and a business,” he said. “You think about Columbus, 2.2 million people, we have 16 Fortune 1000 companies. We have 50 companies that employ over 1,000 people right here in Columbus. We have a ton of former athletes that live in our community, so we’ve got built-in connections. So really, really excited about the Buckeye Sports Group and the partnerships that have been created.”

Navigating the NIL Settlement Legality

The House settlement has been in the works for months. It was sent back to the NCAA’s lawyers a time or two in order to make adjustments before the judge would sign off on it.

With those changes made, people around the sport await the next legal battle.

One of those battles that has been speculated by media types and fans is the legality of limiting or restricting what a student-athlete can make, either via a revenue-sharing cap or by striking down an “improper” NIL deal through NILGo.

There has been no collective bargaining between the athletes and decision makers, so the question is how legal is it to restrict earnable money.

According to Bjork, however, this issue has already been settled.

“I think what people are missing is it already has stood up in court,” he said. “It was approved. The settlement allowed for the Autonomy Four conferences to create rules of engagement. The rules were then created based on valid business purpose, a range of compensation, and associated entities. So that’s what I think people are missing, is that a judge already signed off on this.

“And there’s arbitration, which is really hard to pierce. You really look at history and precedent, I’m not an attorney, I don’t pretend to play one, but we get a lot of advice, right? It’s really hard to pierce a federal court decision, and it’s really hard to pierce arbitration that is binding by the court. So that’s the part that people are not capturing in this whole structure, is that a judge already decided, you can make rules.”

Now with a roadmap of how to best operate, Ohio State knows the path they’re going to take to get to where they want to be. All of these avenues are then pitched to prospective student-athletes during recruiting.

There were concerns about Ohio State’s aggressiveness in the early days of NIL. The university wanted to observe where the lines were and what kind of impact the rules would have. They acted cautiously at the outset, but now with rules, guidelines, and opportunity, expect the aggression to be right where it needs to be.

“So we’re in the market,” Bjork said, “but now we can really be in the market.”

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