While DePaul basketball goes full steam ahead for the postseason, they are splitting their consciousness.
Though much of the focus remains on the upcoming Big East men’s and women’s conference tournaments, a looming presence is altering the undivided attention of basketball coaches towards the game: name, image and likeness (NIL).
Recruiting the next season’s freshman class has always been a priority for coaching and development staffers during the season, but NIL has introduced a financial aspect that has its own complex sourcing and negotiation system.
To apply NIL to non-student-athletes, most people have autonomy over their brand. If a person goes viral or becomes an influencer for any reason, they are entitled to financial gain. They can partner with Gatorade, for example, to promote their product and get compensated in the process. For student-athletes, this reality has only existed for four years.
Before 2021, student-athletes fell under the “amateurism” category because of their status as students. They were only able to receive scholarships instead of any share in revenue, whereas in the NBA, players get around 50% of the league’s profits.
NCAA v. Alston changed this precedent. The unanimous Supreme Court decision dissolved the NCAA’s limitation of education-related payments, allowing players more autonomy over their name, image and likeness.
DePaul’s NIL initiative is called the Blue Grit Collective.
“The saying that is often shared amongst (the athletic department) is we’re building the plane as we fly it,” said Brett Sible, DePaul associate athletic director for NIL strategy and innovation. “NIL is constantly evolving.”
Coaches across the Big East conference have discussed the rapid changes in college sports with The DePaulia throughout the course of the season.
“It’s very much the new dynamic in terms of college coaches and staff,” DePaul men’s basketball head coach Chris Holtmann said on Feb. 13. “So we’d be lying if we didn’t say that is something … that you’re constantly looking at and evaluating and saying … what do we want our roster next year to look like?”
Butler men’s basketball head coach Thad Matta referred to NIL as “a unique twist to college basketball” after Butler’s win against the Blue Demons Feb. 22.
Though players now have more control over their brand, not every school has the same batch of NIL funds.
DePaul does not have the brand that SEC schools have. The NCAA estimates the average SEC school’s revenue from sports at over $122 million. The top five conferences average just over $100 million, the next five average roughly $11.5 million and every other DI program averages $3.8 million. Big East schools fall into this tertiary category, and coaches say there are internal differences in NIL funding within the majority-private school conference.
St. John’s men’s basketball head coach Rick Pitino explained the future of DePaul through the NIL perspective.
“DePaul is the largest Catholic school in the nation. We’re the second-largest Catholic school in the nation,” Pitino said on Feb. 19 after defeating the Blue Demons at Wintrust Arena. “DePaul has a beautiful campus. They’re a good school scholastically. There’s no question about DePaul becoming a really good basketball program. The only thing, and I don’t know this, is how big is their NIL? If (Holtmann) has the same NIL as the rest of us, they’ll be back.”
Pitino, a Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer, came to the small New York university ahead of the 2023-24 season and brought a buzz that encouraged billionaire alumni like Mike Repole to pledge seven figures to St. John’s NIL initiatives just three days after the team’s road victory against DePaul.
“We have a very strong NIL so you know, it’s like the Yankees, or the Dodgers,” Pitino said. “Why are the Dodgers winning? They have a very strong NIL. So if you have a strong budget, you have a better chance than others.”
DePaul men’s basketball has secured two recruits for next season, Kruz McClure and Isaiah Medina, who rank 147 and 96 by 247 Sports, respectively.
In this case, DePaul’s offers were more attractive than the competition — schools like Appalachian St., Cincinnati and Cal St. Fullerton — but other players such as No. 79-ranked Tre Singleton received offers from other schools with higher NIL budgets. In addition to DePaul, Singleton got offers from power conference schools like Northwestern (where he has since committed), Notre Dame and Purdue.
However, a great basketball culture can still outweigh financial precedent, as seen with Pitino’s turnaround at St. John’s.
“The big thing that sets us apart is being in the third-biggest media market,” Sible said. “There’s a lot of potential when it comes to marketing and branding. I don’t think we’ve gotten anywhere close to tapping that potential quite yet with the branding yet, but … it only gets easier when your teams are succeeding.”
Similar to the WNBA, where players only make around 10% of the league’s profits compared to NBA players’ 50%, female NCAA athletes often get less.
A major difference between the WNBA and the NCAA is that there is no law forbidding an imbalance in pay between NBA and WNBA athletes, whereas Title IX regulates the NCAA’s policies on equal opportunity.
After this year’s March Madness tournaments, a final hearing for a new policy of direct payments to NCAA athletes will be held on April 7. In addition to NIL deals with advertising companies and the like, schools would distribute roughly 22% of their own profits across all athletes within the school.
The Department of Education issued a memo in January regulating these payments in accordance with Title IX, splitting them equally between men’s and women’s sports. The department walked back its regulation in February under the new administration, no longer applying Title IX to these payments.
According to the NCAA, the revenue sharing among 20 of the top power conference schools is estimated to be 77.3% for football, 16.5% for men’s basketball, 1.2% for women’s basketball and so on.
“Obviously, it’s a different calculation for us at DePaul, not having football involved there,” Sible said. “But I know that’s really been a project that DeWayne Peevy, President Rob (Manuel) and the leadership have kind of worked out, figuring out what exactly a budget would be that keeps our programs competitive and well-funded.”
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- Live Updates: DePaul loses to Creighton 74-83 – The DePaulia
- DePaul basketball attendance is ‘on the rebound’ – The DePaulia
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