Bobinski on NIL: 'Fraught with opportunity but also potential pitfalls'
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Name, Image and Likeness.
Rarely does a day go by when Purdue athletic director Mike Bobinski doesn’t have some conversation about those three words that are at the heart of transformative legislation that will forever change the college sports paradigm. NIL is coming, and it will allow student-athletes to be able to earn money for their athletic persona and talents.
“It'll be a different environment,” Bobinski told GoldandBlack.com. “It's fraught with opportunity but also potential pitfalls. I think early on, it's going to be a little bit of a rodeo and we'll see what happens.”
The day to circle on your calendar is July 1. That’s when NIL legislation will become a reality—at least in states that already have regulations and laws on the books that will take effect then.
Eleven states have passed NIL laws, four of which take effect July 1: Mississippi, Florida, New Mexico and Alabama. No NIL bill has been introduced in the state of Indiana.
“And there does not appear to be any momentum in our state for that,” said Bobinski. “So, we'll have certain states and certain schools that will say their state can do this.”
The big catch in all of this: The NCAA still hasn't passed its own NIL legislation. Per news reports, the NCAA is waiting the Supreme Court to rule on its antitrust case, NCAA v. Alston, before passing any NIL legislation.
“There’s gonna be some chaos for sure, so we've got to get this thing sorted out,” said Bobinski.
“Name, Image and Likeness is a different dynamic. But I think the launch of it will be not unlike the transfer portal, where there will be chaos and disruption because of the circumstances, because the NCAA has not yet enabled it across the board for college athletes.”
Purdue’s stance on NIL?
“We at Purdue have taken the approach that we want our athletes, we want our coaches and everybody to be as equipped and as prepared as anybody in the country when this ultimately does open up for us here in the state of Indiana or across all of college athletics,” said Bobinski.
There already are scores of companies offering an array of NIL-centric products and services to schools and athletes. Purdue has had a partnership with a third-party entity called INFLCR, which works with more than 100 athletic programs representing more than 800 teams and 30,000 student-athletes.
Purdue was the first Big Ten school to partner with INFLCR, in 2018 with men's basketball. Back in November, Purdue announced an enhanced partnership with INFLCR--whose parent company is Teamworks--to assist with NIL. Teamworks is the leading athlete-engagement platform in college sports.
“Now, we've added lots of other elements that they have that really will help our athletes with their own personal identity brand-building, all those different things that will be part of all of this,” said Bobinski.
The help for Purdue student-athletes will extend beyond the school’s augmented partnership with INFLCR.
“We are partnering with our business school here at Krannert (School of Management), which is going to work with us on developing some measures,” said Bobinski. “They really have been tremendous partners in developing some educational tools and a course will be available to all students. And certainly we will encourage student-athletes that are so inclined to take this course that will help them again understand how to navigate (NIL).”
The partnership with Krannert underscores the heavy education approach Purdue has taken to helping its student-athletes with NIL issues.
“We’ve developed lots of tools,” said Bobinski. “We have lots of things in place that are ready to go for our athletes when the day comes so that they understand what this world means, what the opportunities are, the requirements that they will need to meet in terms of just making sure it fits into their day, into their life and in an appropriate way for those that choose to actually partake.”
Assistant athletics director for student-athlete development Peyton Stovall is working extensively to try to figure out where Purdue needs to enrich its student-athlete development to make sure the school is fully educating those who want to take part in NIL.
“If you're running a business, now you've got tax issues, you've got banking issues, you got all these things that maybe you kind of know about but maybe you haven't ever had to really deal with,” said Bobinski.
“Lots of different elements of this that we're working hard to try to make sure we have all the pieces in place so that we're competitive, but we're also safeguarding our students in the right way.”
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