By Aina Williams, Oliver Swats, Zach Willard

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (Nov. 5, 2024) – Three years ago, Indiana University athletics changed the lives of many student-athletes, by allowing them to receive NIL, or Name Image and Likeness compensation. This shift not only has brought financial  opportunities to athletes but has also impacted team chemistry and unity. As players start to navigate their personal brands and partnerships, they must balance their aspirations with the all together goals of their teams. 

Name Image and Likeness has become a big uprising in the athletic community. Players are able to earn money, brands, and profit in general, depending on their name, image, and likeness. NIL has opened doors for many opportunities for athletes to earn income for what they do best, playing a sport. 

The faculty advisor for the Hoosier Network and the head of the IU Sports Media Program, Dr. Galen Clavio, spoke about his understanding of NIL. Clavio said that “NIL is another name for publicity” (Clavio), and can be seen as something that is used so athletes can gain revenue depending on how much the public supports or likes them.

Clavio also talks about how there is NlL from being a good athlete and NIL from being good with media (Clavio). Athletes have an inside look on who is receiving NIL, and with that it can create opinions on who is deserving of NIL deals and who is not. 

With NIL becoming more popular, there have been concerns brought up to attention within the aspect of NIL. Depending on the player, some athletes can receive more attention than other athletes leading them to obtain NIL deals. Resentment and jealousy can occur if one is getting NIL deals and you are not. With that, team chemistry and unity can be broken down because players can believe they are equally deserving. 

Concerns have been raised when it comes to the effect NIL can have on athletes and on teams in general. To gain more insight on the topic, I spoke with Indiana University Decathlete Garrett Messer to understand his opinion as someone who receives NIL. Messer said “NIL has affected me because I benefit from it […] I would say it has affected my team in which some company’s only do deals for an entire team. For example, one of my teammates has an electrolyte deal where the company would only work with the entire team, so everyone benefited  from that”(Messer). He explains that there has been mostly positives surrounding the topic of NIL, but when it comes to team chemistry he has seen some negatives within it.

Messer said “I would say in terms of team chemistry, for Indiana’s track team, the culture was unaffected. We’re a team that despite being one of the largest on campus, NIL hasn’t hit packages from the team yet. When it comes to other sport teams on campus, I would say the ones that receive more NIL are the ones were chemistry could start to hit. […] When you feel that you’re working harder and you’re better than the person next to you but they’re getting more NIL, that can create a rift between teammates”(Messer). Jealousy is a main reason why team chemistry can be negatively affected, and with NIL having an upbringing, more jealousy can occur. All in all NIL creates opportunities for individual athletes, but also can create challenges that could threaten cohesion and unity within a team. 

NIL changes depending on the sports you talk to with the biggest ones being Football and Basketball. We wanted to approach from different angles with Messer being a decathlete and Jaz Boykin. (football player at Indiana University). We wanted to know whether the overall team chemistry and fairness aspect changes from these two different sports.

Boykin said, “I don’t feel like it affects the chemistry because the people who aren’t getting paid see the people who are getting paid and want to work their way up to be getting paid.” (Boykin). This was interesting because Messer exclaimed that the other teams with more NIL might be affected more. We hear the opposite viewpoint here with Boykin saying what it’s like with football. “We’re all brothers so everybody is happy for their brother that they’re getting paid.” We had also been thinking before this interview that there would be a lot of jealousy in a bigger sport like football when it comes to money. This could also be a result of the football team having a successful year. Players are excited and stoked to see the team and individual players playing well.

We then asked if NIL is fair to all college athletes. Boykin says, “I wouldn’t say they’re technically fair because the bigger the name, the more money you’ll receive.” (Boykin). This is where we’ve seen in the media how sports of smaller viewership complain about the fairness of NIL. Women’s sports have been a big topic of conversation of this divide. Boykin also mentioned that team NIL deals are much more fair because it benefits the whole team. If the players are playing well then everybody on the team will get that team deal.

Once all is said and done, NIL can help with motivation for players that may not get the same opportunities. It’s refreshing hearing good coming from NIL and the positive impact it can have on the team and the players. You could argue that these different teams have overall similar views on NIL. Although it’s not perfect, you can’t look past the fact that there is much good coming from it.

To gain further clarity of the public’s opinion on the topic of NIL, we interviewed some people on the street about their understanding of it.

Students Interview people on the street about their opinion on NIL.

We wanted a better understanding of the opinions that the people on the outside looking in, had on the affects of NIL. Many people think there are good outcomes to it, but with that there is negatives. After interviewing people on the street and two athletes that receive NIL, we were able to understand the affects of NIL from an outside and inside perspective. The public’s opinion was that is was good and opens opportunities for athletes to get their name out there. Continuing athletes felt the same way, but also saw how there are times jealousy can occur and have negative affects on a team as a whole.

Because of the fact that more athletes are receiving NIL, it is important to understand how many athletes will chase the money and forget to balance the team within it and that can lead to creating problems. My team dove into how one of these problems were team chemistry being affected, and it is important for athletes to know to balance the money and the overall importance of being on a team.

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